Right, so I'm on my way back, guys.
I'm hoping to get to Risca Road for 11.30pm.
I don't think I will be.
I'll be later than that, I think, because I've hit a few accidents on the road and a few roadworks.
So I've re-posted how the baby bank works, okay.
We give out naffies or formula, if we've got it.
Same as the naffies.
Or five-item food top-up shop, or food bank butcher, or you can put in writing if you request something a little bit more specific.
That writing needs to be given into the shops because we need to have proof of what you're asking for.
Social media requests isn't proof of what you're asking for, okay.
I need written proof of what you're asking for and you're asking us to engage with you.
We don't deliver out food banks, okay.
We haven't got time.
We don't give out wet wipes because it's bad for the environment.
Any business, company, charity needs to counteract what they're doing, their own carbon footprint to the environment.
And we've never given out wet wipes as part of that.
And the health visitors don't tell you not to use wet wipes anyway.
So we fall in line with that.
There's two reasons not to give them out.
We don't want to be contributing to the carbon footprint.
It's only one pack of naffies a week and you have to be a customer or a donator of our shops because you have to be helping other mothers and other families.
We don't take on freeloaders.
We've been very vocal about freeloaders from the beginning.
If you give out stuff for free, anybody will take it.
So our terms and conditions have been in place since 2020.
The specified amount is a pound because that's the minimum we can take on a card.
It never used to be a specified amount you spend in the shops or how much you donate.
It's strictly one pack a week.
It's not two or three, no matter what.
Nobody else can pick them up for you.
It's only the mother or the father needs to pick them up.
Your friends can't do it for you.
And we do not furnish people's houses for them.
I don't know where some people get this from that we furnish people's houses for free for them.
And deliver it all and build it all and bang the curtains.
I don't know where they get that from.
But just for you to be fully aware, I've reposted the terms and conditions.
If you're not a customer or a frequent donator of stock, then you're not entitled to use our food bank.
That's our rules and regulations.
You can walk in, you can self-refer, you can come straight in and we can help you.
But you need to be helping other mothers and families.
That's what you need to be seen to be doing.
This is teamwork.
This is how we do it.
We're all a team including our customers and our donators, the businesses that help us.
We're all a team.
If we were to give out stuff for free, we would have nothing left.
I can tell you that now because for the first year we did it and everything was put straight on Facebook marketplace.
There wasn't many people that didn't try and sell it on.
People turning up with different IDs, different Facebook profiles because they wanted multiple use.
We got ripped off so many times and it was by the same people who were bouncing around all the other free organisations.
So our stipulation is you need to be a donator of items that can be used for other mothers or for bundles or for food bank fundraising shops.
It does say it on the sign, it's a food bank fundraising shop.
Or you need to be a customer and the minimum spend at any one time is a pound because obviously we can only take a pound on the card machine.
And we've had to move to card machine because of staff theft from the till.
All of them have been fired and reported to the police.
And staff safety because there's a lot of weirdos now guys just hanging around.
And by us turning to card only is kept down on the weirdos that come into the shop in the first place because there's no cash in the shops.
They don't bother coming in anymore.
So I mean there was a vape shop held up by knife point in Blackwood for 45 minutes.
They took less than £500 into vapes and they held the staff up for 45 minutes.
You know, if I got volunteers they ain't going to come back after something like that.
Ponty Poole is a guy that's known to have a knife.
When the shopkeepers were beating him up on the street they had his jacket come off and I picked up his jacket.
There was a knife in his jacket so he had a knife on him.
Then you had the barber shops arguing between Newbridge and Blackwood and they had weapons.
So you know, the safest thing for us and our volunteers now and the baby bank is to take out the cash.
Okay, so you have to use your card when you come into the shop.
And the minimum spend unfortunately is a pound.
We can't go any lower than that.
But that's only been in place since we've been card only.
Which is nearly a year and it's worked very well and our takings have gone up.
So there was quite a few people on the rock.
So I've just reposted it now.
I've just given a verbal update about how we operate.
We've operated like this for five years because the first time we did it for free people took advantage.
I knew that information now again guys so if you can just refresh yourself.
We know it works because we've been doing it for five years.
