Just another Manic Everyday

Howdy readers, how goes it with you today? All is bustling here, in anticipation of another funder visit today, and I’m just about to get my heels on.

My day started unusually in that I couldn’t cycle in today – boooo! An enthusiastic footballing child whacked a football at the clever bit of my bike the other day, the bit that holds the pedals and gears and all, and it seems something vital has clonked. So I’m going to have a lesson in bike maintenance from my dear brother this weekend, and work out what to do. Until then, it’s just me and my legs for transport.

So let’s see, what’s happened since last week. As ever quite a lot. The funding visit last week went well, I think/hope. We had a great lunch together with a huge bowl of Somali rice which I love. They’ve asked for more info, which can’t be a bad thing, so just got to sit tight now and wait and see. After they left, I had a huge adrenaline crash and just conked out – I had no idea I’d been so tense. There we go. Today’s funding visit is from The Hilden Charitable fund and I’m really looking forward to showing them around and talking to them about the other work they do.

In utterly brilliant news, the women last week broke through the 50 pairs of pants in a session barrier, and made 55. It was a great confidence booster. Our production forecasts were based on numbers we’d been given way back when and we are having to revise them – we had been forecasting 132 pairs to be made in three hours in January, February and March this year so we’re a bit behind – losing the three weeks in December really put us back as the women just aren’t experienced enough to hold their skills without regular practice. Then the spring that sprang caused more problems. Does anyone know the phrase, ‘for the want of a nail, a kingdom was lost? That’s something that goes through my mind a lot here, how something tiny can have a huge impact – no-one else here has a clue what I’m talking about!

On other brilliant news, we have two fab new volunteers. J rocked up one day last week and just knocked on the door and asked to come and help – initiative like that, was I going to say no? Right now, she can come in every day which is a huge bonus as it gives some real consistency to the admin support, and means that Della and I will be able to hand some stuff over – knowing that there is one person as a conduit for all things adminy will mean we don’t have to go chasing on people or worrying things get lost if someone is in just once a week- we just go to one person. And C came to us through our fab bookkeeper Helen and will be coming in regularly to make sure our finance system is kept up to date and everything is filed. It’s not often that I have what I think of as ‘good’ finance meetings – my head just doesn’t work for numbers over and above arithmetic, but the two wonderful women we have working on it are great. Helen has also, brilliantly, secured not only funding to pay for our finance system for a year through the Mark Thomas Mailing List (who I am delighted to day I will be meeting some of on Friday) but committed to sourcing extra paper and supplies to help make sure we can produce and print everything financey that is needed. It’s daft but we are really very poor so even things like printer paper are an expense we have to consider, not something we can just order willy nilly. We do now have two printers (woohoo!) courtesy of some money we have been awarded through our involvement in some local learning exchanges organised by these people http://www.letstry.org.uk We are already hosting crochet sessions, and plan to do some on IT, particularly things like facebook, as the women here want to be able to share photos with their families across the world. They, and we, are looking forward to these classes starting – just got to do a few tweaks to our systems and then get all the wires connected (not as easy as it sounds – network cables get physically flung through the space above the suspended ceilings, sometimes by me, sometimes by other volunteers. Nothing is fast here!)

Sales seem to be creeping up. We’re actively NOT marketing right now as we don’t want to get masses of orders and stress the women. We want them to be making consistent good quality, not loads of pants that we can’t sell. But every day the orders are trickling in, and it’s a good feeling. I have moments of remembering how I used to enjoy sales jobs. I was never one of ‘those’ sales people, I hope. I always liked to help people solve their problems, and that’s how I saw sales. I’m looking forward to solving some pants based emergencies!

We had a great Committee Meeting last Friday, the last one before our very first AGM, which is to be on the 21st May. It feels so grown up! I might make us a birthday cake. A potential new Committee Member came along, who has bags of commercial experience. I’m really hoping that everyone else took to her as much as I did as I think I need the support on the Committee – I bang on and on all over the place about how social enterprise has to be as much about the enterprise as the social – it HAS to make money else it can’t do the social good – I don;t think the women here woudl feel as empowered, which is what we want to achieve, on a handout as they would on wages drawn from their own labour. But right now, I’m the only one with straight, profit making, commercial experience, and it would be fab to have another voice of experience there. One of the things I think I need a bit of support on is how to cope with women who have unrealistic expectations. Two women in our training class have decided that they don’t want to come any more as we are not paying them. I’m not sure they understand that they are still having lessons, they are not able to work without the teacher, and so we can’t employ them yet. I’m worried that they don’t understand why we’re not paying them as I’d hate to think they felt exploited. But the reality is they are not yet doing the job, they are still learning. And that’s got to be understood, one way or another.

