Alan and Mary Pickles, have become friends of my parents as well as us, living fairly close to my parents in Whitchurch Shropshire, my base now I have moved to Gambia.

Alan has very sucessfully tapped into the resources thrown away by UK schools, as curriculum changes take place and tables and chairs are replaced in sets, leaving many servicable stacking tables and chairs with no place to go.

In general due to the costs of container transport, we have given up sending any items that cannot go in our luggage when returning to Gambia each year. Instead we try to gather money to purchase the resources for our schools in Gambia - This has the most valuable effect of funding crafts people in Gambia and adding much needed resources into the local economy as well as providing all we need in our schools.

Mae Winterton from Cheshire collects money to send a container to gambia each year full of school resources for up river schools and Alan gets many school resources for Mae and in return gets some space in her container to bring boxes for GTS and the school Alan and his church fund at Bundun near Serekunda.

Peter (GTS Membership Secretary) Filly, my mother, Alan & Mary in the garden at Whitchurch August 2007

We spent a very pleasant Sunday afternoon discussing changes in the administration of Alan's St Peters school at teh time Alan came to pick up the GTS boxes.

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