Progress on stretching my wings - becoming an Oxfam Representative

photos courtesy of Oxfam Winchester

So far in my blog I have written quite a bit about decluttering, not buying stuff, and raising the Puppy, but I haven't written so much about my attempts to get out and involved in new things to challenge myself further. 

For almost eight years now I have been volunteering at my local Oxfam shop - something that I absolutely love doing. I started when my youngest went to school, one morning a week I trotted off to Oxfam to help sort and price women's clothing, steam then and put them on sale. I've always liked clothes and shops, and I loved the fact that for a morning I could focus on something that wasn't connected to children, home or school. This was for me - to do something worthwhile that was fun and social too.

One of the best things was that when I left my manager Vicki always said 'Thanks Sarah, for what you did this morning!'. Generally small children and husbands don't go around saying "Thanks, Mum!" every time you cook tea, or pick up soggy socks from where they've been scattered, so it was lovely to have someone say 'Thankyou!' once a week, it made me feel appreciated, and I really learnt the value of a timely 'Thankyou!'.

Sale in the Menswear Dept

Since them my love affair with Oxfam and our local shop has grown. A couple of years ago stepped up temporarily to work as Deputy Manager for three months, which was a challenge and was good for my confidence. I enjoyed the role, but working Saturdays meant I had less time with the family at the weekend, so I didn't apply for the permanent job, but went back to being a happy volunteer.  Currently, I look after the Menswear section. Being in charge of a particular section means that I can experiment with pricing, what we put out and how things are displayed. Each week I can see how we are doing in sales in that area, so I get feedback on what I've done and how effective it's been.

The great thing about Oxfam for me, is that it's always given me a window out from my family-centered life on to a wider world. Everything we do at Oxfam is driven from a belief that inequality isn't right and that we can all help to build a better world. Sitting at home typing this blog in a lovely (although rather untidy) house, and surrounded by my lovely (but imperfect) family, I just feel how lucky we are to take so much for granted: Food, water, sanitation, education, shelter and freedom from conflict. All of these things we take for granted, but some of the poorest people in the world lack some or all of these. 

So, my desire to do something about this coupled with the belief that Oxfam is a great organisation means that when you start to look, new opportunities develop. Last autumn I became aware that Oxfam was looking for new members for its Volunteer Working Group and I applied. The group meets two or three times a year, and gives the senior management in the trading department a chance to bounce ideas off, and get feedback from, a group of volunteers who work in Oxfam's shops.  Which is how I found myself last autumn on a train to Birmingham to spend the day sitting around discussing all things Oxfam - marvellous! And then that led to the next thing, which was I discovered that Oxfam were creating a new role called OxReps - speakers who were happy to go out to community groups and schools to talk about Oxfam's work and the issues we are trying to address.

So in January, I was trotting off again - this time to London for weekend training on how to become an Oxfam Speaker. It was a great weekend and I met a great variety of volunteers, including one who had volunteered as a steward at Festivals for about ten years. I hadn't expected to be sitting eating lunch whilst discussing why Ketamine was the drug of choice at Boomtown festival, but that's the joy of getting out of your comfort zone and meeting new people - you never know what you might end up talking about.

So all this training was great, but I'm now coming up to having to sing for my supper as the saying goes. Next week I'm practising one of my presentations at our Shop's meeting and so I've been swotting up on all things Oxfam and practising delivering the presentation to my cat who sleeps on the end of my bed all day. I'm feeling quite nervous, and the cat hasn't been looking very impressed which hasn't helped.

And then comes the real challenge - getting out into the community and trying to get opportunities to do talks and workshops to spread the word. I'm standing on the edge of the nest, and although I'm sure flying will be fun, it all looks a bit scary from up here...

So what happened to January? And for that matter February too? Notes from a failed greenie..

Trouble? Me?

Firstly, apologies for being somewhat absent in the blogosphere for the first two months. In January, I talked about my intention to try and reduce our food waste. Then it all went quiet... So how did it go?

Well the intention was there. I went through my cupboard and made lists of things that needed eating up. I cleaned out the fridge and defrosted the freezer. I made soup with left overs. I organised my friend to come and put bait down for the rat that had invaded the compost heap. Then, well, stuff sort of happened. 

The kids left the freezer door open and the freezer frosted up again. Daughter got stressed with college and needed lots of t.l.c. We thought we'd got rid of the rat, so we dug out the remains of the compost heap onto the veggie patch and the roses, but then the puppy managed to find some uneaten bait and thought she'd eat it instead. We had another expensive trip to the vet. (They made her throw up and eat charcoal biscuits and she was fine.) I got fed up with being overwhelmed with washing and started using the tumble dryer, which I hadn't for years.The rabbit got sick. More trips to the vet. The rabbit got worse. Another expensive trip to the vet to dispatch the rabbit to bunny heaven. Stressed out daughter got even more upset.

