So lovely to have last minute sign ups Bernadette and Marie come to help Ed and Linda at Frenford food bank today. Relatively new additions Marie and Bernadette they are already invaluable members of the team. They joined in with super shelf stacker Ed, who was already working with a Frenford volunteer, unpacking two cages of donations and several supermarket delivery crates.

That job got finished in super quick time so the dynamic duo then joined Linda in labeling up the cages for the next picking and packing session, meanwhile Ed restocked the pasta shelves from the store room. Unfortunately moving the pasta uncovered evidence of the inevitable visitor one is likely to get with this kind of stock in storage 🐭💩. That's a little job for another day, next installment to follow tomorrow.

4 goodgymmers and a friend joined forces to restock and stock-take at Frenford food bank this week.

The ggers started by offloading the donations and abandoned collections whilst the friend date checked the biscuits. Sadly there were quite a few that were out of date and we now have procedures in place to make sure they are properly rotated.

Attention was then turned to bringing stock in from the store room while one of us had a count up so the task owner knows how much they need to buy in for the next session.

It was a nice relaxed session with everyone going about their tasks generally chitchatting as they went.

Forgot to take photos so here are some previous ones of all those involved.

At first it seemed we were a little short on the ground at Frenford with just Peter, Ed and Linda on site ( we had three GGrs drop out yesterday) so we got straight on with setting up the session. Pretty soon a couple of volunteers from other groups turned up and got stuck straight in. We were then joined by Bernadette and would like to offer her a huge welcome to Good Gym Redbridge. Bernadette hit the ground running as soon as she got her coat off and provided invaluable help with picking and packing.

As usual everyone worked together playing to our various strengths and weaknesses and got the job done pretty much on time. The task owner has expressed his gratitude for all our hard work. 😊

Next Wednesday we will be restocking the shelves and off loading the usual donations.

There were only two of us at Frenford foodbank this week where we arrived to find an enormous supermarket delivery and two cages full of donations.

Old hands at this job Ed and Linda split the job with one taking on the delivery and the other the donations. We may have been thin in the ground but it meant we had room to spread the job out. It took a little longer than usual but we got the job done and the shelves are lovely and full ahead of next weeks picking and packing session.

A big welcome to Marie and Hayder our two newest GG recruits to the Food Bank at Frenford.

With the four of us quickly clearing donations from the local scouts we decided to make good use of the spare time by checking the BBE dates on the stock. A few out of date items were left with a sign telling people to help themselves at their own risk and a couple of jars of peanut butter that would be out if date by our next deliveries went to a kind church goer who will use them to bake cakes for a fund raiser for the church that our generous scouts attend...nothing goes to waste if we can help it.😁

Report from Hayder ... It was lovely we had to sort out the dates for the food (me and Marie) and Linda and ed were very nice to us. Hope to do it again.

We hope you will do it again too, you were all a great help.

We were delighted to see 5 people expected to attend our morning session at Frenford Food Bank. Ed and Linda started off at a relaxed pace- as there were going to be plenty of people. A local volunteer arrived to help at 11am and it was lucky that she did as no one else came! Overnight 3 GGers had dropped out. I'm sure they have their reasons but it then put pressure on us to up the speed as we had other commitments later. Happy to say the job got done just in time.

We realise people have busy lives but please un-sign if you cant make it.

Another chilly Saturday morning....

Just like last week, a bit of a chill in the air is not stopping the dynamic due of Linda & Ed to get down to Valentines Park and help out with the local parkrun.

As the pictures show, especially Ed was very sharp in spotting hazards and protecting the runners & walkers from slipping on the ice.

The frost does make some lovely scenery though.

3 goodgymmers, 4 Church Goers and several Local Mums teamed up together at Frenford Food Bank. Between us we bagged up over 60 food parcels. With over 1.6km covered (yes we Strava'd it) walking up and down the shelving units, lifting and shifting heavy bags it was agreed we really had worked out by helping out.

The first Saturday parkrun of the year was a chilly one, but that did not deter a good amount of runners & walkers.... and some Goodgymmers as well!

At what is considered GG Redbridge base - Valentines Park - Linda & Ed helped out, with several others running.

GG Redbridge was also represented at Finsbury Park & Roding Valley.

The chilly weather means hands were wrapped up in gloves and phones stayed in pockets, so a couple of xmas parkrun pics instead

a little tidy up post Xmas to get the place ready to resume normal foodbank sessions

'forgot' to take pics, so a stock one will have to do!