AUGUST 2016
Photos just arrived from Njale parish…
cartons being taken for unpacking
…and the people showing their delight…
JUNE 2016
FROM CHIRINGA PARISH…
From the Resource Centre at Chiringa
(Children with special needs)
I write to sincerely thank you for the donation of the item.
They arrived 5 cartons in total, 2 labelled used clothes, 2 labelled paper & 1 labelled school materials.
The children here are more than happy for your gift of clothes to them. As I said to you that most of these children come from poor families, your donation has made them love school. They love school because they believe that if they were at home they wouldn’t have met that opportunity of being given such a timely donation. Timely donation because some of the items which you have given them are for winter such as the sweaters.
They are also happy with the bellball. They were looking forward to receive the ball because the time you wrote to me that you tried to find one bell ball I also told them that one day they’ll have it.
It is my appeal that when the chances are there don’t forget us especially these children as you always do.
Finally, I wish you happy life.
Greetings to the entire congregation.
Mathews
FROM KARONGA PARISH…
Dear Anthony, Brian and all,
I am pleased to inform you that all the cartons destined for St. Mary’s – Karonga safely arrived on Tuesday, 14th June 2016.
We are grateful to God for the successful completion of the journey of yet another container from England to Malawi. Attached are some photos. We will send more photos during the distribution.
We are sincerely grateful to the Malawi-Twin Committee, the Parishioners and various donors of the items that are in the boxes. These items will assist our parish, schools and many poor people.
God bless you.
Fr. Denis
JUNE 2016
Cartons are collected for Njale parish…
JUNE 2016
The container has arrived in Malawi and was off loaded at Blantyre on Friday June 10th.
The photos below show the arrival and general offloading. Photos are expected shortly from each of our recipients which will give us a more personal view of our giving
MARCH 2016
Our Eighth Container was loaded onto a truck on Friday March the 18th. It left the following morning headed for Birmingham, where it was loaded onto the larger Container. It will now be transported to Malawi via Felixtowe, South Africa and Mozambique.
We loaded 357 cartons which weighed a total of 2,938 kilograms.
The shipment will benefit six parishes, two secondary schools and a seminary.
OUR 2016 PHOTO TRAIL
BRIAN AND KEVIN PREPARE COMPUTERS
COLLECTING AND SORTING
PACKING SESSIONS
AND LOADING
ALL PACKED IN BIRMINGHAM & READY TO GO!
FEBRUARY 2016
Our Container is fully packed and ready for its journey to Birmingham!
Here are two messages recently sent by Brian Wilkins, our Container Project Co-ordinator:
Dear Packing Team,
Firstly, may I thank everyone for all your help. I am pleased to say that the container is now fully packed after just six sessions.
I have just seven cubic feet of space left, which will be used for the parish’s special boxes which will contain anti-surge sockets, USB Memory sticks, Ink cartridges, CD’s & DVD’s.
This year we have been so oversubscribed that we have put a load into storage for next year. We probably have almost one third of next year’s space already, so we shall be selective with our appeal next year.
My special thanks to Anthony for being my deputy, my grateful thanks also go to Roger, Jill & Colin, who worked in the warehouse on many occasions in between our packing sessions, which really helped as we were so oversubscribed.
My special thanks also to Roger & Jill, who researched the internet, to purchased, Share & Pack all the school materials for the schools. (We purchased £2500 worth of school materials). This was made possible by the donations we received towards the shipping cost.
We have one more task to complete, that is to transfer all our cartons & packages onto our lorry, on Friday evening of the 18th March, I will give you details of times, in due course.
May I once again thank everyone who has helped in any way.
Kindest Regards,
Brian
Dear Malawi Team,
I have spoken to Judith in Birmingham this evening and I have secured an extra 20 cubic feet of Container space, giving us a total of 470 cubic feet.
This is wonderful as I received 11 sewing machines that have been fully serviced by Martin Jeffrey, it will be good to dispatch these. Also I have two guitars available and these will be good to send.
Kindest Regards,
Brian
JANUARY 2016
Firstly a big thank to you all for your continued support & donations, with your help it makes it possible to send containers with so many items that changes their lives in Malawi.
We started collecting donations as early as September, with one of regular donors, Flight Data Services of Whitley in Hampshire, who for many years have donated lots of IT Equipment. Thank you for all your help over many years.
