In Your Shoes - Fiona Hain

Monday/Tuesday

We just moved into our huge new premises last week, provided by DC Thomson, so it’s been all go getting everything moved in and ready for our Christmas Toy Appeal’s official launch.  On Monday, referral forms were distributed to all schools and social workers in the area and referrals have been flying in already.  It’s definitely going to be a busy Christmas for us.  Last year, over 2,000 gift parcels were given out and we are expecting even more this year as families struggle to meet the rising costs of living expenses.

It was time to get the centre into the Christmas spirit ready for all our amazing volunteers coming in, so we took some time to get the Christmas trees decorated, decorations out and the snacks filled up.  We had a visit from our Chair Person, Derek Miller, to go over all the details for our Christmas Ball this Saturday.  Our annual ball, sponsored by Stable Kitchens & Bathrooms and Winter Simpson, is always a great night and kicks off our Toy Appeal with all the lovely guests bringing along toys to donate. 

We also had one of our trustees, Martel Maxwell, in the centre filming for That’s TV on Tuesday morning.  They wanted to do a short feature on our Christmas Toy Appeal for the news and Martel kindly stepped in to be interviewed.  It’s great to have Martel on the team, she is a great voice for the charity and we appreciate her always supporting us and spreading the word of how the charity helps people in our community.

Wednesday

Today was a work from home day for both of us to catch up on paperwork, emails and preparation for the ball.  It’s a little of the calm before the storm today so we took the opportunity to stay cosy and get as prepared as possible before it all kicks off.  Referrals for Christmas come in steadily throughout the day, there are collections to arrange from some of the wonderful businesses doing collections for us and meetings and events to schedule.  We have been invited along to the YPI fayre at St Johns next week, and were at one at Morgan last week, to speak to the S2s who are taking part in the initiative.  It is lovely to go along to these and meet such lovely and engaged young people and tell them all about what we do.  We have been lucky to have been chosen by quite a few groups, so we are going to see them next week to give them some more information to help them with their presentation to have a better understanding of what we do and how we help.

We also received a few referrals for Beds For Kids today, so we ordered the needed beds from our supplier Gary at Bliss Beds and arranged the deliveries to go out on Friday.  This project provides beds to children who either don’t have a bed of their own or have a broken/unsafe bed.  It is so sad to think how many children don’t have a safe and comfortable place to sleep, but this project is helping so many and we are so glad to be able to run the project for another year with Hillcrest Foundation’s support.

Thursday

I have recently completed my training to be a mentor for a young person through Tayside Council on Alcohol and today was my first meeting with my mentee.  We have a trip to McDonalds to get to know each other better and plan to make pizzas together next week.  I have really been looking forward to getting started and hope that over the year, we make the most from this and my young person gets what they need from the program.  TCA do amazing work in our community and they are so supportive throughout the mentoring process.  They still have opportunities to sign up if anyone is interested in becoming a mentor.

Stacey & I have a catch up every week to go over what has happened over the past week and what we have coming up.  Today, we went over plans for all the different teams of volunteers we have coming in to help pack the Christmas gift bags, a screening of Wicked For Good for some very special young people, the community Christmas party we are holding for 200 kids at the Change Centre and a few other events we have over the next few weeks.  Stacey also updated me on her call with Dundee Football Club and their plans for supporting our Christmas Appeal this year.  This starts off on Saturday 29th November with a toy collection outside the game and a visit from someone special for all the kids.  Dundee FC support us throughout the year and we are very grateful for all they do.

Then one of our ambassadors, Charles Bryson, popped in to drop off a donation of baby clothes and some cash cans he had collected that need taken to the bank.  Charles works hard distributing and collecting cash cans for us around Dundee and has such a big heart, we love having him on the team!

Saturday

It’s the day of the ball! Myself and Lynn Menzies, one of our ambassadors, get to the Invercarse around 9am to start on getting the ballroom ready.  All the centrepieces thankfully make it down the stairs in one piece and once those are on the tables, the Christmas feeling starts.  We get the Christmas music going while we set up.  The ball being in November seemed early the first year I went, but now I really look forward to it to start the Christmas season.  Seeing the ballroom transform is amazing, Winter Simpson have thought of everything, even the windows are decorated with a beautiful snowy scene.   Once all of that was done, we headed home to get ready for the evening.

Arriving at the ball is always magical (Derek doesn’t do anything on a small scale), and this year was no different.  Guests arrived and added their toy donations to the van outside before entering the ballroom by walking through a huge igloo into a walkway with a ceiling of balloons to collect their welcome drinks.  The night was started by our amazing host, Steven Elder, before a song from Elsa, Sven & Olaf and a game of pass the parcel.  We then had a lovely Christmas dinner before the band started.  Atomic were amazing as usual and kept the dancefloor packed all night.  It was an amazing night and raised an incredible amount for the toy appeal and the van of toys was filled to the roof.  Thank you so much to everyone who came along for your generosity, we can’t wait to see you all again next year!