HealthyMindsHealthyBods

  HMHB's main focus is on our Mind-set Course, which focuses on Mind-set, Nutrition, Exercise, and Health - a fun, interactive, and pioneering course. Thankfully we have been able to get funding to enable us to do courses with a variety of different organisations, and four have already started. We have already had two days with Better Lives, delivering at King Henry's Walk in Islington, on the border with Hackney.  The picture above is with some of them, and we have had a blast so far. We have also started a course with Finsbury Park Job Centre, although I am not sure just how well they have promoted it to their users as, sadly, only one person came, even though they said they enjoyed the session. On alternate Fridays we are working with the Stuart Low Trust out of Jean Stokes Community Centre off the Caledonian Road.  We had around 15-20 people come along to our first week, and the general consensus was that they enjoyed it very much. Finally we did a fantastic event wit...

  I have been busy updating my spreadsheets and diaries with entries.  Doing accounts for many years has left me with a fondness for a good spreadsheet.  I love them, It's the only way I can truly keep track of the weeks ahead.  The next six are going to be particularly busy.  HMHB has me doing something every day in some way. We have : courses (seven of them) walks (two of them weekly from next week) exercise (three of them weekly) zumba/picnic - weekly from 7 May Outings - several organised and more to do for May Plus I have my own personal things that I organise - so I add them to the sheet too.

  Last week eight of us headed to Sadler Wells Theatre in Islington for an astonishing production of Jungle Book Reimagined. The staging was astonishing and so well thought out.  Am almost invisible screen in front of the stage enabled projections of animals and other events to be portrayed. The dancing was phenomenal, especially as they were working against a soundtrack of both music and speaking. Lazza managed to find terrific tickets in the Christmas/New Year sales.  We may have been sitting right at the back, at the highest point too - literally with our backs against the back wall - but the view was great and the sound very clear. These kind of outings are really good.

  One of our longer lasting ventures has been our weekly Tuesday exercise session, kindly hosted by Better Gym and Highbury Leisure Centre, and we are very grateful for their continuing support. We head in at 9:30am to be lead by our wonderful PT Zombie (Dean) who puts us through our paces. It's definitely a diverse group - aged from 30 to 88.  We make sure it is accessible to all of them, offering different ways to do exercises and making sure everyone feels comfortable.  But they are also such an inspiring group. It is an hour.  We do have a laugh too, but we work hard, sweat a bit, and at the end everyone feels great.  Some of us then head over to Lazza's "office" - the White Swan Wetherspoon at Highbury Junction - for a coffee and chat.  I really like that part. We are getting more and more referrals.  The NHS may not want to give us a penny towards our costs, but they are very happy to refer people to our service!!!

  Our group were very fortunate to get some FREE tickets to the Saatchi Gallery, off the Kings Road, near Chelsea. We are good friends with another group called Eagle Project.  John, who helps to run Eagles, joins our weekly quiz on Thursday nights.  They got the tickets and invited us to join them, which was really nice. In the end we had nine of us head to the Gallery on Easter Monday - the 10th. Going in at 2:30pm we were faced with an amazing exhibition focusing on Street Art and Graffiti.  Taking it right back to the 70s and 80s and 90s in New York and Los Angeles, as well as in London. Fascinating history, and now to see if featured in such a prestigious gallery in London is amazing.  Some of the more modern pieces were so colourful and imaginative. Here we are afterwards, in a nearby Pret A Manger, grabbing a coffee and talking about what we had seen. Thanks to everyone who came, in particular Mary for whom this was her first outing with us.

  Big thanks to Justin for our photo above. Here is Lazza, leading our weekly online quiz.  Ironically we are also missing two or three regulars. It is a fun quiz, which is all about having fun - and definitely not about winning.  Winning is nice, but irrelevant.  The questions are particularly designed so that knowledge is fairly irrelevant.  Lazza has a knack of finding obscure facts and figures, and creating questions that are ambiguous. There are even questions where the participants have to come up with their own answers and points are awarded for originality, humour, and absurdity. It is every Thursday, starting around 7:30pm, and we send the link out by email and Whatsapp.

  One of our better accomplishments from last year was the large number of outings we managed to get in.  It was fabulous to visit various places with the group, which makes it more fun I think. This included places like: Science Museum Imperial War Museum Natural History Museum Victoria and Albery Museum National Gallery London Coliseum - English National Opera Park Theatre, Finsbury Park, London London Zoo London Docklands Museum Pleasance Theatre, Islington Tate Modern And more: We have also joined other groups for their events. The photograph above was a recent local History/Health walk organised by Islington Walks.,  On the last Friday of every month they are guiding a group around a different park in Islington, looking at local history too.  Fascinating stuff,  In January we joined them in Caledonian Park - and this one at the end of March was in Elthorne Park. We are looking forward to lots more adventures this year.

  We published our latest Monthly Health Pack this week - for April 2023 - a massive 40 pages.  Yes, it takes a lot of hours and research, but I think it is a fabulous way to reach people and get our message across about trying to be healthy, as well as we all have a responsibility to look after our amazing bodies. April issue is jam packed full of info, news, photos, games, and more.  We have PDFs of all our packs on our website, and they can be downloaded from there. www.hmhb2016.org.uk The packs have been going for three years - ever since the first lockdown in 2020.  Wow, is it really that long ago?   We did 50 weekly issues, half of them being 26 pages.  We then moved to 36 page monthly, and that has increased to 40 pages - which we feel is just about the maximum we can achieve. Do check them out.  We focus on Mind-set, Nutrition, Exercise, and Health - but also include fun, quizzes, news, recipes, and other stuff.