Tuesday 8th October 2019 - Good chat with the guys

Posted 1:45pm

It is not that often we can have the three of us - Lazza, Luke and Dean - round the table to chat. Dean has his full-time Personal Trainer job in Tottenham, and Luke is normally late to bed through his own work, and therefore naturally not that keen to do mornings.

But with the upcoming Kensington and Chelsea Peabody morning event coming up it was important to chat and prepare. We needed to ensure we produced any extra paperwork or powerpoint info - which we decided we did. It was also great to chat about the input we all contribute during the event.

It is a 10:30 to 12:30 session, plus an extra half hour for lunch afterwards. That additional time is crucial. It is funny how people can hold back with opinions and comments on a course, but then relax afterwards and let loose.  It also gives Dean a chance to talk to people individually about their fitness and goals.

We are doing the usual sessions, but adding a bit of extra oomph. We have our "impossible quiz", but only using four questions here to demonstrate our thoughts on mindset, and how we make choices when it comes to certain situations. We are then going to do a quick group game to further enhance this position.

Dean is going to do two exercise interventions. The first one is just a quick ten minute stretch exercise, stressing how important it is, as well as explaining the muscles.  The second, wiull be after a break, and will be an introduction to certain High Intensity Exercises, and show various ways they can be done so accessible to anyone.

Luke is concentrating on Protein and Fats in this week for his nutrition segment, and we will all be chipping in.. I really enjoy this part as we encourage interaction and participation, and people can really grow their knowledge. I learn things every time.

Finally we will be working on Health, and have a cracking game and interaction around "organs of the body" - where they are,, what they do, and how both physical activity and nutrition plays an integral part in keeping them working to their peak.

We end on targets and goals and feedback.  So very proactive, lots of group work, lots of chatting, and very little of us just standing at the front dictating information (boring!!!!).

Great to catch up with the guys.   

Monday 7th October 2019 - Lazza updates us on a busy first Oct week

Posted 2:45pm

Healthy Minds, Healthy Bods has given itself three months to really get close to goals. So that means we cannot let up at all. Lots of targets and goals, many meetings to create, and a huge effort to be had.

So the first week of October has flown by, but we have made progress.

Firstly, we are now waiting to hear on two completed small funding applications - Islington Giving and Camden Giving. We think that both applications are good, and have an excellent chance, but then again there are probably a lot of groups looking for money. It would be amazing to get both, as it would allow us to finally work with the Job Centre in both boroughs.

Through persistence, we are waiting to hear about possible Haringey funding we can apply for, following a meeting last week. And through Twitter, we have established that Hackney has some money to spend and we have made contact to see if we can discuss things with them.  I just wish all this did not take so much time.

We are busy preparing for our upcoming Kensington and Chelsea days with Peabody. It will be interesting to see the feedback and outcomes. We know we can raise confidence and build excitement, but the secret is finding out if people feel they can then be proactive and make changes.

We are waiting to hear back from Single Homeless Project, with whom we are looking to do two day events with the Islington money, if we are awarded it. We chased them this week.  We also chased the London Metropolitan University, who we contacted about doing some work with incoming students.  With that in mind, Lazza intends to contact several more universities and colleges in london to see if they will allow us to do some intervention around preventive mental health.

We have chased up both Islington and Camden Job Centres to discuss preventive intervention with them. It feels like we are constantly looking for contact - and face to face meetings are most important. We will also do this for Haringey and Hackney Job Centres this week.

We are starting to get new members to our Tuesday and Saturday fitness sessions - which is great news. Izzwalkz had its 150th walk last week, and next month has its 3rd birthday.

Finally, on a personal note, Lazza is meeting with a sports specialist this week in regards to his legs, which are in constant pain now, and we wish him the best. In November, he is at UCH for meetings re his hernia and legs too. Good luck!!!

Monday 7th October 2019 - Saturday Session growing

Saturday 5th October

we welcome 2 new ladies

Posted 2:20pm

We actually had eight at our Saturday session - the most for a quite a while.  It may not sound a lot, but it will continue to grow. We had to establish ourselves, as well as get people to trust us. And finally that seems to be happening.

It has been nearly a year since we started at the Sobell, through the kindness and encouragement of Better Gym and Aquaterra. Although we have contacted multiple organisations that focus on mental health - including Islington Mind, AgeUK Islington, Single Homeless Project, Better Lives, Eagle Project, Icope - we have had virtually no referrals. It could be the time - we start at 9am - but frankly I do not see that as an excuse. If you want to try and sort yourself out, and the session is FREE, time is irrelevant.

Eight people Saturday - there is one behind the camera who did not want to be in the shot, and a lady and her son also took part, but they went off to another activity.

Lazza ran this session, but it is normally PT Zombie (Dean) who looks after us - every week is different, and we make it fun, but also encourage people to push themselves.

It was lovely to get new members, and the feedback - as it is always - was terrific. Better Gym are amazing to allow us this chance, and it can only benefit the community as a whole.

Friday 4th October 2019 - Camden

Posted 2:45pm

It's been a busy week, and today I have finally finished off our application to Camden Giving for ten day events in the borough - eight of which will be joined up into two Ajani four-session courses.

