Leaflets leaflets and more leaflets

When I went to LOROS on Tuesday morning to pick up the leaflets and the details of the drop areas I knew instantly that this one was going to be a challenge.

My contact at LOROS. Andrew, who is off to clim Kilimanjaro today, offered the parting words "I have probably given you way too many leaflets" - As it turned out he had given me far too few.

I had spent the afternoon with Mels help sorting out batches of leaflets and labeling them with the appropriate streets. I also felt like a spy as I studied the aerial photos on the satellite map view counting out all the houses.

We only had enough for about 8-9 streets so when I tell you that in that patch we were supposed to have done about 15 you will see what I mean about not having enough. As it was, it worked out pretty well time wise.

We were delighted to welcome Madillyn and Madisen to GoodGym for the first time. We learnt that they had recently arrived in Leicester from California and Missouri - this was an odd task in that it wasnt as social as most due to us having to split up and deliver the leaflets, but the ladies had a good chat on the run down and with me and everyone introduced themselves when we met at the distribution point aka my car. I was personally inspired by their enthusiasm and smiling faces - even when the run got tough, still a smile! - At Jims suggestions we changed the route slightly to give our newcomers a look at Abbey Park. I tried to play tour guide only for it to expose my weakness in historical knowledge - I know that Cardinal Wolsey has something to do with the Abbey ruins but thats the extent of what I know. Even our resident History graduate Nicola couldnt enlighten us further - not the period she studies.... so answers on a postcard next week please!!

We met up with the advance party outside one of our "customer" sites, the Lohana Centre and we divvied up the work. As always, the team just got on with. Working in pairs we set about notifying the residents of Belgrave that a Marathon is passing their way in a few weeks time so they may want to think about their travel plans that day.

Fair play to the ladies from the US.... first challenge was to find and deliver leaflets to a random set of streets in deepest Leicester in the middle of England. "so we are just pushing em through the mailbox right?" said one "Thats it" I said and they were off... and still smiling.

On the way back, despite Jims best efforts to fool me into thinking it was later than it actually was and that there was no time for a gym session, we did actually manage a few simple urban circuits on the way back.

Its more of the same next week and may have to organise an ad hoc mission to offload some of the more outlying streets so watch this space.