14/12/2019
One for my UK followers ☺️
We are now sending out online Feedback forms to complete when you return a kit
But I would just like to address a couple of 'improvements' that we have recently received, just to clarify what we do, and how we run, as these comments are really demoralising when we work so hard to bring you a free service
'Closer volunteers'
The clue to this one is in the second word... Volunteers! We are ENTIRELY run by volunteers, and therefore you WILL have to travel to our volunteers, wherever they are based. Clients always have the choice to pick a volunteer close to them (with potentially a longer waiting list) or borrow from any branch (where you will get put onto the shortest waiting list)
If you choose to borrow from any branch, then you will have to travel further than if you pick your closest branch
Which brings me to my second point...
'Shorter waiting lists'
Since I took over in April, we have worked EXTREMELY hard to reduce waiting lists
During the summer, we had waiting lists of 5/6 MONTHS for the most popular branches - at one time 60 people were waiting for a BTP kit. Yep SIXTY. We also had four volunteers on maternity leave over the summer period, which obviously impacted our loaning abilities
Since then, we have DOUBLED our volunteer numbers and increased the number of BTP kits held across the county to 25 (each kit costs £300-400 to build, so this is not an easy or cheap task)
Today, our waiting list stands at THREE people. Yep, just three clients across the whole of Worcestershire waiting for a BTP kit
And the really demoralising thing is, the people who are putting this as feedback have waited just one or two months for a kit
We are a free service
We are run by volunteers (they are all AMAZING)
We are limited by the number of kits we can afford
The crux of it is, we need more volunteers! More volunteers means we can cover more areas. More volunteers means we can reach more people
After Christmas I will be actively recruiting (again!) for more volunteers, so keep an eye out for those posts, and in the meantime, please consider how hard all of our volunteers work to keep this FREE service running
We also need funds to build more kits. Each kit costs £300-£400 to build from scratch, and that's without the cost of replacements for current kits, when kits are returned with missing items or general wear and tear of nappies in the kits. To help with this you might consider a donation when you borrow a kit from us; just £10 from half of our clients would mean over £1500 to fund new kits each year, allowing us to reach more people and keep the waiting lists as low as possible
So please do think before you comment. We cannot do much more than we are currently without more support
Rant over, people!
