Ashram Care
Thank you for keeping our living and learning spaces clean. This is your guide to Govinda Valley's Ashram Care standards
Ashram Care
Once a week, all student partake in cleaning and servicing their living spaces and grounds.
Our outer environment and spaces are a reflection of our inner reality.
If the mind is disorganised, distracted or inattentive, our outer environment and living spaces will also reflect our internal disorder through clutter, build- up of rubbish or waste matter and untidy spaces. Alternatively, if the mind is clear, focused and centred the outer environment will reflect these qualities through organised spaces, cleanliness and ordered storage.
Similarly, the outer environment can influence our inner reality. If our environment is cluttered, full of distractions and objects, our mind will become influenced by the overstimulating clutter and we will ultimately find ourselves irritable, distracted or unfocused.
Personal Room Care
All students are expected to take care of their own personal living space in their own time.
Cleaning Equipment:
If requiring cleaning equipment, you are most welcome to collect them from Housekeeping!
No persmission is required so long as you are cleaning outside of the hours of 9am-1pm and promptly return any equipment after use to their designated space.
Assistance:
Please see Housekeeping department head for any assistance locating cleaning equipment.
Preparing for Room Departure:
Please see the Student Room Room Cleaning and Departure guidelines here.
Grounds Ashram Care
For students in Room 11 and 18, the following tasks are to be tended to weekly
Stairs & Cobwebbing
Watering Plants
Please locate the cobwebber in Housekeeping. After use, please clean the cobwebb and broom fluff before replacing the tools back to their storage location.
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Lunar Room stairs
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Solar Room stairs
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Cobweb the general facility (North wing, South Wing, Communals (Interior and exterior), Guest rooms (exterior)
Kitchen & Fridge
Bins
Recycling: Paper, Aluminium Foil, Cardboard
Landfill: Soft Plastic, Tissues, Napkins,
Non-recyclable food packaging.
Fridge
Sealed food items only
Food items in the fridge or freezer such as cut fruit, must always be sealed with foil or placed into a sealed container before being stored in the fridge or freezer.
Maintain clean fridges
Food items will be tossed by the designated kitchen cleaner weekly if the food appears to be decomposing or neglected.
Sinks & Benchtops
Clean Sinks:
No dishes (clean or unclean) are to be left in the sink at any time.
Please wash and clean all eating equipment immediately after use and allow it to dry in the drying rack
Bring items back to where they came from:
If you have brought dishes from the communal dining area down to the ashram, please bring your items back up to the transfer area immediately at the next meal time to be sanitised and placed back into the dining hall. This ensures minimal clutter in the ashram sink area and that there is sufficient eating crockery in the communal dining halls.
Food Waste
No Food Waste in the Ashram
Food Waste should be placed into the compost bucket in the upstairs Transfer Area not inside the ashram bin/s.
If you are not able to walk up to the upstairs area, please place the food waste into a sealed container and place it into the ashram fridge temporarily. Then at the next meal time, bring the sealed container and empty the food waste contents into the Transfer Compost Bucket to dispose of your food waste.
Bathroom & Toilet
Sinks
Clean Sinks
Please keep sink tops clean and dry after each use.
Avoid placing toothbrushes and personal items on the sink benchtop and use the personal storage shelves instead.
Personal Storage & Items
Use Personal Storage
Please place all personal items into the personal storage shelves.
This ensures soap scum does not accumulate on benchtops and prevents clutter.
Towels & Floormats
Towels
Please refrain from storing any personal towels (wet or dry) in the bathroom.
Please dry your towels outside of the bathroom (in your room, shared drying rack, outdoors) as humidity and mildew can quickly develop in the bathroom otherwise.
Floormats
Please always pick up floor mats after use and hang the floor mat on the rails provided to ensure they dry for the next use.
Equipment & Sprays
Cleaning Cloths and Sprays
Please store all sprays and clean cleaning cloths into the equipment bucket or designated storage area.
Gloves, napkins and toilet paper
Women's: Stored in the cleaning cupboard in the hallway
Men's: TBC
Top ups can be found in Housekeeping
Brooms, Cobwebbers & Vacuum
Sweep before you vacuum
Please sweep large items such as tissues, matchsticks and leaves before vacuuming to avoid vacuum blockages.
Heads up, tail down
Please always store brooms, cobwebs and any sweeper sticks with the bristles and head up and stick down to keep bristles clean.
Empty Vacuum Bin & Remove Broom Fluff
Before returning the vaccum or brooms to their desginated storage, please
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Clean the vaccum/ broom head and remove any build-up or fluff
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Empty the vacuum bin after each use
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Clear any blockages in the vacuum pipe with gloved hands.