April 2nd Volunteer Morning - Hard at Work

Wow, what a great morning but truth be told I am exhausted! I love volunteer morning for all it's mayhem and madness, it is such a wonderful feeling to be among all the ladies working hard and laughing hard too. 

Today we got 700 panties unpacked, sorted and rolled, repacked and ready for our kit packing day.  

Our ribbon ladies were hard at work cutting and sealing the ribbons and then passing them onto the threading ladies (some of which even took home "homework"). Thank you to those who came to the rescue with tea light candles. I believe a soldering iron works just as well, we might have to explore that option in the future (but not nearly as romantic!).  I have no pictures of you ladies, if you took one please send it to me. 

Jolanda had her foot to the floor over on the serger at the drawstring bag table trying to get as many bag cuts ready for others as possible, but they seem to be snapped up so quickly by our "bag ladies" it was hard to keep up with the demand.



Today we welcomed Ollie and Sergio (our two new serging machines) and we had Cathy, Jane, Miriam and Nalini with their "L" plates on. They all seemed super happy with serging away at full speed until I told them they had to learn how to re-thread the machines too (insert deafening silence and throat gulps here!!). Anyone who has ever used a serger knows they are fabulous machines until you have to re-thread them and suddenly they seem like your worst enemy, lol.  I have promised that I will video myself threading my serger so that they have a reference when they are at home and the unthinkable happens, I dare say it will be heavily edited ;-)

The ladies cutting up the fabric couldn't keep up with the demand from the die cutting team either.  And thank you to Jane and Hina for teaching other ladies how to cut up the bags. This is something that can be done at home in-between volunteer days and take a big pressure of me in getting preparations done.  Even the shield sew@home kit packing gals barely got them packed before they disappeared off the table, it was totally a full on morning.

We even had Sharon's sister Anne join us who is visiting here from Scotland. She had barely walked in the door and we had her over a cutting mat. She was last to put down tools too, what a champ!

And I am sure the Snap Ladies have new muscles developing in their biceps after snapping so many shields.

Everyone worked very hard, thank you so much.











I believe Jan was taking the great leap into the Shield Sewing pool with Lise on as lifeguard and trainer, well done ladies.

We had a catch-up on current D4G business and we also had a new volunteer information session. How lovely to see so many new faces. I am just sorry I didn't get a chance to sit and chat and get to know you all better.

To all of you who took home "homework" I really appreciate your time and efforts, THANK YOU. And to those of you who wanted homework and I had nothing left, SORRY - next time ;-)





Our next meet-up with be Sunday May 7th, please mark it in your diaries.

And (to be confirmed) our final meet-up before the summer will be Sunday 21st for a Kit Packing and Celebration event.

Thank you to Swati for sending me these pictures. Today was so busy that I actually forgot to take any photos!! If you have any others can you please send them to me at muscatoman@daysforgirls.org .
More photos of the distribution in Uganda will be coming soon.

Happy stitching ...