Oh, very bleak day today.
Anyway, we've had some nice books in.
Helen gave us a pile and I think Susan gave us a pile and we've had a few donated before.
Keep donating the colouring books if you don't want them.
Or, if you're any good at drawing outlines, simple outlines for children or simple pictures for adults, you're more than welcome to draw some.
Because the sad fact of reality is now that people can't afford colouring books.
I mean, we were going to do it anyway for mindfulness.
We were going to just have a little basket of them on the tables.
But my tables are full.
But once I get my cafe tables and full, then we'd have a little box on there and we'd have a little children's table and little chairs to go with it and crayons and colouring pens.
But I'm also going to have a box at the front of the store so that if our customers or donators want to take a cafe a week, they're more than welcome to, you know, to keep the kids busy in this beautiful spring weather.
Look at it.
Isn't it awful?
At least I don't have to water my plants.
That's the main thing.
So, yeah, we'll chop them up like that so people can choose.
I mean, we might get to a stage where we have so many books donated.
We can actually give books out.
That would be nice to give the full book.
But, yeah, they can take some and pick some.
Because where did I see an advert twice today that Asda's, I was on Facebook I expect, I don't go anywhere else other than Facebook and the shops, that this store gravy is now £4 something in Asda's.
I mean, blimey heck.
That's crazy, isn't it?
God, we'd be living in the dark ages now.
So, yeah, volunteers, I bought you a headlamp the way around the shop because I can't afford the electric.
Anyway, we've got Wi-Fi now as well.
So, if anybody got any little boxes or little trays like that, like school trays or whatever, I need about, oh no, I need about, one, two, three, four, I need about four per store.
So, it's one to go on the child's table, one to go on our table and then one to go in the window on a three per store.
So, I need about nine.
I got one.
I'm sure I had a blue one around here somewhere that was for paper, but I don't know where this is going.
It was kicking around.
But, yeah, if you've got any of those shorter baskets like that, then we can put these in and, you know, and as we get, if you've got any pencils and a good knick, well, bring them in anyway, we'll see what we can do in it.
If you've got felt you don't want, bring them in, because we could make up packages and give them out for free.
You only want to poly pocket them in and put them in there.
But at the moment, that's where we're at, where we've got single sheets.
But, you know, if that's, you know, you're just not going to be able to afford anything anymore.
It's just crazy out there, isn't it?
Absolutely crazy.
So, it's nuts.
Thank you to our customers again this week in all our shops.
You've come out in the weather and, you know, supported us and that's brilliant that is.
So thank you for that.
And like I said, the more customers we get, the more money we take, we're 100% non-profit.
You know, there is no asterisk next to that.
There is no, you know, we only give 75% back into what we do.
100% goes back into what we do.
It pays the running costs, the shops, the nappies.
Anything we need, anything like for the volunteers, you know, comes out of that.
Or if we have to do a food bank or when we give stuff out for free.
You know, and don't forget, you can say where you want your donations to go.
They haven't got to go in the shop.
If you want them to come in specifically for help, we will ring fence them for help.
Just let the staff know and mark the bags.
So yeah, I mean, the more money we take, and it's a sad fact of reality that money makes the world go round.
But the more money that we take in the shop, the more donations we get, the more money we get.
The more we can pay the bills, get the nappies, sort everybody out that needs sorting out that month.
And then we can put into other things like the free stuff.
You know, somewhere down the line we can do some other free stuff.
So that's what it's all about in it.
If we could, you know, I'd love to be 100% free, but I just can't because money makes the world go round.
It really does.
And we struggled.
We struggled for the first two years to do it.
You know, not taking any donations or anything.
But yeah, the more, the more that we can take, right, the more that we can put into free stuff.
You know, I was having a chat, and I've had this idea for a long time, actually, having a chat to somebody, yes, say one of our shop managers, that, you know, about doing a subsidized or minimum donation fee to come out and mow gardens and do edges.
So there might be a minimum fee of 25 pound, minimum donation, 25 pound, you know, or something like that, or 35.
Because gardening fees are shocking now as well.
And I mean, you can't blame people.
If they've got to buy diesel to go in the mowers and the cars, you know, you're looking at 25 pound before you start now.
But it would be nice to be able to have a bit of money to put into that sort of venture as well.
We've got quite a few people who are willing to do it.
But we might need to charge a minimum donation for it.
And they come and they stream your grass, mow your grass, pick it up a bit, and then do your hedges, just a basic, get your garden tidy, you know, because there was one lady that was going to be charged 80 quid.
And I was shop manager and actually went out and done it for free.
Yeah, they actually did it for free, lover.
But it was a six mile walk.
They actually walked there as well.
It was a six mile walk.
But that's not a lovely thing to do.
And that's the type of things that our managers and our volunteers and our followers and our customers do for each other and for other people.
So, you know, it's always nice, isn't it, to be able to offer some stuff back.
So, yep.
So if you can keep the colouring box coming, guys, and we'll do it like that for now.
And then we'll see how many colouring box, how many good quality pens and pencils we can get in.
You can buy new and donate if you want.
But I'm not worried that there was a couple of pages in these books here that had been coloured in.
Well, I just took them ones out, you know.
So I'm not worried if it's second hand, you know that.
If you ever want to buy anything to donate to mothers or anything brand new, you can.
But like I said, we're all about stopping landfills.
So, you know, rummage around in your cupboards first.
But yeah, if you've got anything like this now, children or adults, and this will be our mindfulness box.
And they're free to take, you know, take a couple a week, you know, as much as you think you're going to need.
The more we get in, the more we can give out.
It would be nice to do like little Polly Pockets, you know, with little packs in.
And we could do like some for mum and dad, some for older children, some for younger children.
If you want to draw, if you're sat in the house and you just like drawing outlines for people to colour in, and you've got nothing to do with those drawings once you've done them, drop them off.
Drop them off to the shops and put them in the baskets for people.
So yeah, brilliant.
Thank you guys for all your donations and all your custom in this awful, awful weather.
Look at it.
