Support Us Shop with us Reopening our shops All three of our Mountbatten Hampshire shops have now reopened. We are so pleased to be welcoming you back - our shops raise significant funds each month and despite some help from the government during the coronavirus pandemic, our income was down. Every penny is vital to ensure we can continue to support patients and their families across Southampton and west Hampshire when they need us most. You are likely to 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, please call 02381780123. When are your shops reopening? Our shops in Hedge End, Weeke and West End have now reopened. All our shops will be open between 9am till 4pm, though closed for lunch between 12pm and 1pm Monday to Saturday. They will be closed on Sundays. What are you doing to protect shoppers, volunteers and staff? As with all shops, it will be a slightly different shopping experience. We have installed new signage, one-way systems and shields at our counters. 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. 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 lockdown. You no doubt are keen to get the space back in your home! Your donations of high quality clothing (please see list) mean that our support for patients and their families - when they need it most - can continue. We ask that you take them to our shops directly, as we are unable to accept donations at the hospice, for the time being. This is because we will need to quarantine donations for 72 hours before they can be sorted. Please do not leave any donations outside of our shops as this can land us in trouble! 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 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? Is it complete? We’d be so grateful for your support with this! Thank you. We are unable to accept any of the following: Furniture Microwaves Printers Foot spas Bikes Scooters Prams Pushchairs 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.