Five enthusiast GoodGymmers arrived at the stand in the Brunel Shopping Centre on Saturday afternoon, ready for four and half hours of volunteering to collect donations for Prospect Hospice in return for gift wrapping services. Emily, Jo, Sam, Ashleigh and Tracey took over from the morning volunteers, at a large stand inside a white picket fence covered in tinsel – how festive! With a beautiful array of rolls of wrapping paper, ribbons, gift tags and donation buckets we had everything we needed.

We split into two teams, one inside the picket fence of productivity, and one outside to gather donations. Crazy Legs hadn’t even managed to get her Prospect Hospice sash on before one eager customer arrived, needing help with making their gift look bow-tiful (!). Jo was doing a great job of multi-tasking – encouraging people to part with spare change whilst directing people to the stand and introducing Tracey as a ‘professional’ gift wrapper – eeek! – no pressure there then!

We wrapped gifts in all shapes and sizes from tiny pieces of jewellery, unusual shaped bottles and a huge foot spa and everything in between. With a few items of clothing to wrap, folding skills were also needed. We even added to the service by looking out for price tags that had been left on some items. All for a bargain minimum donation of £2 per gift...

No wrapping paper rip-off here! From the compliments we got, it’s clear our scissor and folding skills were a cut above the rest!

One of the most enjoyable parts of the day was chatting to the customers and listening to the stories behind the gifts - the ones that were thank-yous for the local post office and pharmacy, the ones that were secret Santa gifts, the ones that were going overseas. The people of Swindon are very friendly and good chatters!

We hadn’t appreciated the pressure of getting the just the right size of paper so not to be wasteful, making crisp folds, making the sellotape tidy, tying bows and curling ribbons. And how do you get rid of lots of red glitter that's escaped from the ribbon when you have a white fluffy dressing gown to wrap - but challenge overcome! It was surprising how many people asked to leave gifts for loved ones with us while they went off to do more shopping or to get cash for their donations, although this wasn’t allowed so we politely declined but it’s good to know we didn’t look like gangsta’ wrappers!

We were quite near the doors and the temperatures were suitably wintery. A couple of hours in and in need of refreshment...

...the cavalry arrived in the form of Crazy Legs with cups of hot bru(nel). After a quick warm up we were back on a roll!

Many customers knew people who had benefited from Prospect Hospice and it was good to be helping a local organisation that provides such a valuable service and is so dependent on the donations like the ones we were raising. The good people of Swindon were very generous, with most giving more than the minimum donation and countless others emptying their pockets into the collection buckets.

Ashleigh and Sam did such a good job we estimate their arms were a good inch longer than the start of the day due to the weight of their bucket!

We were Swin-don and it was soon time to wrap up for the day. We’ve tried to think of more great puns about wrapping paper, but they were all tearable. After a quick pack up and return of all the kit and donations to the management office, we were on our way – some to the comfort of a sofa and warm cup of tea and others to the comfort of more lovely GoodGym company at Christmas do at the bowling alley. Another successful community mission complete! Why not join us for another Community Mission this week at Darkroom Espresso? We need your help to make it a success? Click here to find out more and sign up!