It was our third visit to the Brady Arts Centre in Whitechapel to help out "Maternity Mates" from Women's Health & Family Services who are an invaluable source of trained female volunteers who provide practical and emotional support to women during pregnancy, childbirth and the early weeks of motherhood.

After our mass start with the initial big sorting session, our most recent visit was helping with the store room and getting it in order (which included a lot of sorting baby and toddler clothes into age groupings) we followed up today with a final session to take the remaining garments (predominantly early baby clothes) into three distinct groupings,; one-sies, tops and bottoms for boys, girls and unisex clothes as well.

There was a strong turnout of 6 Tower Hamlets regulars, many of which who had been with us last time and we quickly settled into sorting (most of us), transporting (Beth) and labeling (Fiona) and after some exceptional team work and collaboration we were soon done, much to Kelly's delight. She lamented the fact that there wasn't anything more that we could do to help at the moment but expressed her gratitude to all of us that had helped over the three sessions, having made such a big impact.

The ingredients of a good task - Photos, cute baby clothes, sass to your fellow good gymers, someone running off to Paris and a visit to London’s most notorious pub with resident tour guide Sree giving us a running commentary.

On a sunny Monday night we arrived high on vitamin D ready for a challenge, baby baby! Kelly showed us the clothing donations and there was a lot to be sorted. We split into a few teams with the corridor crew sorting 2 fast 2 furious (to the point where they nearly forgot a whole chest of clothes until 10 mins from the end), the inside squad doing much the same but with more chit chat and less forgetting whilst Chris and Leo tackled the side room, rearranging all manner of furniture to create sufficient space for the myriad prams and baby car seats.

We completed the task with Kelly asking us back again - impressed with our hard work

The report was compiled by 5 of the group while enjoying a celebratory drink afterwards - you can guess who wrote each line :)

GG TH were thrilled to be embarking on a new task tonight. Partnering with the dynamic Kelly from WHFS, co-ordinator of their Maternity Mates programme, our task was to empty the store cupboard of its bundles of baby-item donations, sort through the items and return to the store room.

(WHFS is a programme that supports pregnant women with the provision of relevant health services and advocacy, and are always on the lookout for volunteers. You can read more here.)

How it began

Just a small group met at our Hotel base this evening ready to run the 2km route to our task. The route and run were discussed and we were lucky enough to have Chris and Becky leading the run this evening.

By 7pm, a good-sized group had gathered at The Brady Centre, home to WHFS, and were already busy stuffing envelopes as a warm-up to tonight’s activity.

Kelly then gave us a brilliant briefing, as the last few runners arrived, and we made our way to stairwell and store cupboard to start the huge task of bringing down bag after bag of items.

No stopping us

The team blitzed the donations in no time, helped hugely by the vast space we were given to do this, and the fantastic organisation of the task.

After establishing the age range of an item of clothing, the team assigned it to its relevant pile. Baby grows, trackie bottoms, ballet skirts…No label went un-checked as the piles grew.

At just before 8, the bags were emptied, only to be refilled. We carefully folded items back into the bags, now sorted to perfection, loaded the lift and returned the clothes back to the storeroom, where they await packing into baby bags, before making their way to good homes.

How it ended

We posed for a final pic, and dispersed into teams for the remainder of the night:

• The ‘Sporty, Cycling Team’ heading off into the night on feet and wheels

• The Return Runners headed back to the hotel at a pace that meant business.

• The Pub Posse popped down the road, for one for the road.

And that was that.

Shout-outs

• To Kelly at WHFS, for a task we all absolutely loved (and it was brilliant to be joined by colleague, Karen, briefly, to say hello).

• To Darren, whose first GG TH outing this was - fantastic to see you, Darren, and do join again soon.

• To Chris and Becky, and the whole supportive Hotel Running Team, for leading the run there and back.

Next week, we’re out and about in the Mile End Park area. Info and sign-up can be found here.

Until then.