Community in Action - Cafe OPEN - We're back!

It’s been an unusual Autumn for the park, we managed to get our takeout service up and running and we’ve now moved on to an indoor cafe service with open fire from 9am to 4pm daily. The Hardie Cycle Hub is coming on leaps and bounds with Matt the new manager working with Ross and Codey to develop the hub even further. It’s a difficult time for us all but with the cafe and hub open we are looking forward to more exciting community times ahead.

Thank you for your continued support and for following our COVID safe guidelines whilst using the cafe. We hope you visit us soon.

October 2020

One-year cycle completed!

Wow...we are celebrating the Old Spokes Home 1st Birthday with some outstanding stats!

• Bike Hours - 2850
• Bikes saved from Landfill and sold to Community - 160
• Bike Repairs - 1077
• Inner tubes replaced 1005
• NHS Key Worker free repairs vouchers -12

Make a note to benefit from 25% DISCOUNT on our Winter Service (parts extra) until end of November! You can keep up to date with offers and bikes for sale @hardiecyclehub on FB.

We marked the one year anniversary this week presenting the team with branded t-shirts, beanie hats and a birthday cake for the boys! Don't they look the part!

(Cycle Hub Manager Matt pictured with Ross, Codey and Henry)

Make it YOUR 'Happy Place'

It’s been lovely to welcome you back into the cafe. Regulars Mick and Margaret have brought a smile in every day ready for their Latte in the snug. It’s great to see them back in their HAPPY PLACE.  Our short and sweet re-launch menu will develop as we get back in the swing of things. Keep your eye on our Facebook page for daily specials. If you are set up with Track and Trace on your phone our QR Code is waiting for you at the door. Otherwise details will be taken and destroyed in line with government GDPR regulations in 21 days.

JMN keeping us secure

Chris McNaney, local businessman from JMN Alarms has been trying to support the efforts of the park for a while now. Unforeseen circumstances quashed a planned raffle to raise funds for us last year at the Open Air Cinema. He hasn’t forgotten us and offered ‘great park rates’ on our CCTV and alarm system upgrade. What a star! It’s all systems go at the cafe with state of the art tech helping keep our community space safe.  THANK YOU Chris

We are delighted to be able to recommend JMN Alarms for all your security system needs –  www.jmnalarms.co.uk

No child goes hungry...

Communities came together this week offering free school lunches for families struggling in these unprecedented times. We offered to help out providing kids takeaway meals to families in need over half term, initially from Monday 26th October to Friday 30th October and then extended the offer over the weekend too. Hot meals were prepared for collection between 12 noon and 2pm. Local business Valentines Fruit and Veg came on board by kindly donating a piece of fruit for each meal too.

Working together to achieve more in the community.

We're supporting the POPPY APPEAL

If you can, please support the poppy appeal. Poppies available in the cafe. 

Spooky pumpkin carvers compete!

We advertised a Pumpkin Carving competition before the children’s half-term began, ONLINE of course with parents posting photographs of the spooky creations! Here are some of the entrants. The lucky winners will pick up their Halloween body parts Rossi creations from the i-scream counter over the weekend.

1st Ruby / 2nd Chester / 3rd Daisy 

We experimented with some spooky body bitz and bobs for Halloween I-screams over half term – 3 recipes - Eye Scream, Body Bitz, Fangtastic – they went down a treat!

Hot off the Press!

Next time you are in the cafe make sure you pick up one of our new loyalty cards. We've gone back to the old faithful card system, the way you like it! 

BUY 9 HOT DRINKS GET ONE FREE

Thanks from BRAS

Thurrock BRAS CIC (Baby feeding, Relaxation and Slings) is an organisation covering Thurrock and Basildon founded four years ago by Mandie Groves. They have trained breastfeeding peer supporters and a breastfeeding counsellor and offer online and face to face support for families. Pre-Covid the group met every Friday lunchtime term-time at Hardie Park.

Mandie recently decided to step down from her post and her grateful colleagues had a few words to say to acknowledge her amazing work. 

