17 March 2023 – Coffee@Upcycle in Chepstow is hosting a fundraiser for the Turkish/Syrian Earthquake. Everyone welcome. Just turn up on the night. Syrian sharing platters of food and Mathern Male Voice Choir.
March 2023 – New Expanded Kids Upcycle to be opened on new mezzanine in Cinderford in March 2023.
Jan 2023 – Retro Clothing section has been introduced in the coffee shop and early responses show it is going to be very popular.
Kids upcycle is thriving in both Chepstow and Cinderford, with a huge amount of stock arriving everyday and loads of kids, parents, grandparents, aunties, uncles and friends enjoying browsing and buying the stock. Saving some money and saving the environment at the same time!!
We built a house in Uganda for school teachers to live in next to the school! This means that the regular absences due to poor transport of teachers living many miles away from school will no longer be a problem, and the children will receive their education!
Katie is our coffee shop manager, running coffee@upcycle, serving exceptional coffee, cakes and lunches with her brilliant team. There are also milkshakes, smoothies, ice creams and lots more on offer.
Friday night events have begun and proven to be a huge success. Lots of variety through the summer months and into the autumn, including lots of different pop up food stalls, desserts and music. Variety of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks and bar snacks served in a lovely welcoming courtyard.
March 2022 – Following the outbreak of war in the Ukraine we asked for your donations and very quickly had enough provisions to fill 2 vans, so we set off for the a collection warehouse on the Polish border with our team; Matt, Rob, Luke and Pete. A fantastic thing for these guys to do – we are all so proud of them.
Cinderford – You can now find us at 8-10 Hollywood Works.
Only 100m up the road, so don’t worry!!!
Upcycle in Cinderford is moving into a new bigger warehouse which is one the same site, but nearer the entrance. As our regular customers will know, we spend alot of time at Cinderford running from one unit to the other with furniture and phone calls and tools. The new unit will mean all our staff, volunteers, …..and our furniture, will all be in the same space.
The new unit will also provide more opportunities for the future as Upcycle continues to grow. Please bear with us during the move, it’s going to be a little chaotic for the week before.
Official opening date is 4th March 9am. Come down for a free cake while you look around!
A great article in the South Wales Argus this week. Some fantastic pictures there too. February 2019.
Our Furthest Delivery Yet!
Thanks to a friend of the project, three beautiful Christian artworks, donated to Upcycle, will be making their way to a bear Ugandan Church. Thanks Rachel!
See our Ugandan Upcycle page for more on what we do for this region.
Bike Project Underway
January 2019
Together with Ed Haythornthwaite of ifixbikes, we are launching a bike project which will be run from our small Gatehouse in Chepstow and our units in Cinderford. The project will include workshops, training and selling refurbished donated bikes. We are arranging meetings with Monmouthshire Council to enable us to collect usable bikes from their recycling centres and have started a justgiving page to raise the funds needed to kit out the workshop. Please support us in this and share with your friends. The sooner we raise the funds, the sooner we will be going. Keep an eye on our Bike Project page for an update on progress.
Bristol Bike Project has been a huge inspiration:
Chepstow and Caldicot Lions clean up our act!
December 2018
We have just received a fantastic donation from the Chepstow and Caldicot Lions of a steam cleaner. This will be a great help for cleaning up sofas, mattresses and other upholstered items, before they are sold.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE KIND DONATION AND CONTINUED SUPPORT!
Massive thanks to Ashley and Rona
September 2018
A Big thanks goes out to two of our Trustees Ashley and Rona for working tirelessly to sort out the huge number of chairs we have at Chepstow. After a fair few days hard work, the chairs are now displayed on the wall and look great. Everyone can see them properly and it has also freed up extra space on the mezzanine for other bits and bobs. Thanks Ashley and Rona. 
A visit from Lady Bathurst.
On a very windy 20th September we had a visit from the lovely Lady Bathurst. After showing her around the unit and introducing her to some of the team we shared some stories about the people we have helped with our gardening project.
Lady Bathurst had a good chat with Tom about the work he does at Upcycling and took a keen interest in our ECO corner and the work we are doing to reduce plastic in the environment.
Eco Store due to open 19th March.
Come and see us, and bring your empty detergent bottles.
We have washing up liquid, Laundry liquid, Fabric Conditioner, kitchen and bathroom cleaner; all available on tap from 25l drums. The drums will then be refilled or reused by a local chemical firm.
Before bringing your bottles down, ensure you wash them out first!
