Monday 24th August 2020 - Onwards and Upwards

Posted 2:00pm

It feels really strange to continually be saying - I cannot believe it has been so long between entries.
I think I will have to find a certain time of the day when I concentrate on social media - not just this blog, but also facebook and twitter and our other blog.

I have to try and keep them all up to date, which should be very easy.

We have just published our 19th weekly health pack - nineteen!!!!! Feel extraordinary.  22 pages jam packed full of content. And we do that every week!!!! Wow.

I am so proud of them, and I really want them to lead to more success.
I am meeting up with Scott, our mentor, this week - we do seem to be constantly missing each other, but it should happen thursday. In fact, I am going to travel our of london to hook up with him, which I am very much looking forward to doing.

We have got some new sports equipment (kettlebells and 2 steppers, plus some resistance bands. We also got a new printer, and finally a new laptop (which was getting urgent).

All in all, things are ticking along.  Huge amount to do though.

My weight loss has stagnated, so I am treating this week as if it was number one, and am going to work extra hard to get back on track.

Yay!!!

Wednesday 12th August 2020 - printer and revised pack, plus meetings

Posted 8:00pm

Celebrating our new printer - above - plus a good supply of ink, courtesy of the funding for our packs from the Islington Fund. Really happy as the last one packed up.  It is so nice to be able to keep Healthy Mind, Healthy Bods running properly. Quality is paramount.

This week I have been working on two packs - half way through both.  There is the new pack to come our next Monday - number 18 - and I have already completed the Mind-set and Nutrition parts, and am very happy with them.  But I am also working on the revised version of Pack 1, with expanded content and 12 new pages.  Going well.

Starting to try and get meetings.  I am heading down to Surrey at the end of next week to hook up with our mentor Scott, and I am really looking forward to that. Need to find wys we can use the packs to our advantage, for salaries.

Sunday 9th August 2020 - pack 17: lottery funding:

Posted 9:00pm

The best paid plans!!  I was intending on doing daily blog entries, but at least I am not allowing the gaps to get too big.

A hot weekend has passed us by, but we were still out exercising this morning doing an eight station circuit using our equipment.

I finished pack 17 this evening - by adding my weight.  No change this week, which I sort of expected. This has been week 14 of my concerted effort to reach my targets.  Pack 17 is another 22 page pack, full of content, and we do love doing them.

But our biggest news is that I had an email on Friday confirming that the National Lottery Community Fund were paying us a small grant from the Covid 19 fund, and that enables us to carry on doing packs for a further 6 months, as well as cover our running costs.  Really fantastic news for us, and proof that people like what we are doing.  Hopefully this is another step on the way to full funding and salaries!!

Tuesday 4th August 2020 - Catch up re funding

Posted 1:45pm

This is a crucial time for many organisations like ours, especially as we really want seed funding - which will not just cover the day to day running of a project, but also mean we get salaries. We have been fortunate to get some Covid funding that has enabled us to provide weekly health packs, as this can pay for some volunteer expenses as well as the production costs.

I have just come off the telephone with the National Lottery who have a Covid Fund, and we applied on their "phase 2" part of this, to enable us to carry on with producing packs into the Autumn, as well as looking to pay a Personal Trainer for gym sessions (if Better will allow us to do this).  I was thinking of applying to the Phase 3 release, but they told me that our "2" application was being look at (which is a good sign I hope), and that would would not be allowed to have two applications in at one go. This is sort of good, as I think I would have had to spend the whole of today on that - and it frees me up to do other stuff.

Mostly though, we want to have the opportunity to speak to central government. We deserve a chance after our incredible feedback. Maybe we will get that. I have asked Jeremy Corbyn's office (my MP) if he can help assist with that. Let us see.

Monday 3rd August 2020 - Outdoor fitness and Zumba, plus Gyms

Posted 9:00am

As we are back on the blog, it is time to just update on our fitness sessions, as well as how we are moving forward.

Since April, Lazza has been organising daily fitness sessions every morning (including weekends) in Highbury Fields at 9:30am.  We do something different every day - from Tabata, Pyramid, Circuit Training, etc - and always try and do work on our whole bodies, with Cardio, Legs, Arms and Core.