If trying to live a greener life is a game of snakes and ladders, I think I've slid down more snakes in the last two months than ladders that I climbed last year. So my resolve for March is to get back on those ladders, and to start blogging again.

On the other hand, it has been a good year so far for the vet...

January Challenge - reduce food waste

Now that Christmas is over, I'm turning my attention to something that I've been meaning to do for a while - making an effort to reduce food waste in our household. 

I've always felt that we weren't too bad - I never throw out fruit or vegetables just because of the 'best before' date when they are still perfectly fine to use, but I've been aware in the last couple of months that I've been throwing away decaying fruit or vegetables more often than I would like. I have been particularly aware of this because normally we compost any veggy peelings or tea bags, but due to the unwelcome signs of a rat burrowing in my compost heap, I've stopped putting anything on my compost heap until the rat is dealt with! (Luckily I have a friend who works in pest control, who is very helpful on the odd occasion that I have had this problem.) It's amazing how heavy the rubbish is now that we are adding tea bags, veggy peelings and the like - it has made me aware of how much stuff we normally compost and manage to keep out of the black bin.

Other problems we have is a child who regularly pours a huge bowl of Shreddies and then abandons them half eaten, and my tendency to stock up on useful foodstuffs and then forget what I've got in the back of the cupboard. So I'm sure that with a bit of organisation, we could do better!

Now that the children are back to school/college I can start to make progress, so my first task yesterday was to look in the fridge to see what was left over from the Christmas holidays that needed eating up. I have quite a bit of left over stilton and a head of broccoli - so yesterday's lunch was Broccoli and Stilton soup. I also found half a yellow pepper and a rather tired lettuce - so they went in too! I'd never thought of cooking lettuce before - but came across this suggestion for using up left over lettuce a while ago - it's a leafy green vegetable that goes well with the broccoli.

So here's my recipe for Stilton and Broccoli soup. 

1 onion
1 head of broccoli 
Optional lettuce, yellow pepper
About 2oz Stilton - a piece aboout 2" square
A glug of oil 
2 veggy stock cubes
A couple of tablespoons of white wine, sherry or other left over alcohol.


Chop the onions and saute in the oil in a large saucepan over a low heat till softened. Chop the broccoli into chunks, including the stem (you can cut off any tough bits on the outside of the stem, but the centre of the stem is often nice & juicy.) Add the broccoli and then add water sufficient to cover the broccoli. Add other optional chopped veggies, the wine or sherry and crumble in the stock cubes. Bring it up to the boil, then turn down to a simmer with the lid on the pan for about 20 minutes so that the broccoli is soft and easy to liquidise. Cut the stilton into chunks and add to the soup, continue to simmer for another 5 -10 minutes until the stilton has melted, then I use a hand blender in the saucepan to blend the soup. Alternatively, you could use a liquidiser, or if you prefer a chunkier soup, use a potato masher to break up any large pieces of broccoli and mix up the soup. Taste the soup and check if it needs any more seasoning.

Serve and enjoy!

Decorations without buying for Christmas

We've been a bit late with putting up our Christmas decorations this year, but with two days to go, we've finally got it sorted. Normally we love having a real Christmas tree, but I had a problem with that for two reasons. The first is that I would have to buy it and I can't really claim that it's a necessity, but in any case the second reason is that I think the Puppy would try to eat it! So instead of a real tree, we've dusted off an artificial one and put it in the dining room, where the Puppy is only allowed under supervision. But that left the problem of what to put in the sitting room? We had some sprayed silver twigs, but needed something a bit bigger, so I went into the garden to seek inspiration, and there I struck gold. We have two beautiful dogwood bushes with lovely red stems, so I cut half a dozen stems, popped them in a large gold pot on a small table, added fairy lights and decorations, and hey presto - we have a stylish (sort of) Christmas tree that's free, and out of Puppy reach!

Wishing you all a Happy Christmas!

Green Christmas tips - Wrapping Presents

Having finished my Christmas cards last week, I've now turned my attention to wrapping presents without spending any money on wrapping paper or ribbons. I've never been very good at beautifully wrapping presents as some of my friends do, so last year  I made an effort and added ribbons to all the presents. Not only did they look better, but I made sure to hang onto all the ribbons I had used so I could reuse them again this year. I have also got some paper that was left over from last year, so I could have just used that, but having enjoyed making Christmas cards, I thought I would try a little harder with the wrapping and show that it could be done stylishly, without the need for bought wrapping paper. So here's the results!

