Big Yellow Self Storage has been happy to give a helping hand to Read International, a fantastic charity and the UK’s one-stop-shop for book donations. They have crafted a hugely inspiring network of students who volunteer at 45 universities across Britain accepting any disused books from anyone and everyone and then ship these to Tanzania and Uganda. These much needed donations give kids in these countries the chance to benefit from books that their schools could never usually afford.
Over 564,000 books have been shipped to date, a great success for them! Because they’re so successful in their donation drives that they acquire a large amount of books before they’re all ready for shipping without having the facilities to store them all. This is where we have been able to help with the cause as we’ve donated space where Read International can house these, sort them and get them ready for shipping. We’re delighted to work with Read International and help them with their great achievements.
To find out how you can get active with READ International or donate books to the project please visit their Facebook group.
Recently our Norwich & Edinburgh branches helped Read International deliver a vast stock of books, view the images in our slide show below.
Do you have a favourite charity that you support? Let us know what yours is in the comment section below.
Did you know that the most creative – and often efficient – use of innovative self storage strategy can actually be found in airports all around the world? From bras filled with snakes to primates stored in trouser pockets, some people try sneaking plainly ridiculous things through customs using methods that are quite frankly bizarre.
Custom officials at Melbourne Airport in 2005 became suspicious when they heard ‘flipping noises’ coming from underneath a woman’s skirt. Suspecting something fishy was occurring, they lifted it up to discover that she was wearing an apron of plastic water-filled bags containing 51 live tropical fish. Another smuggler tried to enter New Mexico with 16 packages of cheese stashed in his truck tires. However, he was busted by a border control X-ray machine and his truck confiscated as he’d failed to declare the extra goods.
Most bizarrely though, a man tried to pass through Los Angeles airport with two pygmy slow loris monkeys stored in pockets on his trousers. The man, Robert Cusack, 49, was travelling from Thailand and had previously drawn attention to himself after four rare birds of paradise escaped from his suitcase and flew over the heads of officials.
We don’t store living plants or animals at Big Yellow Self Storage but you can use our self storage for anything else you’d like for as little as a week, month, year or as long as you want. We only ask for seven days notice when you want to leave. Visit our Quote and reserve online page to get started.
What do you think of the sneaky tactics above? Got any stories you’ve heard about recently. Share your thoughts in the comment section below.
In one of the most crowded countries in the world, space is a big issue. To put this into context, Japan is roughly the size of California, slightly larger than Great Britain, and only a little smaller than France. However, it has over double the population of the UK.
As such, innovation in storing everything from clothes to food is standard. Storage lockers are placed around the city, as are bike racks – and data storage is a large part of the country’s economy.
What can we learn from this though? Building small can be a sign of higher ambitions, and creating a small home can be an amazingly positive and creative act, one which can enhance life in surprising ways.
‘The Very Small Home’ by Azby Brown presents stunning design advances in Japan. Particular emphasis is given to what the author calls ‘the Big Idea’ – the overarching concept that does the most to make the house feel more spacious than it actually is. Among the Big Ideas introduced here are ingenious sources of natural light, well-thought-out atriums, snug but functional kitchens, unobtrusive partitions and free-flowing circulation paths.
This book puts the house designs in the context of lifestyle trends, and highlights their shared characteristics. For each project, the intentions of the designers and occupants are examined. The result is a very human sensibility that runs through the book. A glimpse of the dreams and aspirations that these unique homes represent and that belies their apparent modesty. The second half of the book is devoted to illustrating the special features in the homes, from clever storage and kitchen designs, to ingenious skylights and nooks.
Armadillo Self Storage Sheffield Parkway was delighted to aid St. Luke’s Hospice with their storage needs recently. Every day, St. Luke’s offers excellent specialist care to its patients. Staffing at the hospice has become vitally important to the patients and their families as without the excellent individual care that they provide, St. Luke’s wouldn’t be so unique and valuable. We’ve donated storage space worth £2,000 to a very deserving cause which has been providing care to thousands of seriously ill people within their community since 1971. St. Luke’s we salute you!
Visit Friends of St Luke’s for further information on volunteering, fundraising or making a donation to this amazing charity!
50 staff nationwide from Armadillo Self Storage and Big Yellow Self Storage stores will be setting off to rampage down to the sunny Brighton seafront. No, we’re not off on a beach holiday. Jimmy Gibson (our CEO) and the aptly named ‘The Big Yellow Armadillos’ cycling team will be donning helmets and tackling the London to Brighton bike ride on Sunday 24th June raising funds for Cancer Research UK and the British Heart Foundation.
What’s happening on the day?