We also have lots of other stock to help you reduce your plastic footprint, including
- Washing up sponges and scrapers made from natural materials
- Reusable coffee cups made from bamboo fibre
- Recycled aluminium foil
- Recycled toilet roll, package free
- Bars of soap, shampoo and shaving soap.
- Tins of natural deodorant
- Body loofahs made from natural materials.
- Bamboo toothbrushes and soap dishes
We will also be creating plastic free gift baskets – a great idea for your eco-conscious friends. Pictures will be uploaded to the facebook page soon.
Late Night Thursdays
After the sad decision to close the King’s Head we have decided to give our customers more chance to browse and buy on a Thursday by closing at 6.30pm. This late night opening is happening in Cinderford and Chepstow from 4th January.
We hope to see lots of customers new and old making the most of this after work shopping opportunity!
Honesty in the Forest of Dean.
Sadly today, November 28th, we had to post a plea on Facebook for the return of our electric screwdriver and batteries, which had been stolen from the charity workshop. We had very little belief that it would make any difference, and thought the item was gone for good.
However, within minutes of the post going we live, our facebook went crazy
with people sending messages of where they had seen the item for sale on other posts. People were sending us the links and just 7 minutes later we were able to contact the person advertising the item. We called them up and asked them to return it, which they did, and within the hour we had our tools back.
We want to say a massive thankyou to all the amazing, honest people of the Forest of Dean Facebook community for their help in this. We still can’t believe it!!!!
More Upcycling in Chepstow thanks to the Nature Save Trust.
This November Monmouthshire Upcycle were lucky enough to receive some funding from Nature Save Trust for the purchase of tools and equipment to help them on their mission to save more furniture from landfill.
The branch at Chepstow, managed by Kris, now has a huge number of volunteers, all working hard to give tired, worn out furniture a new lease of life. Margaret has been volunteering with the charity since August and is enjoying painting items, often working with Darcy who is learning new painting techniques. Jem, a retired carpenter is a great asset for working with antique furniture that needs fixing. He has also given us a huge amount of advice on how to get wooden finishes looking up to scratch.
Connor, Phil and Spencer have all worked hard on making the shop look amazing and sanding down pieces for re-finishing.
The funds from Nature Save Trust have allowed us to buy some new electric sanders, which make the work more speedy and look more professional. We have also purchased a table saw, enabling us to take on larger, more complicated projects.
Jen is the new GEM.
We are pleased to welcome Jen to the team at Forest Upcycling Project. Jen has taken over from Nadine as the new GEM Navigator Developer. She will be working with people from the Forest of Dean who are struggling to get back into the labour market and need some extra help and assistance.
Jen has a background in charitable work through Fair Shares, and also has experience of advising people with mental health disorders.
Welcome to the team Jen, we are glad to have you aboard.
Upcycle joins forces with Gloucestershire County Council in the GEM project.
GEM is a social inclusion aimed at working with individuals on a one to one basis to help them become part of their community. This could include helping them find training, volunteering opportunities, or employment.
Nadine Jones is the Navigator Developer for Forest Upcycling Project and will be working with participants to develop individual pathways that are right for them. If you, or someone you know might benefit from this type of support, please contact Nadine on gem.upcycle@gmail.com
Thanks to the Chepstow Lions and the Postcode Lottery, both who have given donations to our Monmouthshire project in recent months!
Coffee Van making good progress:
Trustee Ashley has been working hard on the coffee van. Machines being fitted on Tuesday 14th June. We are all looking forward to tasting the first coffee!
New showroom now open in Chepstow!!
We have now opened our latest showroom opposite the train station in Chepstow. The first day was a great success and we look forward to meeting more of the local people of Chepstow.
The Project heads for Wales!!
We are now hard at work to get the new showroom in Chepstow ready for opening. A couple more weeks and we should be ready to welcome our first customers in Wales. This will provide lots of opportunities for the people of Chepstow to get involved and help.
The new showroom will be based in Unit 3, Station Yard (a stones throw away from the Railay Station and just around the corner from Tesco).
Anyone for a cuppa?
Many of our customers in Cinderford may have noticed this trailer parked outside our unit for the past few months. We have now secured the funding, thanks to Awards for All to convert this trailer, kindly donated by the Gloucestershire Police Commissioner into a Coffee Wagon. This will be staffed by people from the project and hopefully create two new positions for disadvantaged and vulnerable people in the Forest of Dean and Monmouthshire.
Forest Upcycling Project 