From zero to 100 in no time at all – my Benthyg journey

When I moved to Wales, just over a year ago, I’d never heard of a Benthyg and only vaguely heard of a library of things. But that all changed when I saw an advert by Monmouthshire Council asking for volunteers in Chepstow to help set up a Benthyg. Me being me, I did a bit of research into what it was all about and couldn’t quite believe I’d never come across these things before. A Benthyg, a thing that helps people to borrow items they can’t afford or don’t have space to store, or just won’t use very often, what’s not to like? It all helps to save waste and unnecessary buying and helps us to help the environment, small steps but worthwhile.

So, anyway, I responded to the advert, filled in a simple form and soon found myself at a meeting with the council and other potential volunteers. In no time at all we had formed a small team of people willing to put some time and effort into making this happen. We talked and planned then finally got going with a ‘soft’ launch in June/July 2025 (i.e. we didn’t feel fully confident to deal with too much to begin with so only told friends and family). Even then we picked up some new members and loaned out items as people began to notice us in the library and came to see what it was all about. From there we went onto a full, public launch, with the Town Mayor, local councillors and others involved, in September 2025.

It felt like a rapid journey from first conversations in March/April to fully operational and open to the public in September. But, with lots of help from Benthyg Cymru and Monmouthshire Council, we had done it, we had gone from a small group of volunteers to a local Benthyg open once a week in the library. We had progressed from around 30 items to over 100 in our inventory and averaged 10-15 loans a month (not many but we are only open an hour a week)! We now have over 200 members and have made over 150 loans in our first year.

We’re lucky enough to have a volunteer who also volunteers at the reuse shop at our local waste recycling centre. He has consistently diverted electrical and other items from landfill to our Benthyg so they can be used by our community in Chepstow. We have also benefitted from the local pop-up Repair Café, where we have taken items that need repairing. They have either been able to fix them or identify the parts needed for us to fix them.

During those first few months I’d met new people, learnt how to use the borrowing software, got a certificate in PAT testing, written articles for the local press and media and enhanced my public facing skills. There’s so much to running a Benthyg that goes on behind the scenes, that most people don’t see. There’s also the public session, that one hour per week when we are open that seems to go rapidly, in a storm of activity, with people bringing  things back, borrowing things and asking about what we do. We PAT test everything on its return, we check everything and make sure it’s ready to go out again. We get all loan items ready for people to pick up, deal with payments and log everything on the system. There’s always 2 of us there during our open sessions, but it still seems really busy sometimes.

In September this year, as we celebrate our anniversary, we will be adding a Wednesday opening, so people have additional time to engage and borrow. We have lots of ideas about how to improve things and engage better with our community here in Chepstow, but all of that needs volunteers. We started with 5 volunteers and we still have 5 volunteers, but whilst some of those have changed over the year, we haven’t managed to add to the numbers. That’s now a priority, encouraging more people to join us and give up a small amount of their time to help keep this going.