Three of us arrived at Frenford Food Bank to offload two weeks worth of Scout donations. It was good to see our Helen was available to join us today, she was a great help. Ed took charge of another helper who was the young Son of a Lady in the keep fit class.

The variation in goods that we get in these donations is considerable from a tin of biscuits from Harrods to an opened packet of Walkers Mix Ups where they'd taken their favourites out and sellotaped the bag back down 🙄 Its our job to weed out items like that which are opened and can't be used also the items way beyond their best date e.g. rice pudding from 2015. There are some of us prepared to take stuff that is a little bit past its best date home and replace it with fresh next time we come but 2015 was a bit much even for us 😳 The few oddities we get are far outweighed by the rest of the donations most of which is clearly bought new to give to the foodbank. With two full trolley losds sorted the shelves were considerably fuller than when we started.

Now if I could have just remembered to have taken photos it would have been a job well done🤦‍♀️ So here are some old ones which pretty much demonstrate what we did 😆

First Half - With England in the final it seemed a football reference in the title was appropriate. There was no time to discuss the match as for the first little while there was just the two of us, AJ and Linda, picking and packing at Frenford Foodbank. Whilst we know others will join us as they finish work there is always a niggling "what if it ends up just the two of us" thought as we move about in the eerie quiet of a usually bustling sports centre.

Half Time - A client turned up a little early and their parcel wasn't ready so we scurried about putting that together just as our new member Mira arrived. I hope he realised how welcomed he was as we invited him to throw his stuff on the floor and get stuck in with our rush job. Happy to say there was a little time for the niceties, introductions and brief training later. Mira soon had the hang of it and made a very useful contribution to the session sending a massive welcome to the group Mira.

2nd Half - Herman and Tina arrived straight from work and got started, Herman pointed out that there was a message from James asking if we still needed help so a speedy "get your bum over here" reply was sent. We ended up with 6 Goodgymmers and some Frenford staff, commandeered from their usual jobs by the task owner, so everything got done in good time and there was also a little time at the end of session to do a little shelf filling and the obligatory photo session - AJ had left due to family obligations before then so I have used a cute one from a previous session 😊

Game Over We Won 🥳🥳

We arrived at Frenford Foodbank to find two trolley loads of donations and a supermarket delivery. AJ started by sorting out shelves, moving anything incorrectly placed and tidying up, Ed and Peter sorted out the donations and Linda moved some stock that the Task owner had previously requested to be shifted.

Pretty soon those jobs were done and we all moved on to off loading the supermarket delivery. We had all done this job before and were finished in double quick time, including tidying up after ourselves. All ready for Thursdays picking and packing. Nicely done people 😁

It was a busy session at Frenford Food Bank. Still getting used to the double quantity of packages in one go and a glitch in printing the order forms causing a late start didn't stop us getting the job done in good time.

A huge welcome to Lukas, a very enthusiastic newcomer to Good Gym, so enthusiastic that he has done his Task Force training even before his first mission!🥳 After a quick run through of the system he was very soon making himself most useful. Also making himself useful was James an unexpected and very welcome arrival. Our regular, reliable and hard working GG couple Tina and Herman completed our team of 5.

We joined with Frenfords Workers and some Duke of Edinburgh Award candidates in the crowded but convivial corridor of supplies busily picking, packing and generally helping each other to get the job done.

Ed and Linda arrived at Frenford FoodBank earlier than advertised and started sorting the supermarket delivery. Pretty soon joined by AJ who got busy unpacking packages that had not been collected from three weeks ago. Ed moved on to sorting the scouts delivery when Herman (a surprise last minute decision to sign up) arrived. Herman hadn't been notified of our earlier start time but it didn't matter as we then had another supermarket delivery come in so we all got involved in sorting that one out.

Confident that everything was prepped ready for Thursdays picking and packing we went on our merry way... forgetting to take photos...again 🙈 so enjoy these old ones 😁

There was a little trepidation about this session as the new system at Frenford Foodbank involves twice the number of packages and the new timing of the session meant we lost a couple of our regular experienced pickers and packers 😢

The session got off to a good start with the arrival of our newest recruit Irena. Irena made it across the border from Havering and soon got to work proving to be a valuable member of the team with minimal instruction. Welcome to Good Gym Irina.😊Talking about valuable members of the team our reliable hard working regulars Tina and Herman soon arrived bright and cheerful ready to tackle the mammoth task. 😁

Happily, despite things not being in the usual place and twice as much to do, things went quite smoothly. It was much easier with the centre being less congested. Although we used up all the allotted time and it was tiring, it was good to get it done all in one session.