It’s a 08:30am start from the Balham store on Sunday 24th June and then a short cycle over to the starting line at Clapham Common where the team will set off on the 54 mile cycle ride south to the finish line on Madeira Drive in a sea of yellow jerseys! We’ll be arriving at around 14:30 / 15:30 at the Brighton store for some much needed refreshments. In the area? Supporters are more than welcome to join us for the festivities!
Did you know that there are many different types of energy – from the type that comes from plugs in the wall to power your electrical items, to the kind being stored in a battery? Solar energy comes from the sun and is not only absorbed by plants and crops to help them grow, but collected here on earth for heating, lighting and other human needs.
A means of collecting the solar energy and a way to generate it are needed to make sure we can access the sun’s energy. This means that the energy can be converted into another form of energy such as electricity and heat. Storing the energy makes it last longer, as the sun does not shine for 24 hours a day – and in some cases not at all!
Solar energy is very well suited for heating purposes and more people are integrating systems into their homes in an attempt to be more environmentally friendly. This heat energy can be stored in a liquid like water or a packed bed. A packed bed is a container in which small objects like stones can be placed. The stones are able to store solar energy. Heat energy can also be stored in phase-changer or heat-of-fusion units which use chemicals to alter solid to liquid at certain temperatures. Later the liquid can return to its solid form and the energy can be used.
At this time of year, we’re all busy sorting through boxes of clothes and books, papers and knick-knacks, trying to work out where on earth they came from. Though much of it ends up at the charity shop or in the paper shredder, you’ll sometimes find a few gems among the mess. In a way, it’s the same for the world wide web – there’s a lot of rubbish, but a lot of fun too. It’s precisely this sentiment that’s inspired the launch of the blogs below, all of which celebrate that one man’s garbage is another man’s gold!
FFFFOUND is a web service that not only allows the users to post and share their favorite images found on the web, but also dynamically recommends each user’s tastes and interests for an inspirational image-based bookmarking experience.
Postsecret – an anonymous collection of secrets on a 4×6 inch postcard. Some postcards are art some are just brutally honest, but all are shown on this online gallery that updates every Sunday.
We all know what it’s like. You’ve had your phone for a while, it’s looking a bit tired – but more importantly, it’s acting it. There are a number of things you can do to fix this, and breathe new life into your handset before banishing it to the back of a drawer for good.
Sluggish performance on most phones is almost always caused by a lack of memory, itself caused by having too many apps on your phone. To delete some apps, go to the main menu and find your applications folder. Doing this will show you a list of all the apps installed on your phone. Tap on an entry and your phone will show you how much memory the app takes up, as well as giving you the option to delete it.
You can set single speed dial keys by holding down the key from the home screen, but for setting up a whole lot, go to the Options menu, select Phone Options and then Speed Dial Numbers. Here, you’ll see the whole alphabet, ready for you to assign.
Finally, using the wrong version of software on your phone can also slow it down. The process for this is different for each manufacturer, but if you call your operator – they’ll be able to talk you through how to update your phone, and delete the old version to save space!
Did you know that most hamsters inhabit semi-desert areas where they live in burrows consisting of multiple tunnels and chambers – the most important of which store food and bedding for the animals to sleep in. Hamsters are nocturnal, so they sleep during the hot days and move around in the evening when it’s cooler. As such, conserving energy is vital.
Most species of hamsters have expandable cheek pouches in which they can carry food and bedding back to their burrow to store. In fact, the word ‘hamster’ comes from the German word ‘hamstern’ which means ‘to hoard’.
A hoard of nuts buried by a rodent 17 million years ago is the oldest food larder so far discovered in the fossil record. A team from the University of Bonn in Germany found a burrow containing 1,800 fossilised nuts when digging at an open-cast mine near Garzweiler. Back then, hamsters were predominately found in the wild, and though they’re mainly now kept as pets, this proves that behaviour hasn’t changed much since then.
Our customers have busy lifestyles – that’s why we’re constantly evolving our service to make your experience as efficient as possible. We’re extremely proud to launch a completely new and unique service to help our new customers save time: Check in online.
With Check in online, we streamline the process of getting ready to move your items into our storage rooms, by offering you the ability to complete everything online.
What’s it all about?
• Our Check in online system helps you enter all your details before you move in, thereby saving you time when you arrive at Big Yellow
• Don’t worry if you don’t have all the information to hand – you can save and come back to the page as many times as you want before you move in.
• Our system helps you plan your self storage more effectively by sending you email reminders to help you get organised for your moving day, perfect for those looking for a stress free experience when renovating or moving home.
Check in online is now open to all reserved customers with internet access – if you’ve reserved over the phone or in person, no need to fret you can still check in online. Just ask our sales team for your customer number, or alternatively check your reservation confirmation email.
Big Yellow Self Storage provides secure do it yourself storage rooms for domestic and business customers for as long or as short a period as required. We provide space that’s easy to arrange, secure – and affordable.
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