Johnny

Tonight’s run saw us returning to the Royal London Hospital for a couple of really great tasks!

Plenty of planning had been undertaken by the brilliant Barts Volunteers team to ensure we were distributed throughout the hospital as efficiently as possible, tackling the most time-sensitive tasks.

Why were we here?

Resources are as stretched as usual at this huge, much-loved hospital, and so pruning the roses and litter-picking outside the Dental area proved a great bit of activity catch-up in these hospital grounds.

Meanwhile, the newly established Patient and Family Contact Centre had mountains of content to be made up for the new, soon-to-be-renamed Dignity and Activity Trolleys for the wards.

(This department was established during the pandemic as a vital resource for friends and families to stay connected to loved ones in hospital.

Having proved effective and popular, this service is set to stay, and the new activity packs we were preparing are to ensure patient needs are met as much as possible.

Impromptu stays, longer stays, admissions far from home all mean that patients sometimes need access to additional items, such as sanitary products and razors, or even art and craft activity to help them remain occupied and stimulated).

And so to work…

Teams were promptly dispatched out to the John Harrison with Barts Volunteer team member, Mbemba, while the team making up the hospital packs headed ‘round with Tom to meet the dynamic Emma.

The preparation was second-to-none, as always, and Emma wasted no time in assigning each member a task, leaving no stone unturned when it came to briefing (including the interesting fact that as this was an office, and not a clinical environment, face masks were optional).

Toothpaste tubes were stuffed into bags of 20; ditto shower gel and toothbrushes. Felt and glitter were sorted into piles; activity cards bagged up or filed. It was go, go, go.

Meanwhile the gardening team were busy attending to the roses, cutting back the grass and seeing off any rogue litter. Once finished, Mbemba brought the team inside and so we finished up a 12-strong team racing to get as much as we could done in the final few minutes.

Until next time

Despite having run over, the time had flown by!

We said our goodbyes to Emma, Tom and Mbemba, and headed out to the sunny, warm streets of Whitechapel, where we formed two groups: The Sporty Squad, who chose to run straight back to base in Bethnal Green, and The Thirsty Squad, who headed home at a more leisurely pace, via the London Hospital Tavern.

What a great night – well done, everyone.

Next week...

...we’ve been asked to head to the Hollybush Estate to offer some serious weeding help...

Until then.

It was a beautiful night for a spot of gardening. One-by-one the team grew in the picturesque Cemetery park spot, where manager Ken had left us perfect instructions to start tackling the weeds on the main route through the park.

Why were we doing this?

Fast-growing, light-hogging and invasive, Cow Parsley is a Cemetery pest at this time of year. And with the Cemetery’s volunteer source still a little low, our out-of-hours, weed-removal efforts are still very much in demand.

Don’t forget the Goosegrass

So, armed with the speediest weed-removal tutorial from Ken, we set about tackling the Cow Parsley and Goosegrass straying onto the woodland path and numerous gravestones.

Armed with tips and tricks from stem-handling to nettle-sting management, the team worked in a speedy, productive group making their way along the path at record pace, only breaking to shuttle stems and stingers to the weed mountain (more wholesome than it sounds) around the corner.

It was tireless, tiring and terrific fun, as our before and after Cow Parsley pics show.

Before we knew it, it was 8:15 and we were gathering stray stems and saying cheerio.

The Shout-outs

Shout-outs to the whole team who braved nettles, roots and a pollen-tastic environment on this balmy Monday night, to give this valuable community asset and its fantastic team a helping hand.

And the warmest of welcomes to Julia, who joined us from GG Oxford, and Craig, first time GoodGymer. Do come back again soon.

Next week, we’re back with Nancy and her team at Barts Volunteers for our first trip to the Royal London in nearly two years.

Until then.