Deb from BRAS said, ‘Mandie started this fantastic group after leaving the NHS because the need for feeding support was still very much in demand. It has grown over the years and helped so many families, myself included.

We will always be forever grateful for Mandie and the hours she put in to volunteering. The baton has been passed to Gemma, Annaliese and myself to carry on what Mandie started. I hope we can do her proud.  Keep an eye on the page to see what is going to be happening next.

Until then we wish Mandie all the best and we thank her from the bottom of our hearts for creating such a warm, welcoming and safe place. Mandie will be missed.’

You can contact BRAS by email:basbreastfeeding01@gmail.com

Or follow them on Facebook : @THURROCKBRAS  Instagram: @thurrock_bras_cic

Six of Clubs

We are slowly introducing groups, clubs back into the cafe with Covid guidelines in mind. This means that only SIX participants including the group leader can take part. If you have a group that would like to use the cafe ‘back room’ as a base please get in touch. Email: info@friendsofhardiepark.co.uk

Cribbage and Craft have started to meet again much to the delight of their members. Meeting to chat and share interests is a vital part of our community, it enhances wellbeing and stems feelings of isolation which has been inflicted on so many throughout this pandemic.  

We will continue to encourage groups to meet adhering to the ever-changing government guidelines. Stay safe and keep busy everyone!

Toddler Tales returns

Our volunteer Diane has returned with Toddler Tales providing a FREE story-time for little ones in the cafe. Due to the rule of 6 we need you to book in advance. 

Our very own Covid Unsung Hero

A huge heartfelt thank you went out to MANDIE GROVES this month, our very own 'Hardie Park' COVID UNSUNG HERO.

Mandie’s efforts over the last seven months running a community pop-up shop from Scratton Road have been admirable. James and Vicki Brabyn on the team have generously supported the community effort too with hours and hours of volunteer time. The shop has continued to serve the community distributing donated free food to those that need it, and provided a lifeline and much needed point of contact for some through difficult times.

Food has been collected in the Hardie van from M & S, Co-op and Lidl daily by James, allowing redirection to those in need rather than finding its way to landfill. Many visitors to the shop chose to donate with proceeds going to Hardie Park and Mandie also offered help to support others in the wider community raising further funds on behalf of vital local charities.

For us here at Hardie Park, the funds have been invaluable. They have helped plug the gap that has been left by us not being able to open the café or run any of our planned Spring/Summer fundraiser events - we are so grateful for everything that you have done.

Thank you to the community for supporting and using the shop throughout the pandemic, your generosity has been much appreciated.

Matt Adams Chair and Hardie Park Trustees

VE Day MKII

The VE Day celebrations this year were cancelled due to lockdown so provisional plans have been put in place to reschedule for next year. Pop the date in your diary, we've got everything crossed everything works out!

Keith Warren, VDub Tavern is organising the event with Hardie Park hosting. 

Sharing the love...

As you know the pop-up shop in Scratton Road provides free surplus food to those in need in the community. We have had a huge surplus of bread products some weeks so we've started to send it off to Hopefield Animal Sanctuary in Brentwood on a Wednesday with one of their volunteers to top up animal food supplies. The cows and pigs are very grateful.  www.hopefieldsanctuary.co.uk

#nowaste #savefromlandfill

Easy ways to support the work of the park

Supporters lockdown shopping whilst using the Amazon Smile link recently doubled our usual quarterly amount to £63.55 That's just AMAZ-ING! - THANK YOU!

https://smile.amazon.co.uk/ch/1172078-0,

Theres an Amazon promotion at the minute - Early Black Friday Deals between 26 October to 19 November.

It's an easy way to support the park, YOU SHOP and Amazon donates to Friends Of Hardie Park Ltd, at no cost to you.

Facebook also has a facility if you don't have anything on your birthday list. You can set up a FB fundraiser for your birthday and choose to support the park. Facebook take care of your friends and colleagues donations, processing with no fees.