Royal Mail Letters Steering Group and Thames Valley Region

On 19th November the Letters Steering Group for Barnardo's and a large group of Thames Valley regional colleagues attended Barnardos Summerfield Resource Centre to undertake a volunteering project.
The Summerfield Resource centre provides long-term residential care to disabled children and young people between the ages of seven and eighteen.
The team were set the task of decorating 3 large rooms in the centre but with a strict timescale; volunteers had to be in, all cleared up and out again whilst the children were at school - this gave the team less than 6 hours to complete the challenge!
Volunteers were briefed in the centre car park with the help of some hot bacon butties and once the children were all taken to school the volunteers got sight of the task ahead of them.
Splitting into 3 teams they got to work straight away clearing rooms of furniture, repairing and repainting walls. Bylunchtime such great progress had been made that the Team Leader Rob Jenson, Regional Operations Director for Thames Valley, decided that a further area in the centre could be tackled so a 4th team was created and set to work.
By 2.00pm all 4 rooms were completed and by 2.30pm the furniture was back in place, the floors were hoovered and the children would never have known anyone had been there except for the smell of fresh paint!
Prizes were awarded to volunteers including one for safest worker and one for most snazzy dresser on the day!