The application was quite thorough and is through Camden Giving - using their HS2 fund. We have applied for a total of £5000, for the 10 day events. It would be fantastic to work in the borough - and this would be between 1 Jan and 31 Mar. We have already met with the Living Centre in St Pancras, who have offered their facilities for free for this intervention, which is a fantastic gesture.

I have already contacted Peter at the Living Centre to try and see him next week to discuss this further, now that we have actually applied.
I have also contacted Nisar Shaikh - he is the DDWP Borough Manager for Camden - I have met him a couple of years ago, but I have asked to meet him in regards to the application too.

I am sending it off tonight, as I still need to attach a couple of videos (it is great we can actually do that - both under 3 minutes - as they really help to sell us - and both have Lazza and PT Dean talking about the project). I also need to attach a few documents, including bank statement, insurance, and safeguarding policy.

Obviously there are no guarantees - but it would be fantastic to work in the borough, and also demonstrates other boroughs are keen for us to work there.

Thursday 3rd October 2019 - Izzwalkz No 150

Celebrating Walk 150 at Highbury Grange Medical Practice

3 Oct 2019

Posted 8:55pm

Nearly three years ago we started Izzwalkz - the first part of Healthy Minds, Healthy Bods - a weekly walk, focusing on mental health, that would walk every week no matter what. We partnered up with the fantastic Highbury Grange Medical Practice, and launched it in November 2016.

We had no idea if people would come, and if they did we were not sure if people would then come back. As it turns out, we actually have created a fantastic weekly intervention.  And today was our 150th walk - every thursday consecutively. We have not missed one. All weathers, holidays, events. Even if Lazza has not been able to attend, he has arranged for a colleague to be there - and we recall just three times HMHB has actually not had a representative and, proudly, the group still walked.

From a personal point of view, I am overwhelmed by the wonderful comments from everyone. It was lovely to have reached walk 150. Sadly, if we do not get funding soon it will stop. This is something we do not want to happen. So keep supporting us.

Wednesday 2nd October 2019 - Haringey

Posted 10:45pm

Haringey, as you can see from the map, is north/central of London and bordered by six other boroughs (clockwise from the North, Enfield, Waltham Forest, Hackney, Islington, Camden and Barnet. So would be a very useful borough for HMHB to establish themselves.

As followers of HMHB already know, after much effort on the part of Lazza, we did a taster Ajani session with Haringey Well-Being Network, which resulted in fantastic feedback and a vocal desire for us to come back with more intervention. This is something we also desire.

But, as it always does, everything comes down to funding. I had met with Ewan from Bridge Trust, introduced by Pritty Rana from the Well-Being Network. He has moved on from his job and his replacement is a guy called Cameron.  I met with Cameron this afternoon at the Chestnuts Community Centre, at St.Ann's in Haringey.

We had an excellent chat, and I was able to clear up a lot of information he needed. He told us he had looked through our website, and found our work interesting. I was able to give him a more in depth analysis of our programme. It is glossed over deliberately on the website as, firstly, we want people to contact us and talk to us about it so we can give them details then and , secondly, to stop people taking some of our ideas - which has happened in the past.

The main object was to talk about doing some interventions in the borough (we would like to do two four session courses - and four one day events). This totals 12 days and would cost £6000. There are various funds we can apply to and Cameron is going to come back to me with more information.

It was a productive meeting and hopefully one which can bring benefits.

Tuesday 1st October 2019 - New month, new impetus. We fight on.

Lazza with Una O'Halloran (ex-mayor of Islington)

at Cripplegate event at Islington Town Hall

Posted 3:00pm

Firstly, am I glad that August and September are over - two very difficult months for different reasons that greatly affected HMHB.  Last month, in particular, was tough, as Lazza was ill for most of it, with a nasty chest infection and cold that knocked him for six. Not only that, his knee problems are increasing and we hope that a specialist next week can pass on good advice.

The lottery knock back was hard to take. We clearly need seed funding, but it was not the end of the world. More than ever, though, we are now reliant on monies from other avenues so we can go back ot the lottery with a lower bid, but demonstrating we can find alternative funding. Talk about stress!!!

The picture at the top comes from Islington Town Hall last night, at an event run by Islington Council and the Cripplegate Foundation, focusing on local community organisations who have, in the past, successfully applied for monies from the Islington Community Chest Fund.

HMHB have recently completed another application (I will mention that again in the next paragraph), but this event gave us an opportunity to promote HMHB again, especially our fitness sessions and walks.  We bumped into Una - who was Mayor on our first Izzwalkz birthday. She told us that Izzwalkz was her one of her favourite events from her time as Mayor. Wow!!!!

The recent application I mentioned has been received. In fact Lazza, Luke and Dean went along to the Cripplegate offices to meet and chat with Patrick, one of the funding officers. He gave us some terrific feedback, asked some very pertinent questions, and I have just sent him over some other information that he required. I am really hoping we are successful with this application. It will give us an opportunity to show the Islington Job Centres just who we are and what we can do. And, we will get another opportunity to work with Single Homeless Project.  It will fund eight day events between January and March - six with the Job Centres and two with SHP.

I will send off this week our application to Camden Giving - and more on that when I deliver it. Plus we are meeting with a representative from Haringey Giving tomorrow. More on that following the meeting.  Apologies for the small amount of information in September, but we are roaring again so aiming for daily entries all this month. Yay!!!