Mats and chats

On this wonderful Monday session, 7 of us gathered to a very warm welcome from Vallance Girls Youth Club at the Hason Raja Centre, just by Spitalfields.

We all said our hellos, and introduced ourselves with the following:

• Our name
• What we do
• Our most embarrassing Zoom moment in lockdown

Then we moved onto our fitness session, a delightful combo of exercises using discs, bands and body weight to kickstart our lunchtime session.

We then had the briefest of breaks before getting into groups to chat all things careers.

With a very, very tricky time behind them, the Vallance girls were able to express some of their concerns about their A-level situation; their uni applications and career concerns going forward, before speaking to the GoodGymers, who brought with them experiences of uni careers going on hold; pursuing different vocations to those subjects they'd studied, and not doing so well at school!

And so these careers that range from engineering to finance were brought to the discussion table, where pragmatism, hope and experience were the order of the day.

It was a brilliant time. I think everybody left feeling a bit more hopeful, useful and energised.

Thank you to the incredible members who enabled this session to take place today, for your generosity of time and experience: Jennifer, Jo, Anna, Becky, Sarah, and Aine.

Let's do it again soon.