Support us Shop Q&A about shops reopening You’ve been so understanding about the closure of our charity shops, thank you! You’ve told us you have missed us on the Island’s high streets and can’t wait for us to reopen, to find bargains and hand over your donations. We've missed them too - not least because normally our shops would raise over £100,000 each month and despite some help from the government during the first three months of the outbreak, our income will still be down. Every penny is vital to ensure we can continue to support Island patients and their families when they need us most. You’ll likely have lots of questions, which we hope we have answered below. Please keep an eye out on our social media pages for more updates as we get them. If you’d like any more information, you can contact us by phoning (01983) 529511 or email us. When are your shops and warehouse reopening? We are aiming to reopen some of our shops from mid to late June. Not all of our shops will be able to open at once, however. Opening hours may vary to the currently listed times and shops will close during lunchtime. At the moment, our opening plan is as follows (subject to change): Warehouse, Newport - OPEN ** This will temporarily be our only donation point ** Mountbatten Newport, Lugley Street - OPEN Mountbatten Cowes, High Street - OPEN Mountbatten Freshwater, Avenue Road - 6 July 2020 Mountbatten Ryde, High Street - 13 July 2020 Mountbatten East Cowes, Ferry Road - 20 July 2020 Mountbatten Shanklin, Regent Street & Mountbatten Ventnor, Pier Street - 27 July 2020 Mountbatten Bembridge Lane End Road & Mountbatten Wootton, High Street - 3 August 2020 We will only be able to re-open a shop once we are completely satisfied that we are able to properly protect our customers, volunteers and staff. Some of our shops have limited space, for example, Mountbatten Wootton, and we are still working on a solution to ensure social distancing can be maintained. Updates will be posted on social media and our website as we have them. What donations can you accept at the warehouse? We are able to accept high quality donations of clothes and bric-a-brac at our warehouse. Please contact our warehouse team directly on (01983) 217291 if you would like to donate large items, in particular items of furniture such as beds, sofas and bedroom items, so that we can ensure we have space to accommodate them. Please note, once we reach our daily capacity for donations, we will not be able to accept any more on that day. What times can I drop off donations at the warehouse? Our warehouse will be open between 10am and 4pm, 7 days a week. However please note that, in order to clean and sort out, our team will need to close the warehouse for a break during lunchtime between 12 and 1pm. How do I get to the warehouse? Our Mountbatten Warehouse can be found at River Way Industrial Estate, 16a, Riverway, Newport PO30 5UX - nearly opposite the Royal Mail depot. Please note that there is very limited parking; the industrial estate can be quite congested with traffic, and there are double-yellow lines outside our warehouse. We are very busy with people dropping off donations, so it may be advisable to phone ahead to check that we have not yet reached capacity for donations. What are you doing to protect shoppers, volunteers and staff? As with all shops, it will be a slightly different shopping experience when we are able to reopen. When you visit any of our shops, you will be asked to use the hand sanitiser provided before entering. There will be plenty of signs and floor stickers to show you around our new one-way systems and shields at our counters have been installed to protect you and our teams. There will also be a limited number of people allowed into our shops at the same time, to allow us to maintain the social distancing rule. For example, only six customers will be allowed at a time in our Newport warehouse. We very much appreciate your support and understanding as we make things as safe as possible for everyone. I have lots of donations ready to give. What shall I do with them? Your donations are incredibly welcome and we are so grateful to you for hanging on to them during the lockdown. You no doubt are keen to get the space back in your home! Your donations of high-quality clothing and furniture (please see list) mean that our support for Island patients and their families - when they need it - most can continue. We ask that you bear with us for just a short while longer. Once we are able to accept your kind donations, we ask that you take them to our Mountbatten Warehouse on Riverway, Newport. This is because we will need to quarantine donations for 72 hours before they can be sorted, and not all of our shops will open at once. Please do not leave any donations outside of our shops as this can land us in trouble! Will you be able to collect furniture and large items? We anticipate being very busy with donations to our Mountbatten Warehouse as we start to reopen our shops. Therefore, we are not able to resume our collection service just yet as all hands will be needed on deck! However, please do hold on to your kind donations and we will let you know as soon as we can come and collect them on our website and on social media. What condition should donations be in? There are some ways you can really help us, as we start to reopen and likely become very busy! By asking a few questions before donating, you can help cut down on our waste costs which means more can go towards direct patient care. For clothes, ask yourself: Is the item clean? Is it damaged in any way? Is the fabric bobbly? Would you buy this item? For electrical goods, ask yourself: Is the item in good repair? Is it dirty? Does it work? For furniture, ask yourself: Is the upholstery ripped or stained? Does it have a fire label still attached? Is the item complete? (unfortunately, we cannot accept flat-packed furniture) Is it clean? (e.g. have the drawers been wiped down?) Is the wood scratched or damaged? For toys and games, ask yourself: Are all the pieces there? Are they broken? Are the boxes badly damaged? Does children’s equipment conform to British Standard? Is it damaged? Are the harnesses intact? Is it complete? We’d be so grateful for your support with this! Thank you. What items can’t you accept? You can find a full list of things we can and can’t accept on our website Will volunteers be able to return to your shops? Volunteers are really important to the running of our shops, and we are working hard to bring as many back as we can. With government rules in place, such as social distancing and the shielding of vulnerable people, we will sometimes be restricted over how many volunteers we can safely allow in our shops. We continue to communicate directly with our shop volunteers to let them know how we hope to return to as much normality as possible. Any volunteer who is unsure about what this means for them should contact us directly by phoning (01983) 529511 or send an email.