 

 For the men in my life, I used pages from an old Asterix book. The cover was torn, so it was too scruffy to give to a charity shop, but the pages make great wrapping. The ribbon was saved from last year, the bow saved from a present someone gave to us.
 

  For the other presents I used magazines from Christmas time last year. There was especially good photography in a homes magazine which I glued onto a shoe box to create a patchwork effect of Christmas images. 

For the smaller presents I just used a single page from one of the magazines. My favourite was the big reindeer picture in the top photo which was an advert in one of the magazines.

I am quite pleased with the results, now I will just have to wait and see if my friends like them too!

The art of not buying Christmas cards

This week it's been time to write Christmas cards. So I've turned my attention to how to do this without buying any new cards, and trying to be as green as possible. Having thought about my approach, I realise it's a new interpretation of that well known phrase, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

Reduce (but without shedding friends...)

Firstly, I have used email to send a Christmas letter where possible. A couple of years ago I experimented with doing this and asking friends for feedback - did they mind not having a Christmas card and getting a letter by email instead? The majority of my friends were happy with this approach, a few said they preferred a real letter, so I will post to a few, but most of my friends who live a way away have been emailed, or sent a letter via Facebook. One of the advantages of this was that I found quite a few of my friends emailed me back, with news of their year, so it was more interactive than just posting a card into the void.

Reuse (last year's leftovers)

Secondly I have used up Christmas cards from previous years. Every year I normally buy or make some, but there's always a few left over, so they get put back in the box with the Christmas decorations. This year, I dug them all out and used them - hopefully no-one will mind if I've accidentally used the same design for them two years running! Surprisingly, I had almost enough cards, but did run out before I'd finished so I had to turn my attention to the third option, which is making my own.

Recycle  (new cards from recycled materials)

I've always enjoyed making Christmas cards, but it can be quite time consuming, so I was trying to find a way of producing simply made but effective cards that didn't take too long to make. So I spent an hour armed with card and glue that I already had, last year's John Lewis Christmas catalogue and some John Lewis stickers that I bought last year. I experimented with a number of designs, in the end my favourite one involved cutting out a square of text talking about Christmas, sticking it onto coloured card, then finishing it off with a penguin sticker or a smaller image cut out of the Christmas catalogue. In an hour I had produced about 15 cards, and was really pleased with the results, plus I had a warm fuzzy 'I've been creative' feel. My only regret was that I hadn't made more of the cards myself, as I'd already written a last years card to a lot of my best friends and it would have been nice to give them a handmade one. Never mind, there's always next year!

Green gifts for Christmas

As the present buying season builds up into full flow, several people have asked me how I'm doing my Christmas shopping this year whilst trying to avoid buying unnecessary 'things'. Two months ago I had a chance for a trial run at present giving without buying things when two of my teens had birthdays. My son was happy with the promise of driving lessons and a big bag of Skittles (sweets) so no problem there. For my daughter I wrapped up a couple of books that I had bought for her already, and we gave her money to spend as we were planning a trip to London on her birthday. She liked the freedom of spending the money, but she did confess that she does like the excitement of unwrapping something that was chosen specially for her. So for Christmas I'm going to have to try a bit harder.

So here's my thoughts on what I could aim for this Christmas.

1) Experiences.  Driving lessons, vouchers for the cinema or theatre, a promise of a meal out. These all fit perfectly into the doctrine of not buying physical stuff and focussing on doing rather than having.

2) Things that you know people need or are useful. Without giving the game away here, I've bought things for my teens as stocking fillers that I know they will use, plus little luxuries that I know that they will love which are consumable in some way - either edible or toiletries, either way they are useful and won't just be useless clutter.

3) Clothes. Again I've tried to make sure that these are things that my children want and are useful. No Christmas jumpers that only get worn once!

4) Books, games and music. I reckon that here you are mainly paying for someone's creativity, rather than something physical. In the era of downloads, this could be completely virtual, or even if it is a physical CD or game, it is easily reused if passed on to a charity shop afterwards, or even better, buy second hand in the first place if you can.

5) Buying ethically. So where I have bought actual stuff, I can try and direct my money well. So fairtrade chocolate from Oxfam, toiletries from Lush or Body Shop.

6) Buying second hand. Generally this is a good principle, although I haven't done any hunting round the charity shops this Christmas, that's mainly because part of the exercise for me is about not spending as much time shopping, but doing other things instead.

So that's the aim. I will report further on progress as the festive season continues!