Paul Fawcett

Back to the basement we went with GROAD, this time to sort donations for children. We had 4 categories to start off with - boys, girls, soft toys and games - and quickly got to work tackling bags of mixed donations and sorting them into categorised bags. This soon became 5 categories when we added gender neutral toys, 6 when we separated books and 7 when we realised how many items there were for new parents. We were pretty swift at sorting, until Andrea pointed out that there were far too many bags and we needed to be more discerning about what was trash to be discarded, and what was a game rather than a toy. So we picked through the bags and soon had everything fitting much more neatly.  Then it was just a matter of loading up the van and tidying up, and we were done for another session.

Jacqui, Paul and Gayle spent a few hours on one of those days between Xmas and New Year when no-one is quite sure exactly what day it is at Brixton Rec Food Hub. We helped the Healthy Living Platform team pack and load supplies to go to the local community, and unpack the delivery that came in from Fareshare. With such a large operation in place, the team quickly had to learn what went where etc, before engaging muscles that had sort of disappeared over the Xmas period (well, at least in Paul's case!). A bit of cleaning and tidying later, and a job well done was confirmed by all.

The first episode in today's two-parter was a very slick affair.

Everyone turned up (big welcome to Ella on her first GG sesh ever 🎉), we shared our favourite meal deal combo (apart from Dawn - she's never had one 🤘) and got cracking with our task.

We do jobs with the GP Food Co Op a lot - They're basically a bunch of Lambeth GPs who see the benefits of being outside and growing & eating veg, so they've set up a load of planters outside various Lambeth surgeries and patients can help out. It's pretty rad.

Anyway, Crown Dale Medical Centre is getting a big overhaul with a massive extension so the planters need to be moved. But first they had to be emptied of soil - that was our job.

We had 9 shovels, 2 wheelbarrows and a load of huge bags (luckily Chrissy from Crown Dale had bought extras - and we needed them) and needed to move 6 planters-worth of soil into the corner of the car park.

Team 1 got to work quickly, emptying the 3 main planters in no time and making a good start on 2 of the others. Effie and Charlotte became chiefs of the piles (of bags of soil 😉) and even arranged for them to be filled up on top of each other to save space.

After an hour of hard graft, and finding plenty of leftover potatoes, Team 2 came along to finish the job. Over to you Liv...

Here's the link to MERRY QUIZMAS.

Wasn't too sure how to stylize that pun? 🤷‍♂️

ANYWAY - what a lovely warm evening to be in Kennington Park. The place was buzzing and not just because of the bees.

We arrived in drips and drabs which was actually good in terms of keeping a distance (good thinking everyone). 👌👌

So even when I arrived people were cracking on with:

🎋Trimming the lavender (it's going to be made into lavender oil don'tcha know!)

🌱Pulling up pesky bindweed

🗑 Litterpicking!

💀 Dead-heading roses

And plenty of other bits and bobs.

After an hour or so we called it a day. Though some of us stuck around for a game of squat, squat, goose and an un-named core game. ABSA GOLD, ABS from 5ive or ABSO (Abs Behaviour Social Order?)

NICE ONE GUYS

Especially to those of you who are pretty new to GG Lambeth - so great to have you with us. Here's a link to join our WhatsApp and facebook group ✌️

NEXT TUESDAY we've got a task at the lovely Hillside Gardens Park - sign up here.