We hosted a lovely visit from The School for Social Entrepreneurs the other day, me and pants as a case study. It was fun to talk it through and show people around, and as a tip top tastic bonus, we sold four pairs of pants for cold hard cash too. Brilliant! I’ve also been invited to be part of a case study for Co-operatives South East AGM in June, and we’re going to be part of Total Coverage’s http://www.totalcoverage.co.uk Greener Together initiative, and an event in Co-operatives Fortnight in June/July which will be great fun. I’m very excited to be going to see Refugee Action in Brighton in May too. The seaside, lovely people, and cake!

It’s clearly election time – not only have the women been asking questions,but we’ve been talking to the local MPs too. We’d hoped that both John Denham and Alan Whitehead, the two incumbent MPs could come in, but things have changed as a particular meeting needs them both. I wonder how keen they will be after the 6th? I do really want to get them in, or at least Dr Whitehead for the constituency we are in, as I want the women to see that MPs are available for them to talk to – they are not just distant figures for someone else.

My timing is perfect – I’m finished just in time for tea break. Then it’s all hands on deck for the funders. Hope you are warm, well and enjoying the weather

More next week

Becky

Filed under: Uncategorized, Cake, Funding, heels, Milestones, Pants, training, Women

Nerves? What nerves.. (a funder is due in not many minutes!)

Good morning, good morning!

And what a glorious day it is, the sun is shining, the ducks were quacking happily as I cycled pas Southampton Common duck pond on the way to work, and now I’m in heels – again – which means it’s a big day.

And it is. The John Paul Getty Junior Trust are coming to see us today. We have applied to them for just over £64k to pay part of our rent and wage bill for our first two years. Applying for funds is a long process generally, especially with big charitable funders. There’s usually a first stage application, which often goes to their board or trustees for shortlisting. Then there’s a fuller application, which is usually to be accompanied by things like our rules/constitution (in straight business this would be the Mem and Arts, the business’ governing document) and financial projections, and possibly extracts from our business plan. They often want a bio of each of our Committee members, and can ask for all kinds of other bits too. This generally all goes, again, to a meeting for discussion. And then, if you’re lucky, they ask to come and visit. It’s my understanding that also after a visit, a report is often made to the Board again, and then a decision taken – so this shows, I think, why applying for funds can take a long long time. We put our application to this fund in way back in September, were asked for our fuller application in early March, and here we are now.

So I’m just a bit nervous. But I’m wearing my lovely jewellery that was bought for me all the way from Afghanistan by one of our lovely women, which always grounds me. The women are all excited by the visit too – one told me she prayed for us last night that we would be lucky, and we have Somali rice and Welsh bara brith for lunch. I hope so. It would be such a lifeline to have this extra breathing space, and to know that we could take the pressure off the production a bit, to know that we could pay the rent.

But enough of that, my stomach is flipping all over the place so, let’s see, what else has been going on. I last wrote last week, after we had a visit from a tiny baby. Apparently whomadeyourpants? baby number 2 is scheduled to visit (with mum) at some point soon. We’ve been as busy as ever here, but it’s starting to be busy – doing the work, rather than busy – setting things up. Which feels great. The more we get our processes and procedures bedded in, the more people can get on with things without us helping them, which frees us so much time. And over the last week, things have been getting much much smoother.

And the pants, the pants! Quality is suddenly rocketing – the women are starting to understand the machines more intuitively, which means they are needing the teacher a bit less. We are really looking forward to being able to let the women get on without a teacher as it means we can run shifts when the teacher is not free. All in good time though. We’re very nearly out of pink fabric and waiting for samples of some new – which is very very exciting.

Also, I have had two great conversations with people who are going to come in and help with our next design, and some efficiency and process stuff. One is a 2nd year student who is going to come and do a month work experience with us in August, and the other is someone who has worked in product development all over the world after getting a degree in contour stuff. Both are passionate about gorgeous undies, and ethics too, so we are already getting along well and I’m really looking forward to meeting them both. In fact, I plan to visit the latter in Totnes, which I will get to with bike and train and make a long weekend of it. Lovely! In terms of timing, we’re hoping to host them both in August when we may be quiet here with school holidays hitting us – childcare is such a massive issue, and there’s no getting away from it.