Work started on Container 8, back at the beginning of November with the planning, securing space in the container we share with Birmingham. Kevin also began work early November, upgrading some older Desktop computers fitting DVD drives, increasing the size of RAM & changing hard drives to larger capacities. Kevin had 25 ready before Christmas & is now working on laptop computers. These were donated some time ago by St Gregory’s school, Tunbridge Wells.
We launched our appeal on the 2nd January, since then we have been inundated with donations, we started to sort & pack on Saturday 9th January & we pack every Saturday & will continue into March until the job is complete.
We always receive more than we can send, but the over spill is put into store for our next container. Thanks to Tyler Holdings for providing free warehousing & storage.
So many many companies provide so many items including packing materials, sealing tape, shrink wrap etc, this enables us to keep our cost to the minimum. A big thank you to everyone for your help.
Pureprint Ltd of Uckfield have given our project with so much support over the past few years with supplying almost 200,000 sheets of cut white paper to A4 size packed in boxes of 2500 sheets per box, for each of our container that are sent each year.
Paper is so expensive in Malawi, there schools have never had paper to use in the past, they are so thankful to Pureprint Ltd. My grateful thanks goes to Denzil who has spent many hours of his own time making this possible.
A Big thank you for all the other companies, schools & individuals for your help & donations, without your support the container project would not have all goodies it is now packed with.
Container 8 loads on Saturday 19th March 2016 & should arrive in Blantyre Malawi late May / Early June, I will of course keep you fully updated on it’s progress.
I have attached a few photos to give you a flavor of the project so far this year.
ONCE AGAIN A VERY BIG THANK YOU TO YOU ALL
Brian Wilkins,
DECEMBER 2015
Update for Malawi Container Number 8 – Departure Date 19th March 2016.
Dear Friends of the Malawi Container Project,
Just to bring you all up to date for our eighth container to Malawi, departure date 19th March 2016 – approximate arrival date Blantyre Malawi late May / Early June 2016.
Work began in September with several collection of IT equipment, firstly from our friends at Flight Data Services in Fareham Hants donated another batch of desktop, two laptops & a quantity of spares. Flight data has supported our project for the last six containers. October we received a donation of 26 laptops from St Gregory’s School & November with received some laptops from a new donor, Mott MacDonald, of Croydon, this followed by a donation from St Margaret’s school of laptops & stacking chairs suitable for primary school children.
Martin Jeffreys, our sewing machine engineer from “Faith in Action” , Crawley West Sussex, has a batch of ten sewing machines fully serviced & ready to pack, Martin will service all the sewing machines we collect.
Denzil from Pureprint Ltd of Uckfield is well underway with cutting & boxing plain A4 whitepaper, Denzil has promised he will surpass last year’s total which was 180,000 sheets of paper. So bring it on Denzil!
I have several companies collecting & saving their used cartons for the packing of our donated items; many supply us with sealing tape & shrink wrap.
We have two groups of women knitting blanket squares, baby clothes & bonnets. One group is within the parish & the other group is based in Tonbridge, but unconnected to Corpus Christi. This group has contributed to the last three containers.
There are many parishioners & individuals within & outside our parish that are “holding onto” donation ready to bring in January.
Kevin Stated work at the end of October on a batch of computers donated by St Gregory’s two year ago. These were “moth balled” as we had just received a large batch of computers from Sumerhill school, which were far more up to date. These computers required a major upgrade to be any good even in Malawi terms. But Kevin replaced many hard drives with a larger storage capacity, increased the RAM & installed then with DVD RW drives, as the computers only had “A drives”, these have been fully loaded with operating systems & basic software, Kevin completed the job in the middle of December, there are 23 desktops ready to pack. Tina now has her dining room back, but this will be short lived Kevin will start work on the laptops very early in the New Year. Thanks Kevin.
The warehouse has been cleared out & ready for us the use in the New Year. Thanks Tylers.
So you will see we are ready to start work on container 8. Our appeal is launched in the parish at all masses the weekend of 2nd / 3rd January 2016.
We should start to sort & pack hopefully on Saturday 16th January (1-30pm – 4-00pm) please have your thermals to the ready. May I thank you all for all your past support on behalf of our friends in Malawi. Lastly, are you able to help with our packing sessions–Would you kind enough to confirm. May I wish you all a very Happy Christmas-On behalf of your Malawi Twinning Team.
Brian Wilkins
PHOTOS FROM LAST YEAR INCLUDING KEVIN UPGRADING COMPUTERS
