The Leathersellers’ Company Charities Reception

Back in June, Teresa, our supplies manager, represented the Scrapstore at a gathering held by the Leathersellers' Company for charities and grant-giving trusts, held at St Bodolph's Hall.

"The leather brooch pinned to my jacket was wasted as it was too hot to keep the jacket on!.. but my first conversation was with the Immediate Pastmaster (Matthew Pellereau) who took me over to Geoff Russell-Jones (Charities & Education Officer) who greeted me very warmly.

He had evidently been following the progress of our leather deliveries from Tustings and Pittards. He was so pleased with Work and Play, and then introduced me to Nick Tusting, a senior family member who told me that the leather they sent to us would have gone to China to be cut up, made into patchwork bags and then exported back to the UK for sale – so we weren’t to worry about cutting it up. He took one of our new folded flyers for Alistair, the family member who had been dealing with us.

The present Master (Martin Pebody) called for silence and officially welcomed us all and introduced Geoff Russell-Jones. It was a lovely surprise when Geoff said he wanted to say something too and started talking about Work and Play. He said how delighted he was when a particular charity was able to use the opportunity before it such as Work and Play Scrapstore, who managed to get Supplies as well as a grant!

I had plenty of conversations with other charities who all said that Work and Play had had plenty of publicity that evening - “Oh, so you are the Scrapstore that he was talking about. How does it work?”

It was a lovely evening, and really good to meet face to face with some of our benefactors and people from other charities."