Over the last few weeks I’ve also realised how much I have now come to rely on others. Della has been off for a few days and Aimee has been away. Both are in today and just knowing they are here makes me feel calmer. I can;t believe that I hadn;t actually planned to take on volunteers really – Della was suggested to me by a mutual friend, and Aimee volunteered after I gave a lecture to her class at Uni. It just hadn’t occurred to me that people would want to actually actively give up days to help, and so I was quite prepared to be doing everything myself. I am inordinately glad I am not so doing, and enormously grateful for their time and dedication. I know now that I could not be doing this alone, and find it quite hysterical that I thought I could . I had no idea!

In case you’ve not seen it elsewhere, we have had some great news – Lush have offered us £5k from their CharityPot after their visit to us last week. This will help us create case studies on each fo the women we work with so we can show people who makes their pants, but also they can form part of a CV, and can be used with work we hope to do with Refugee Action on really helping people to understand what life is like for refugees. There are so many misconceptions, and I really want to do something to break a few down. Half of the women we work with, for example, have no recourse to public funds. They get no benefits at all, so the idea that people are coming here and getting free money and free houses is somewhat flawed. But that’s a subject for another day.

And now, dear readers, I must bid you adieu. I have yet another trip to the loo to attend to(my nerves…) and last minute pre to do. More next week – and wish us luck!

Becky

Filed under: Uncategorized, Benefits, Cake, Funding, no recourse to public funds (nrpf), Pants

Brown eyed girl… (and why we don’t yet do man pants)

Morning all!

Well, spring has put in an appearance and now, by the looks of today, disappeared again. Hope it comes back soon.

I am feeling much, much refreshed after my break and I am pleased to report that Della is back in the office, her flat, partner and animals all safe though shaken since that terrible fire.

In other news. Our first ever whomadeyourpants? baby has been to visit us today! Five weeks old and gorgeous, the prettiest eyes and apparently a joy to the family as her dad is one of seven boys! She and mum are doing really well. Mum is hoping to come back to work in two weeks as long as her husband can look after baby while she is here. It’ll only be for about four hours in total but for a lot of the families we work with, childcare is a huge issue. A lot of the husbands have jobs with lowish pay and long hours and very little security (one person I spoke to works for an agency and told me that days off sick were almost punished as no more work would be give that week. A day off for an appointment or a lesson was the same), so taking time out is a struggle. But it’s great to know she wants to come back to us and it was really lovely to meet the little one.

Lots of other things have been happening, particularly around fundraising. We are preparing for the John Paul Getty Junior Trust visit next week, and the Hilden Charitable Fund are coming to see us the week after. I’m writing bids for about six other funds too, and we are awaiting decisions from two other funders. Let’s hope they say yes! Sophie from Lush came to see us yesterday, as we have applied to their Charity Pot Fund to pay for the development of case studies on each of our women. We want to show people what life is really like for refugees, and explain why they are here. Plus I have a personal mission to get the UK to understand the difference between migrant, immigrant, illegal immigrant, economic migrant, asylum seeker and refugee (a post for another day) See photos of Sophie’s visit here http://www.facebook.com/charitypot?v=wall and we had a great chat. I’m hoping to work with Lush locally as well as they, like us, are driven by ethics.

If you’ve followed that facebook link above, you’ll see that the question was raised there about why we don’t do boy pants. This was also flagged in the comments following Lucy Siegle’s mention of us in her Observer column. We do plan to do pants for men, and children, but not yet. And there are two main reasons why – short version is 1) All in good time… Our women are learning one thing at a time (and we only launched in December 09) and 2)we use upcycled fabrics for our pants, which tend to be synthetics. I’m not, personally, sure how many mens or kids pants are made of synthetics so we’d need to look for another supplier. Again… all in good time.

Here’s the longer story

We currently make three styles in three colours in eight sizes – a total of 72 products. To get to an agreed design we commission a series of designs (which costs money) and then select the sort we like best. Revisions are then done (which costs money) and we then tweak and test and show people until we are happy. The picture is then turned into a design (which costs money), usually in a size 10 or 12, and a mock up pair made (which costs money). This is then tweaked and tested and shown around until we are happy (which costs money). Once the final design is agreed, there is a process called ‘grading’ which is where the pattern is scaled up and down to the rest of our size range. This is a very skilled job (it all is, as I’m sure you can tell) and therefore.. costs money..

