August 30, 2011 / by admin / Make A Comment / Filed under Swop Shop
Stand at school yard market with large screen TV
This month at the Elkanah Market Brett Anderson from The Solutions Company kindly loaned us a big flat screen TV for our stand. With the screen we were able to show our supporters at the market whats been happening at the Recycle Swop Shop. With these additional visuals, the on-lookers could get a real sense of the impact the Recycle Swop Shop is having on the lives of the community of Du Noon. Thank you Brett for your time and support.
Its always so nice to chat to passers by, get to know new people and gain new support & interest. Thank you to all those who donated and we look forward to seeing you all next month. I do hope you enjoyed the lovely cupcakes made by Tarah Childes and the beautifully handmade biscuits by Zahn, Melting Moments.
August 17, 2011 / by admin / Make A Comment / Filed under Swop Shop
This lady makes it look so easy!
I am amazed by the resourcefulness of people, from the way they carry the bags, to the sheer quantity they manage bring and their patience is commendable.
It was so hot yesterday we asked a volunteer from Zusakhe to hand out juice with the sandwiches and all our customers were very grateful.
We collected over 800 bags and the mountain of recycling was huge! Thank you to all those who support us! Special thanks to Standard Bank, Melkbosstrand and Bayside for their donation of 5 bags of 2nd hand clothes.
Some food for thought…PepsiCo unveils world’s first 100% renewable food-based PET bottle (Is this the end of plastic bottles?).
The bottle is made from switch grass, pine bark, corn husks and other materials. Ultimately, Pepsi plans to also use orange peels, oat hulls, potato scraps and other leftovers from its food business. Source: FOOD Stuff South Africa
August 15, 2011 / by admin / Make A Comment / Filed under Swop Shop
Transport Help -Tygerburger 27.07.11
In response to our article in the Tygerburger we finally have a solution to our recycling pick up problem!
We have been struggling to find a solution to the huge number of bags we have been collecting, without being charged. A recycling company have saved the Recycle Swop Shop and are collecting our bags of recycling at no charge! We are hoping that at some stage we will be able to earn some money from our recycling in order for us to not be so heavily reliant on donations.
August 10, 2011 / by admin / 1 Comment / Filed under Swop Shop
These ladies started queuing as early at 8am!!!
So Kim and I arrive at the Recycle Swop Shop at 10.30 to sort the clothes and have a general tidy up, only to find a huge queue of ladies. These ladies had started queuing from as early as 8am and were waiting for us to open, which is usually at 1pm!!! They obviously got tired of standing and found some chairs to sit on! Shocked and stunned, we decided to open up 11am.
As they say, ‘The early bird catches the worm’ and for these ladies they know that getting to the Recycle Swop Shop early means they get 1st choice. We stayed open until 3pm to give the school children a chance to bring their recycling too.
So why recycle?
- A cleaner environment
- Job creation
- Reduced costs to local authorities
- Decreased necessity to import raw materials
- Frees up space at landfill sites (Source: Paper Recycling Association of SA)
- And for the children and adults of Du Noon, they get to swop their recycling for clothes, shoes, food, blankets, toiletries and school items.
New clothes from Elkanah Recycling Committee
Thank you Elkanah Recycling Committee for your generous donation of new children’s clothes. Fantastic! Also a big Thank you to Table View Mall, Pick n Pay for their kind donation of 2 boxes of food items.
August 2, 2011 / by admin / Make A Comment / Filed under Swop Shop
A mountain of wonderful biscuits
Melting Moments Biscuits
The day was warm, French music waved its way lazily through the atmosphere. With the smells of fresh bread and the gentle hum of conversation greeting the senses: The Elkanah Market had begun.
This was our 3rd Elkanah Market manning a stall to advertise The Recycle Swop Shop and take donations for food, toiletry and school packs which we will stock our Shop in Du Noon with. It was fantastic weather for the market, and even through the Springboks suffered a crushing defeat by New Zealand, souls were lifted by the warm sun and the vibey atmosphere. We always have a good time chatting to people about what we are doing in Du Noon, joking with the people with stalls close to us, and covering for each other which gives us a chance to wander the market ourselves.
A big thanks to Tarah and Yoyo who gave up their time to help run the stall and thanks to Zahn from Melting Moments who made the most amazing biscuit to give to those who donated, and a Massive thanks to everyone who dontated!
The people in Du Noon will really appreciate all the items that you bought for them.
For more infomation on the Recycle Swop Shop click here to check it out.
