BIKES NEEDED URGENTLY

BIKES NEEDED

Many of volunteers are asylum seekers or refugees and they desperately need bikes to get around. PLEASE consider donating your old bikes, whatever condition they are in. If you would prefer to sell, we will pay up to £75 for a good bike from our Bike Fund, which is set aside specifically for this purpose.

Alternatively, if you see a bike on freecycle, gumtree etc, PLEASE let us know and we will chase it up. Thanks everso!

(picture NOT an accurate representation of one of our volunteers)

Sorting donations: new system

Message to all regular volunteers.

We want to make everything fair and equal for all volunteers at DRS. Starting on 19th September we will be following the timetable in the photo. Sorting will take place ONLY from 9.45 to 10.30 on Thursdays and on Saturdays when we don't have other activities on, like yoga or training for example.

Of course, this can only happen when we have donated stuff to sort. So time to ask your friends and neighbours to have an autumn clean! Let's fill another van for Calais before winter.

Magic happens

Once upon a time there was a lovely lady called Val and a lovely man called Mairtin. They didn't know each other but today they connected in a magical way.

Val gave the amazing gift of £250 to DRS to spend only on hygiene items for refugee women in Dunkirk. Our wonderful volunteer, Avani, spent her own time costing, buying and sorting the items on the Urgent List.

Today, a DRS team loaded these packs onto a van which will be driven by Máirtin Ó Grádaigh to Dunkirk where they will be distributed by the team there. Also here to help fill Mairtin's van today was the fabulous Caroline Kerr,with eight HUGE boxes of donations from Bras not Bombs

Magic happens.

Donations needed urgently

Clothes, bikes and medical supplies needed urgently!

Although our wonderful birthday party has been and gone we are still asking for prezzies! We need donations, especially of clothes, bikes and medical supplies. Please ask among your friends, post on your socials, autumn-clean your children's bedrooms when they're at school?

Winter will be here soon. Refugee camps are bad enough during summer....

Work Experience guinea pig?

In June of this year we were contacted by a very resourceful and determined young woman, Avani, who asked if she could do Work Experience with us. Avani wants to study International Development and, eventually, to work in the humanitarian sector. She asked if she could volunteer with us, while studying for her A’Levels.

Obviously we jumped at the chance and have been delighted to get to know Avani over the last few months. She is not only willing to help in any way she can, she also shows real sensitivity and understanding.

Yesterday, Avani, also finished a project she agreed to do in her own time. A wonderfully generous DRS supporter, Val from Youlgrave, donated £250 specifically for hygiene packs for the women in Dunkirk Refugee Women's Centre. Avani costed, bought and made up 36 packs in total. These will be loaded onto a van going to Dunkirk on Tuesday.

Avani is our first Work Experience volunteer, a guinea pig if you will, and we hope she will be the first of many.

We also want to thank Val for her overwhelming generosity!

Derby Triathlon heroes!

Zak, Simon and Steve: doing the Derby Triathlon at 8 a.m on a Sunday morning. So you don't have to.

Thanks so much to everyone who sponsored our heroes and helped them to raise money for DRS! (I hear a rumour that two of them are going to an all-you-can-eat buffet this afternoon as a reward!!)

Inspirational People

"Inspirational people"

In Hazel's lovely English session yesterday, volunteers learned about some famous inspirational people and talked about people who had inspired them.

They, in turn, inspire us.

We were also inspired yesterday by Sally, Pete and the other lovely chap (name please?), the Peak Park Rangers, who visited us yesterday to talk about their work and find ways to get us involved.

We were inspired by Mikey and Nick from Dr Bike who mended bikes, taught skills and promised to come again soon!

Abdullah, Mohammed and Adrian inspire us every week by quietly getting on and installing new shelving in our back room to store new donations and enable us to be much more efficient and organised.

Get inspired. Come and join us at DRS!

DRS birthday party in shock cheating scandal!

Well! You’ve never seen a 4th birthday party like it??!!

It was supposed to be nice: jelly and cakes, a few games, a bit of a sing song…

SOME of our volunteers, mentioning no names, had different ideas. A fun game of musical chairs was marred by CHEATING when one person CARRIED HIS CHAIR WITH HIM!! An simple game of Pin the Tail on the Camel led to accusations of OBSCENITY! A jolly sing song about DRS resulted in Steve Cooke DISPLAYING HIS KNEES with no thought for innocent bystanders!!!!

In spite of all this, forty five volunteers and guests managed to enjoy a wonderful morning celebrating four years of DRS. We are so grateful to everyone who contributed in any way to make it such a success: everyone who helped on the day, everyone who provided food, everyone who sang and laughed and played and smiled.

Special thanks go to Susie Hanley for the gifts; Simon Ferrigno and the Co-op for the gorgeous cakes and other goodies; to Bill, Geoff and Baesa from the Red Cross in Nottingham for coming to join us; to Jane for the cheque.

Love and solidarity!

Who does what at DRS

Four years ago this was a few names on a bit of paper. Now look how much we’ve grown!

Thank you for the music...

Over thirty volunteers enjoyed our very first music session yesterday! Led by Carole and Su-ki, we all sang, played a huge variety of musical instruments and it was all so lovely I even had a little cry!

This event will take place once a month so watch out for future events. Not long until the race for Christmas number one you know!