They are really fun, and we have picked up numbers along with way. I think the most we have had is around 14, or there may just be two of us.  It matters not.  The best thing we have lots of laughs, as well as work hard and sweat.  A great diversity of participants - aged 30 to 85 - and all abilities.  The group are constantly amazing me.

We also have the honour of Karina running some Zumba classes on Sunday mornings in June. She is back in Latvia at the moment, but has said on her return she will restart them. They are such fun, and the group really loved them.

I have contacted the gyms at Highbury, Sobell and Pancras to see if we can carry on with our studio sessions that were happening before the lockdown. I am hopeful this will happen, although we may not have our wonderful PT Zombie (Dean). I am hoping he will return.

Well, I am just about to dash off to this morning's class on Highbury Fields. I am going to get them to do their own Pyramid this morning - they can choose their three exercises themselves, but will stress to try and push what they can do.  Yay!!!  I am enjoying blog entries again.

Sunday 2nd August 2020 - lots of new website pages

Posted 7:45pm

Following up our pack updates yesterday, we will now concentrate on our website, which has undergone some fantastic changes.

We have to send our great thanks to Kacper, our wonderful website guru, who has been very busy, as well as to Islington Giving Covid Fund, which enabled us to cover the costs.

We have managed to add a lot of new pages and content.

Under our HMHB heading that covers our Mission, History and Impact, we have added extra pages around Feedback, as well as our Health Pack page which houses PDFs of all our weekly packs. I am delighted to say we have so far produced 16 of these so far.

Under our Programmes heading, which covered Ajani, Izzwalkz and our Fitness sessions, we have three new pages.  They include a "recipe" page - which include all the recipes the Lazza has been creating for our health packs - all of which he has never cooked before.  Demonstrating we can all learn new skills.  We also have a page covering our Trips and Outings, where we have taken groups, to show that just interacting with people can make such a difference.  We have also recently added a Corporate page (which we are still adjusting) as we want to work with Employers and their Employees.

We have a completely new heading "Guides" - and we will keep adding to these. So far they include just ones on various exercises and nutrition topics. We intend on adding in others too, as well as expanding on the current pages.

Another new heading is our "Networks" page - where we promote various organisations that we have worked alongside or partnered with. We think it is important to show just how many different companies like us, and want to work with us.

Do please check out the site.  Our gallery page is linked to our Instagram page, and we continue to add more and more photos, including new ones today.

www.hmhb2016.org.uk

Saturday 1st August 2020 - Back on the Blog: Packs

Posted 9:30pm

My word. After promising myself a while ago I would keep up with the blogs during the pandemic, I have instead severely neglected them, to such an extent I made no entries in July.

We have not been sitting idly I can tell you.  In fact quite a lot of news on the packs to impart, and we will be making daily blog entries in August. I have to say I am disappointed in myself for not keeping up to date the last few weeks, so am making it a target to do better this  month.

This weekend we are publishing the sixteenth (yes, Number 16) of our weekly health packs, that have now grown to 22 pages an issue.  Way back in April we designed our first. It was just 10 pages (although I am going to update it later next week and revise it up to 20 pages).  We have come a long way since then.  They take around three to four days to research and produce, and I am incredibly proud of the content we provide.
Each issue has three pages on a different aspect of Mind-set per week, three pages on Nutrition, an extra page on essential nutrients, a recipe page, three pages on Exercise, and two pages on a Health topic. Plus we have a fiendish quiz page, a picture game page, a News page (a recent addition), and more.

Feedback has been great. We have reached as far afield as the USA - our great friends Walk With A Doc.  Hackney CVS are promoting us throughout their borough, and I got a call from the Bridge Trust in Haringey, who have told us they love them and will now be promoting HMHB in their borough.  We reach into two other boroughs too (Islington and Camden).

For our recipe page, Lazza has been preparing new dishes - ones he has never cooked before. So far these have included;
Custard Tart;   Egg/Cheese Flan;  Meat Pie;  Chocolate Brownies;  Muffins;  Coconut Macaroons; and a lot more. A new talent has been discovered.

Do check them out on our new page on our website for Mental Health Packs, as all sixteen will be online as from Monday (fifteen there already) in PDF form. You can download or print.

www.hmhb2016.org.uk