Three of us assisted at Valentines Parkrun today. James was on scanning, Linda VI walker and Ed on Car Park duty.

Valentines is busier now due to Alphabeteers collecting their Vs now Victoria Dock has closed due to lack of vounteers. This illustrates the need for people to volunteer if we are to keep our parkruns going.

Linda assisted a visually and physically impaired person round Valentines parkrun course. Usually his guide dog assists him well enough but he likes to take the dog off the harness to give them occasional off duty time so Linda took over the dog's lead, the guide duties and the picking up the nasties 🙄 Meanwhile Ed did a sterling job of directing traffic coming in and out of the carpark across the route and cheering on the park runners.

5 of us helped out at Frenford Foodbank today. Frenford had been donated a lot of extra treats that had missed the pre Chirstmas packages. We set a volunteer the task of filling an extra bag of chocolates, biscuits and savoury snacks for each of the recipient families while old hands at the job Ed S. and Peter got on with packing the main body of the packages shortly joined by Natalie. Natalie is a newbie to our Frenford team, she quickly picked up on what was required and proved to be a very useful member of the team, hope to see her again soon 😊 Another welcome sight was Ed F. who came in apologising for coming in late to the session not realising that the new enthusiasm and energy of a later arrival is so welcome just as we are starting to flag. It also meant he was up for helping with some of the closing tasks. Great session, well done to all involved.

After our previous shelf filling session there were still a few items short at Frenford Food Bank. Another supermarket delivery was made with the items needed plus a few spares so Ed and Linda popped in to make sure it was all put away. We left with all shelves fully stocked and the extras safely stored away.

We never know how much work there will be with a supermarket delivery to Frenford Foodbank, sometimes barely enough for one person, often two much for just two.

We set it up for four people and hoped for the best. As luck would have it we got four sign ups for a relatively small delivery. Michael and Peter were first on scene with Linda and Ed delayed picking up extra rice supplies.

By the time the rice arrived the delivery was pretty much offloaded. Never ones to waste good help we set about other valuable jobs of relabeling shelves, stock taking and date checking. All in all time well spent 😁

Some of the usual suspects braved the chilly weather and made their way down to Valentines Park to assist run director Wendy in making sure parkrun went ahead safely.

• Ed was at his usual spot guarding the main car park entrance
• Kathryn kept track and timed all the finishers
• Peter assisted at the 2nd car park by forming a human bollard guarding a spot of ice right where the parkrunners would turn the corner.

P.S. hope you feel better soon James P.P.S that skyin looked pretty chilly as well Julia