[View this email in your browser]() # **Scrubbery October Newsletter** October marches on, the weather has broken but remains warm, the 5^th jab is becoming more available to more people, the prime minister has come and gone, but the Scrubbery remains a constant in an ever changing world – here is our latest update.

**Ukraine support continues:**

We have finished another camouflage net for Ukraine and are busy working on several others.

Thanks go to the Roehampton Club for their kind donation of some tennis nets. They have now been cleaned, had their tapes and eyelets removed, and are mounted on our frame ready for the next round of material tying. Thank you to Venetia Flint for collecting and organising the donation – it is much appreciated. Anyone with spare time to come and tie some knots would be welcomed. John Clarke, who has been very active in supporting the Scrubbery, has kindly contributed two articles for this newsletter, the first of which is about how and why the camouflage nets are made: **Note for your Diary:  4th November 2022 at the Oasis Academy**
We are setting up and hosting a collection of donations for Ukraine. On that Friday we will have several large collection bins in the foyer of the school, and we are looking for donations of new or clean clothing – but SPECIFIC items only. The bins will be taken direct to Ukraine so the donated items need to be usable immediately upon arrival there. This collection will **only** be happening on the 4^th, please don’t bring anything afterwards. 

The winter in Ukraine is predicted to be the coldest in 10 years. Many people have left their homes in what they stand up in and others are being evacuated from east to west to avoid the fighting.
They need warm clothing either in good condition or new for babies, children and adults.
All clothes will be sent out via The Scrubbery’s trusted transport route to a bonded warehouse in Lviv. The goods are released to the Catholic University Volunteer Corps who direct goods to where they are most needed.

If you would like to send a picture or letter of hope with your donation we will happily convey this with an accompanying translation.

The **specific items** we are looking for are: - **Coats and jackets** - **Jumpers** - **Snow suits** - **Socks** - **New underwear** - **Hats and gloves** - **Long sleeved tops** - **Tracksuit trousers** - **Trainers** - **Any winter baby clothes and blankets** - **Foil blankets** Talking of Foil blankets please read about John Clarke’s brilliant idea – if you can help please do! *Before the battle-injured in Ukraine see the welcome sight of someone wearing the hospital scrubs which we are supplying to front-line field hospitals they may be grateful for something else which we are beginning to send out to help – foil blankets, also known as ‘space blankets’. Foil blankets are the shiny sheets you see wrapped around marathon runners at the end of a race, or injured people waiting for an ambulance. They are made from the same tough plastic as fizzy drink bottles and have a metallic film which is highly reflective. These ‘space blankets’ are invaluable in countering the effects of serious injury – by reflecting back as much as 90% of the body heat they slow the effects of shock or trauma. On the front-line in Ukraine one of the IAs – Immediate Action – is to wrap the injured person in a foil blanket before getting them further back for treatment. It seemed a good idea to add some to the scrubs we send out.  This idea occurred shortly before the London Marathon. Over 40,000 runners, each of whom is offered a foil blanket at the finish line, to keep them warm. What happens to the blankets afterwards? Could we re-cycle them to the front-line in Ukraine? Although it was too short notice to organise an official collaboration, I was able to collect twenty-five by just going to the finishing line at the Marathon and asking people if they wished to donate their blanket. Some, of course, wished to keep them as a souvenir but enough were willing to support this initiative to make it worth working with the race organisers next year, to reduce the number of foil blankets ending up in landfill. It looks as though Ukraine is going to be needing our help for some time to come. If you know anyone taking part in something like a marathon, do tell us so that we see whether we can work with them to recycle the blankets. Of course we clean the blankets before sending them on!* **Some of the other news for the month:**

We have just completed 479 wellbeing bags for the St Bartholomew’s Hospital Trust Maternity Services teams – this includes all the Doctors, Consultants, midwives, the nursing teams, and the admin assistants – everyone involved.  These will be collected this week, many thanks to all who came and helped. We need more people to sew masks please. The Scrubbery have been asked to supply eye masks to patients at Chelmsford Hospital who are finding it difficult to sleep on wards due to bright lighting. We have a template to follow so just need some folks to sew please. The charity “United in Kind” will distribute them to the needy once we have enough to send on.

We also need more scrubs to be sewn for Ukraine – they are desperately short of suitable scrubs over there, so if you could pick up a few kits when you are next in, it really would make a huge difference to the doctors and nurses in the middle of a war zone over there, just trying to do their jobs.

**Donations of 100% wool jumpers**

Do any of you have tired, brightly coloured 100% woollen plain knitted jumpers  that you no longer wear? Perhaps they have been attacked by moth or the elbows have worn away? Don’t throw them away, we can use them. Following our upcycling theme, in our sewing club next term we are hoping to show our students how to repurpose fibres through felting which we will then make into a designer pincushion.

Thank you so much. **Thank you’s due this month include but are not limited to:**

**Fortnum and Mason **for a lovely large donation of teas for the Wellbeing bags. **O’Mara books** for a generous donation of adult colouring books for mental wellbeing and the perfect size for the bags – absolutely ideal!

**Tina – **for generating a large donation of toothpaste and brushes  - again a very much appreciated gift in the bags from the feedback we have had in the past.

**Putney Hill Dental Practice** for a donation of toothpaste and to Hilary for collecting.

Our congratulations go to **Evie Boettcher** who is almost at the end of her volunteering with us, though not her Gold Duke of Edinburgh award, for which she is now learning to drive! She has been volunteering with us for a whole year now – regularly helping out at the Hub, and on her own initiative she organised a cake sale at Esher College to raise money for the Scrubbery. She has been a brilliant volunteer and we have loved having her. Evie has said she will continue to volunteer in the holidays as time permits. We wish her all the best with her studies. 

Please recommend the Scrubbery to your friends, we need to find new machinists and volunteers to get these tasks finished and to spread the load.  If you know anyone who might be interested, just bring them in to meet Rosie and the team and let’s see what happens – they don’t have to be master craftspeople – we all have skills that can be extremely useful at the Hub.

Stay warm, dry and healthy.