Lucia Z

What a day at the Farm! It never disappoints to spend two quality hours helping out at Surrey Docks Farm and in turn spending the last 30 minutes cuddling sheep, goats and petting the young calves. What's not to love?

Firstly, I would like to welcome Ema, who chose wisely to do her first ever GoodGym mission and in turn, getting her first Good Deed at the Farm! Welcome to the GoodGym community and hopefully, you had fun today despite the tasks that we were put up to. Those new gardening gloves had quite an induction today 😂

Tasks at the Farm

Gemma (the task owner) had let us into the Farm with a smile, asked us to do the usual - lock up our bikes (those who cycled over), wash our hands and provided gardening gloves to those who needed it AND THEN she told us we were going to be dealing with 💩 today! Which to my surprise, everyone was up for it 😲

First Task: £2.50 Bag of Manure

The first task was to bag the manure from the muck heap, which had mature manure baking in the Sunday ☀️ to our delight! Each manure bag gets sold for £2.50, but Gemma showed us where we would have to put the final product (on this pallet) and there was this sad looking bag of manure, that hadn't been filled to the top...giving us an example of what not to do 😉

There's money in 💩 - Gaby

We had a system in place as well as Gemma showing us one of the devices a volunteer made out of two bottomless buckets and a wooden stool. We would put an empty bag in one of the bottomless buckets and then put the other one on top (sandwich it in) to keep the bag open and in place. Lucia and Claire paired up at first as well as Ema and Gaby, but by the end of the hour we were all helping each other either bagging the manure with the pitchfork, holding the bag open/tying them and/or transporting the bags of manure in a wheelbarrow to the pallet. The efficiency produced 13 bags (unlukcy for some) of manure in 50 minutes....try to automate that! 😂

There's a mouse! 🐭 - Claire

Second Task: The Endless 🐐 Sweep

After an hour on the muck heap, we were rewarded with being in the presence of the 🐐s in their pen. Their courtyard was particularly filled up with 💩 and Gemma had asked us to do a thorough job in sweeping. Yet, as we swept, we wept as we witnessed the goats spoil our efforts in keep their home clean. Still, we couldn't stay mad at them as today they were friendly instead of scared of us. Sometimes they were a bit too nosy or just in the way of our task! 🙄

Treat: Cuddles with 🐑,🐐 and 🐄

Even though we had 30 minutes left, we felt like we deserved more time with the animals after our shoes and clothes were covered in their 💩. Gemma agreed and did a small tour of the farm, where we spent time with the 🐑,🐐 and 🐄! Just what you want to end the weekend! 😊

Future tasks at Surrey Docks Farm will appear once again, but we are having a break from them for the next few weekends! We hope to help them out and I am sure they will be in touch, late Autumn and into winter! Look out for these missions on the website!

This Saturday Kinship Hub is delivering food ingredient packs for local families to take part in the weekly Cooking Club online.

You will need to provide your own backpack or panier bag, the food parcel weight will be 2-5kg. As some members will be required to carry 2 food parcels, both a rucksack and panier bag may be needed.

Deliveries will be collected from Dennett's Road SE14 at 12pm. Distances vary from 2km-9km so Cyclists will be needed.

Please check the postcodes on this spreadsheet. Choose a Delivery Role (1 - 10) and add your NAME to the list.

Your Run Leader will email you the task address the day before (Friday), and you will be given your full delivery address details when you arrive at the task.

Are you available to help our friends at Food2You on a Thursday morning in Surrey Quays? This is a fun task that will make a big difference!

What's involved?

• Meet Food2You team at Tesco in Surrey Quays between 9-11am
• Pick up a shopping list and head into the store to find the items
• Bring these back to the team, where together, you will double check the items before they are boxed to go through the till

ON ARRIVAL

• If you arrive and there is a queue, go to the front and tell them you are volunteering with Food2You/Age UK and they will let you in
• Walk through the store to the far end. In between the alcohol and the bakery section there is a big double white door. Go through the door, turn left, and Terry and the team should all be in there
• If you can't find the way, look out for shoppers in Tesco with red clipboards, that say 'I'm shopping for local older people' on the back, and they will be able to point you in the right direction!

Food2You is a shopping delivery service provided for older people through Age UK. We are excited to be able to get involved, with this task now a weekly activity on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings.

You will, of course, need to adhere to social distancing rules, wear a mask and gloves and take direction from the Food2You team.

A warm afternoon for manure forking and weeding but we soldiered on. Got a little face time with the animals before we left.