A new year, same favourite task - Babybank is back!

So some of the usual suspects gathered at Wanstead House to welcome the lovelyNavratti for her first ever Goodgym experience.

After and initial chat Navratti, James & Linda set off while I waited a few more minutes to see whether Sher would make it down as well. sadly this wasn't the case so I chased the other three down to the babybank, where Natalie and later Jo made their own way to.

It seemed the Christmas break had put some things out of sequence, the lovely laminated labels to separate the age ranges were nowhere to be found. But luckily host Adam found post-it notes!

As always, the amount of bags waiting seem daunting but once again just under the hour all were sorted and it was time to pack up and put all away in the main room for others to do part 2 of the process.

Thanks all for joining in on quite short notice - next sessions are being planned, details to follow

5 of us helped out at Frenford Foodbank today. Frenford had been donated a lot of extra treats that had missed the pre Chirstmas packages. We set a volunteer the task of filling an extra bag of chocolates, biscuits and savoury snacks for each of the recipient families while old hands at the job Ed S. and Peter got on with packing the main body of the packages shortly joined by Natalie. Natalie is a newbie to our Frenford team, she quickly picked up on what was required and proved to be a very useful member of the team, hope to see her again soon 😊 Another welcome sight was Ed F. who came in apologising for coming in late to the session not realising that the new enthusiasm and energy of a later arrival is so welcome just as we are starting to flag. It also meant he was up for helping with some of the closing tasks. Great session, well done to all involved.

Due to a small miss communication problem, our newest googym member came to our HQ instead of at the baby bank location. At our HQ we had Linda, Peter, Jo, and James. We split into 2 groups, Linda and Peter ran to the baby bank and Jo and James walked over to there.

once we got there, we met Natalie, and the Task Owner and his two little helpers had quite a few bags of donation already out for us to get stuck into.

we managed to get done by 8pm and we all headed our separate ways and called it a good job

As the title already implies, the planned babybank session this evening sadly fell through - locked doors and nobody appearing with a key and the code to the alarm.

WhatsApp message left, number called & voicemail left, but no response so there was not much else to do than to pack up and make our different ways home again.

On the positive side, we did get the chance to meet the lovely Jo on her first Goodgym experience - not quite the best 1st impression with the task dropping out like this. Do give her a cheer for at least making her way down on a day where transport options are very much under pressure.

The same traffic issues led to regulars Linda & AJ having to pull out, with apologies received.

Fingers crossed a babybank sessio will be re-instated soon - watch this space, or better said the Goodgym website!

5 Goodgymmers made their way to the last Babybank session before the summer break, by the usual variety of methods, including running, cycling & walking.

Adam discovered the nice laminated labels to mark the different age categories had disappeared, so we were back to the old school post-it notes and soon got stuck into the bags provided.

For some reason this load seemed to have a higher than usual amount of clothing being too big - 3 or 4 year olds don't quite classify as a baby anymore!

As if we aimed fir it, on the mark at 8 all bags were sorted, plies bagged up and put away for others to process from there.

Job done, we said our goodbyes and made our respective ways home. With the babybank now closed for the summer break, we'll find out in a few weeks when we will be resuming sorting duties, so keep an eye on the website for updates.

Time flies.... another 6 weeks seem to have disappeared and the next Babybank session has popped up already!

Julia rode down & Natalie walked, while Bessie went all out on her first Goodgym experience (give her a cheer!) and joined the run from Wanstead House, with James explaining all about Goodgym.

As always, our host Adam was waiting with a couple of bags to sort and the offer of coffee / tea / water.

It is always an eb & flow of donations and thus items to sort - this time round we were actually finished ahead of schedule!

Thanks for dropping by & helping out - see you back in 6 weeks?