To Clean or Not to Clean?


I was planning to go out for a walk with a friend tomorrow morning, to try to prepare for the long sponsored walk in June.  It was the last opportunity we were likely to get before she has to take her children away on holiday at half-term.  As I had wasted a perfectly good opportunity for a walk last week by being in such a miserable mood that I would rather angst about my worries than go out and explore the countryside around Bath, I had been hoping to make up for it with a long, cheerful walk this time, if we could manage it before rain set in.

 

However, yesterday evening I had an urgent text from the manager of the Oakleaf Café:

 

I hope you are well? So sorry to ask this but we are really struggling for volunteers this week and I wondered if you were able to help us out at all on Wednesday between 11-1pm? Tim and I are in Cornwall until Wednesday pm so can't either help unfortunately. 

 

Many thanks, Caroline

 

I slept on the decision, but decided by this morning that I needed to sign up for a café shift clearing tables, washing cups, and taking out trays as needed.  After all, my friend would be somewhat disappointed if I couldn’t join her for a walk, but if I left the café in the morning with only two people to cook meals, make coffee, take orders and accept payments, and clear tables and wash up, it might not be able to open at all, which would disappoint lots of people.  And after all, this was only a training walk.

 

Looking ahead, though, I wonder how things are going to work out in June.  At present, the rota shows as follows:

 

Saturday 1st June: one person signed up for order taking, 9:30 to 13:00.  No-one signed up for the coffee machine, cooking, or clearing and washing.  No-one signed up for the afternoon.

Wednesday 5th June: one person signed up for order taking and one for cooking, 9:30 to 13:00.  No-one signed up for the coffee machine or for clearing and washing.  No-one signed up for afternoon.

Saturday 8th June: no-one signed up for anything.

Wednesday 12th June: one person signed up for cooking in the morning, 9:30 to 13:00.  No-one signed up for anything else.

 

And so it continues.  I realise that I’m hardly in a position to criticise when I’m trying to take an entire month off work, but all the same, the café desperately needs more volunteers. 

 

Oakhill needed somewhere to meet that wasn’t the pub, and in 2023, we managed to make it happen.  We started out, less than 18 months ago, as a café that was open on Saturday mornings from 9 to 12 selling proper coffee and hot chocolate and home-made cakes, and additionally, in winter months, opened on alternate Wednesdays as a ‘warm spaces’ venue giving away free instant coffee and biscuits (but, sadly, not much actual warm space, as we hadn’t got the hang of heating the hall).

 

Since then, we have grown into a thriving community café which is open from 9:30 to 16:30, Saturdays and Wednesdays, with an increasingly substantial range of food as well as coffee.  As it’s summer, we’ve just moved from thick, hearty home-made soups to quiches, the sausage or bacon sandwiches continue to be popular year-round, and we have a freezer full of ice-creams (including varieties that can safely be fed to dogs).

 

None of this is much help, though, if what we don’t have is people to cook and serve the food and clear up.  I realise that many people aren’t in a position to volunteer.  If you have the energy to work, probably you’re already busy with your job or with bringing up small children.  Especially if you are a farmer, I realise that you have particularly busy times of year.  If you have some free time, maybe it’s because you’re too old or ill to work.  Or maybe you are unemployed and looking for a proper, paid job, and will lose benefits if the jobcentre thinks you are spending too many hours on doing voluntary work.  And if you already do volunteer at the café from most of the year, then maybe you, like me, want to take some time off once in a while.

 

However, dear reader, maybe you are the exception.  Maybe you, like me last year, are trying to get back into some kind of work after a long period of unemployment.  Maybe you have children who are no longer toddlers and are capable of entertaining themselves with some of the board games or children’s books from the bookcase over by the sofa in the café, while you take customers’ orders at the till and glance out over the café to keep an eye on your offspring.

 

In the meantime, I’d like to be able to get away and devote myself to long walks every day, but I can wait and see whether I’m needed.  Tomorrow I can get up early and go to the Recreation Ground early, and get some exercise in by working out on the outdoor gym equipment (bought with funds raised by, amongst other things, the café) before my shift starts.  When it comes to the actual walk, perhaps I can do the first leg of my journey in the early morning by a sort of roundabout route that circles back to the café by 11am, do a couple of hours of washing up and get a free sandwich and mug of tea, and then go on from there from 1.  Maybe I could start by doing a circular walk to Gurney Slade, round Binegar Bottom, and then back into Oakhill via Little London?

 

I can do it if necessary.  But I hope I won’t need to.  Or not every time, anyway.

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