As promised bloggers, here’s a bit of a catch up on what we did for the “lost “6 months of last year, and I mean LOST, I shall be much more up to date in future. Please also see a veritable feast for the eyes, a few snaps too to make the page look a bit prettier.
So…since June last year we have signed up 41 new Individual members and 4 Organisations. Welcome to you all, you bring with you many new skills and opportunities for our members to get busy. Over 1000 hours have been swapped between members. Some of the stuff that’s been swapped includes…reflexology, card making, loan of face painting equipment, moving and lifting heavy gym equipment, jewellery repair, gardening, painting and decorating, British Sign Language, catering for social events, helping with mailouts… the list is really quite long 
As well as the bread and butter business of Exchanges we also like to do a bit of Socialising!
In August one of our members, Lynne, ran a “Sweet Making” Workshop at our old offices in Hyson Green. Both adults and children attended and learnt how to make fudge, strawberry and apricot creams, truffles and nut clusters. Everyone enjoyed it, got stuck in and had a delicious box of chocolates to take home afterwards ( fancy one now actually).
On July 19th we joined in with the national “Big Lunch”, this was the brain child of the Eden Project, who thought that it would be great to get the nation to stop what they were doing and sit down with their neighbours and have some lunch. We aren’t strictly “neighbours”, but we thought that it would be a good opportunity to get our virtual neighbours together. It was a bit on the rainy side as I recall and the buffet had to be rescued from the rain a few times , but all had a good time. Here are a couple olf lovely piccies to prove it.
One of our resolutions last year was to”read a book you wouldn’t usually choose”. To celebrate the loveliness of books, and reading in general, we held “Telling Tales” in September, an afternoon of stories and delicious cakes. We had a Mad Hatter’s Tea Party buffet, our Book Swap, Ron telling his humorous verse, Sue reading to the little ones and Rosie making stories up on the spot from people’s ideas. The “Book Doctor” from Nottingham City Libraries also came and brought spoken word books and information on books in languages other than English. Our Organisation members, Hyson Green Library, loaned us some rugs in the shape of books which were very in keeping with the event.
Finally, in our fabulous pictorial journey through 2009, we have our Winter Social. This was held at The Vine Community Centre on Friday 11th December. Around 50 members and their children attended. Our plea for food for the buffet was answered with great generosity, table was groaning under the weight of pakoras, mince pies, sos rolls, cake, crisps etc. Thankyou to everyone. Members provided entertainment for the children in the form of craft activities, thankyou to Louise and Wendy. Ron was back with some more of his (very) humorous verse, Lytisha gave a Merengue Workshop ( sorry I didn’t join in, I’d lost my car keys at that point!) and Marc Block ( and Lytisha and Chris) played some music for us. Thankyou to Nico too, who provided the PA. We will be having more of this sort of stuff during 2010. More is just more.
Thankyou to everyone who got involved last year, here’s to even more lovely stuff in 2010.
Helen
It’s that time of year when we have to ask our members what they think of us. We’ve just sent out a questionnaire on Survey Monkey and the first replies are coming in. Thankyou to those of you who have replied already.
found out that one of our Organisation members, The Bridge Centre, were looking for volunteers he was keen to get involved. The Bridge Centre is open Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and serves very reasonably priced meals and has a children’s play area and a second hand clothes, book and bric a brac stall.
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