Friday 12th June 2020 - Pack 9; networking; outdoor fitness

Posted 8:00pm

Friday evening - and I have managed to complete the next of our weekly mental health packs - number nine.  I will print more details about it on monday, when we distribute and publish it. Personally, I am very proud of this one, as it is the largest so far at 22 pages.  Full of content.

I have sent it off to a couple of people to read through. I always seem to find something wrong after printing!!!

HMHB continues to do a daily fitness session on Highbury Fields. I must admit, part of the reason we do it is for me to get a daily workout. Knowing other people are coming along and relying on me to turn up is a great incentive. It also means I have created a good routine about getting up in the mornings, and getting outdoors every day. It even got me back on my bike again.

The pack is also allowing us the opportunity to network with outside companies. I am determined to try and use it to do all I can to get seed funding when this is over. We have so far created around 160 pages in the first nine issues. For a mentor led project, that has to make people stand up and take notice of us.

Tuesday 9th June 2020 - Pack 8 delivered.

Posted 9:50pm

It's really been eight weeks since we started the packs. And they are a joy to do, even though hard work.
Yesterday we released number eight in the series. And I had to send over 130 emails yesterday and today, as well as draw up around 23 envelopes for others. Feedback has been terrific.

All issues are on our website - and I will blog about new pages tomorrow.

In this issue we looked at:
Mind-set - "all or nothing" thinking.
Nutrition - hot drinks - plus Vitamin B1
Exercise - balance
Health - Oral Health
We also had a quiz, game page, exercise opportunity page, a page re Izzwalkz.
Jam-packed with content - the usual two spelling mistakes (I always find them after printing!!).

Already started on number 9 and will concentrate hard on that tomorrow and Thursday.

And personally - have lost 4.5kg in five weeks. So that in pack too. Keeps me focused. It is getting harder and harder though!!

Saturday 6th June 2020 - Pack preparation: Walk With A Doc

Posted 3:40pm

At the end of tomorrow we launch our eighth pack, which I will include in the blog post.
It's funny to think we have already reached that number.

However, it is good to be organised.  Incredibly, we have the content planned out for the next eight issues. Seriously.  Well, on our four target areas.  That's Mind-set, Nutrition, Exercise, and Health. I have also decided on the recipe of the day. We still have to complete the quiz, and any games.

It is good to be prepared. It means I can research, and even start on future issues. Each one at the moment takes around three days to do, and there is at least one day on distribution. I also like to try and find new contacts to send them too, and even focus on publicity. Although, nobody is jumping on that as yet.

We did get one exciting email this week.  That was from a US based organisation called "Walk With A Doc".  Our own Izzwalkz joined their network in 2018. They were started by a doctor who wanted to get his patient's outdoors, so started his own walk. Now, they are all over the US, and even have walks in many other countries.
I had sent them last week's pack.  They contacted back to say they really liked it, and would it be okay if they shared it on their network.  Naturally, I said yes please.  Not bad!!!  Maybe we will find some international contacts now!!!

Tuesday 2nd June 2020 - Emails, USA recognition, and pack 8 started

Posted 7:00pm

I posted off twenty of our packs today, and emailed off to over 110 addresses too (that was yesterday). It goes to show that we are reaching many different people and organisations. We are starting to get very good feedback too.

One of the most encouraging was from the \USA based - Walk With A Doc.  Our own Izzwalkz walk is part of their network - we joined up with them in 2018. This is going to be reflected on our website soon.

They have walks all over the USA, as well as national, in many countries.  And, they said they were impressed with the mental health packs, and will put our link around their social media!!!  Wow!!  So we could now reach around the world.  Stunning!!!

Lazza has started on pack 8 - and we spent around five hours today, completing six pages, including the quiz page, which took a long time.  But we love it.

Monday 1st June 2020 - HMHB Updates on a new month - yay!

Posted 8:50am

I think this is the earliest I have ever done a blog entry - apart from the odd occasion in the past when I have been up all night.  Thankfully sleep is not too bad at the moment.

So, June here, and where has this year gone?  Lockdown for over two months, and this creating huge changes in the whole world. Business and Personal life has dramatically been overhauled.  And that has also been for Healthy Minds, Healthy Bods.

Naturally, a lot of our normal work is alongside users.  We have our Ajani courses, which we love, and what we want as our main focus. The feedback to our unique delivery and content has been significant.  We have built a great base, with incredible quotes, and a large network of partners.  Our walks are loved. And out fantastic fitness sessions, with Better Gyms allowing us studio space, have gone down really well.

But for the last seven weeks we have been designing and producing weekly mental health packs, and they have grown to 20 pages now (which will be the maximum).  We email out to over 100 addresses, most of which are organisations and companies. We deliver to some local addresses, and post off now as well, thanks to funding from Islington Giving. And we have applied for more funding to carry on when that runs out  (fingers crossed).  Naturally, the dream is salary funding. All this at the moment is volunteer based.

Sadly, that means we may have lost Luke and Dean.  They are amazing, and I have loved working with them both, but they deserve salaries (as do I), and it appears they want to concentrate on their main jobs, which I totally understand. If we could find salary funding then it would be different, but nobody appears to want to trust us enough!!!  I will keep working on this.

The latest pack - number seven - comes out today.  As usual we look at Mind-set, Nutrition, Exercise and Health, plus extras.  In this issue we focus on:
Mind-set:  Self-love (selfish), and looking after number one
Nutrition:  Breakfast - why it's important, plus what we can have
Exercise:  special guest Personal Trainer Richard looks at Upper Body
Health:  Sleep - and we will go deeper in another issue
Lazza cooks Brownies
Quiz Page to make you think
Plus we do a bit of self promotion and other stuff.

All our packs are on our website - and our wonderful website guy (Kacper), who is currently based in Scotland - is doing weekly work on adding pages, adding content, and building up our profile.

It feels great to get this blog back up and running again, after a period of non-activity. Thank to all who read this.  Please  like and follow our blogs. We need support.