August 2, 2011 / by admin / Make A Comment / Filed under Lego Robotics
Well the Build a Bot week long course is over, it ran from the 11th to the 15th of July and went off smashingly.
The 3 teams and their robots
The week long course ran in the last week of the school holidays and we had six young evil geniuses ready to build robots to conquer the world. With a mix of lessons on building, designing and programming the students were soon creating robots to deal with the furious challenges I laid before them. Working in teams of two the guys built robots to deal with different problems, from precision robot movement all the way through to using advanced sensors like the ultrasonic sensor to detect the distance of obstacles and light sensors to detect and follow lines.
A robot on the course
Their final challenge threw all the concepts together and had them build a robot to collect a series of loops and columns, all the while having to avoid knocking over walls or collectable items (Which would lose them points). The designs were all different. From a munching robot that used big jaws to “eat” all the collectables (its giant mouth/claw was truly fierce), to a team that collected rings with a long spike and used a massive boom to pick up the columns. The winning team, however, favoured simplicity and structurally outstanding design. It collected the rings with a long 2 pronged “arm” that would lift to keep the loops secure. Once these had been returned to base, and extension piece was added to make the arm into a raking claw that collected the columns.
All in all great fun was had by all. A big thanks to Christopher Lanis Who helped out with robot design (he is the designer that won the Elkanah team the first prize in robot design nationally in the Lego League competition) and a big thanks to all the Students who participated, it was great to see how much you learned and the great robots you made.
July 28, 2011 / by admin / Make A Comment / Filed under Swop Shop
A boy with his food token
It was busy busy at the Swop Shop again this week. This community learns fast! Last week we were quite ruthless with not accepting badly soiled or bags with organic waste, however yesterday we received lots of bags of clean recycling! Well done Du Noon recyclers!!!
The afternoon ran smoothly thanks to our team of dedicated and efficient volunteers. Kim was taking tokens and handing out sandwiches. The bread is given to us by Pick n Pay, Table View. Shirley helped in the shop, along with Patricia, Pumba and Porcia. Nathan and Eugene tirelessly collected and stored the recycling bags.
If you would like to join us on Tuesday afternoons from 1pm-4pm, please contact maria<at>beyonded.org or jonathan<at>beyonded.org.
July 28, 2011 / by admin / 1 Comment / Filed under Swop Shop
Patricia and Shelley van Leeuwen
Thanks to Woolworths Marketing the Recycle Swop Shop was donated bags of clothes, food and toiletries as part of their contribution to the Mandela Day community service initiative. Shelley van Leeuwen visited the Recycle Swop Shop last week and delivered the collection of goodies.
It was wonderful to have Shelley visit us and we were greatly encouraged by all her words of support. Thank you so much to all at Woolworths Marketing.
July 21, 2011 / by admin / Make A Comment / Filed under Lego Robotics
Leandro Del Mistro, Joshua du Plooy, Daniela Aldera, Jason Di Leva, Kalvin Sutherland and Jeremiah Chirwa
One of the teams putting their robot through its paces.
The Build a Bot Programme ran from the 11th to the 15th of July during the Winter School holidays. We had a group of 6 students, Joshua du Plooy, Daniela Aldera, Jason Di Leva, Leandro Del Mistro, Kalvin Sutherland and Jeremiah Chirwa, who attended the programme. Their facilitator was Jonathan Schoots, assisted by Chris Lanis, the Robot designer of the team who won best robot design for the South Africa Lego League Competition.
Let me start by saying how wonderfully well they all did! And what great team spirit and comradeship.
There was much excitement buzzing around the room as the 3 teams aimed to finish programing their robots, to complete the circuit, they had planned and worked on that week. They each made last minute adjustments and at 12.30 they were all asked to stop. One by one their parents arrived and the presentation began.
Each team set their Robots off on the course and it was with much ooohhs and aahhhs as the on lookers watched the robots pick up rings, push bricks and maneuver columns. The teams were judged on their projects by Jonathan and Chris and after a few words and checking of scores, a winning team was decided upon. Well done to all the participants! It certainly seems that a good time was had by all.
Jonathan, the kids all agreed you made the week for them! Great stuff!
July 21, 2011 / by admin / Make A Comment / Filed under Zusakhe
Newly painted Kitchen container by Restorative Arts Festival 2011
The team of painters from Restorative Arts Festival have been working hard over the past month to give Zusakhe a new look and what an amazing job they have done!
The containers have been painted in bold and bright colours, the amazing works of art are breathtaking and the place has been transformed. Thank you so much for all your hard work! You are such a dedicated and talented team and your art will bring joy to many for a long time.