Once we have the grading set, patterns are produced for each panel. There are all manner of ways this can be done in industry, all of which.. cost lots of money. And as we are currently new, tiny and poor, we do it old skool way with each pattern piece cut out of interfacing (a stiffish sort of cloth which goes into collars). This means that every pair of pants is hand cut, every pattern piece hand cut.. it is very labour intensive – three women cut every week, six sit at machines, and one hand sews bows on. And regular readers will know that our teams only sew for three hours a week each, and we only have two teams right now. We are aiming for ten teams (imagine, us being able to help 100 women a week!) but.. all in good time.

The second point, on the materials, is something scheduled for investigation in 2011 and launch in 2012. We buy fabrics from people who buy fabrics from lingerie companies at the end of season, or when there have been overruns or, for whatever reason, there is surplus fabric around. We do this as I think it is better to diver materials from landfill than it is to produce virgin materials – upcycling is one of the key principles of whomadeyourpants?

It is relatively easy to get lingerie fabrics this way, but I have not yet looked into the availability of the sorts of stuff man pants are made of.. and I’m suspecting that guys, mostly, don’t want pink lace. I’m guessing most man pants are cotton, so we need to find a supplier of upcycled cotton (and relevant elastics etc if possible) in the quantity we would need.

The overarching thing is.. all in good time. I have grand plans and huge ambitions for ridding the world of sweatshops and empowering women through work, and of course, producing really great pants… but we have to get what we are doing now right first. Our very first employees, recruited December 1st 2009, are still training on the job, and we are still working how to do this thing we call whomadeyourpants? It’s brilliant that so many people want us to expand our product range so, if I might be so bold, might I suggest you sign up to our mailing list (or RSS this blog, or become a fan on facebook) to be among the first to hear about any new products as and when we can.

Thanks for reading everyone, it’s tea break time now so I’m off for a caffeine fix. Catch you next week!

Becky

Filed under: Uncategorized, 2010, Babies, man pants, Pants, Products, Technology, Women

Pants closed Thursday 8th and Friday 9th April

Hi everyone,

In haste, a very quick note to explain why we are unexpectedly closed for a few days. The short story is I have to take some time out else I’ll burst, and Della, the other keyholder, has been evacuated from her flat due to fire and kind of has other issues on her mind right now. Long story below.

I have worked myself silly over the last few months, and so an old friend, the lovely itchy delight eczema, came back to see me. A lot. To the extent that a week ago I couldn’t open my eye. Ew! After paying almost £60 for prescriptions of pills, potions and creams, I reluctantly admitted defeat and took some leave. I was due to come back in tomorrow. Yesterday, blissfully, I started to relax and remembered what it was to feel enthused and energetic. I like it.

Then, at half eleven last night, I got a text from Della. If you live in Southampton or even Hampshire you may well have heard about this fire http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/7987499.Two_firefighters_die_tackling_blaze/ Della lives in that block. She and her partner had been evacuated, and are thankfully safe, but that meant that I had to come in today to open up for the sewing session. Losing my last day of leave.

Now I have to say, I feel a bit greedy and indulgent for taking any leave at all, particularly when we’re talking about raging infernos, evacuations and firefighters losing their lives. But I know I need to rest and I know I’m not very good at relaxing, so I’m going to have to explain myself to salve my own conscience. I did had a fairly spectacular breakdown a few years back, due to working myself silly to forget about my past. It’s not wise kids. And I didn’t spot the signs but I was doing the same thing again. My Committee pointed out to me that a significant risk to the business was me going off sick for a month with stress, so I think that, all in all, it’s wisest if I consolidate the leave I have had with two more days now, than risk going doolally again.

This means that we are going to be closed from about 4 today until 9am Monday, and I’m sure that you, lovely people that you are, will understand.

In brief other news, the women who are in today had a great day and we had a fab and interesting conversation about the election. They are really interested in it, so we’re goign to have an info session on it. Anyone got any suggestions for where I can get info on the main parties?

Thanks everyone

Becky

Filed under: Uncategorized, closure, election 2010, Women