Weekly Newsletter - May 10th

Dear residents, volunteers, neighbours,

This newsletter is our regular weekly UK Mutual Aid update to keep you all informed on our grassroots efforts in responding to COVID-19 in Barnet.

The newsletter is sent each Sunday and will bring you news and updates from our various volunteer teams who are providing aid to residents.

This week, the update is brought to you by our team leads.

Operators

* Over the last seven days, the team has received 101 help requests from residents around Barnet.
* We broke the 1,000 help request mark this week on 4th May, just 47 days since our 1st request from 18th March.
* Over 900+ callbacks have been completed to ensure safety and satisfaction.
* Ten referrals made to our Claremont Road Food Hub and Trussel Trust this week.

Pharmacy

* Sixty two prescriptions delivered this week and 25% are repeat prescriptions to residents.
* Big thanks to Landys Chemist who have kindly donated PPE to protect our volunteers.
* East Finchley pharmacy team up and running serving Oakdale and other pharmacies in the area.
* If you are in any of the following areas and would like to join the team, please enter the groups in your area and contact their group admins.
* Golders Green/Childs Hills    https://chat.whatsapp.com/J6JUQVlthDrJu99nZSmr0l
* Totteridge https://chat.whatsapp.com/BAJfZQIz3ktIHrJWmFFm9s
* Hendon https://chat.whatsapp.com/D9PKyd5aeQnCZO9kvDInuO
* Chipping Barnet https://chat.whatsapp.com/K8z2Rx6EM5xAjVAILQOaMb
* East Finchley https://chat.whatsapp.com/Gtxz5dwOVKi8N5tD9NCynu
* Church End https://chat.whatsapp.com/Bfc7whXeGsGFhpc0L0qAb4

Community Organisers

* 20,000 new leaflets printed.
* Looking for volunteers to help with distribution in Cricklewood, Edgware, Burnt Oak, East Barnet, Golders Green and Brent Cross.
* Please contact your group admin if you'd like to help with leafletting.

Food Hub

* Claremont Road Food Bank is now up and running delivering either dry or pre-cooked food to the surrounding community Monday to Saturday with Saturday opening 12-2 for pickups.
* We are also accepting food donations to help us keep the service running.
* Please call 02031377488 or go to helpme.mutualaid.co.uk if you know anyone who needs free meals or food delivered.
* We are taking online donations for our PPE and food packaging through the Open Collective.
* Total donations of £580 received.
* Targetting £5-8k to help with Food Hub project.
* Please donate at https://opencollective.com/barnetmutualaid

Marketing

* 1,500 additional volunteer badges ready for volunteers to claim.
* UK Mutual Aid appeared in a special news article in the French news outlet france24 for the Latino community in France. (Content in Spanish) https://www.france24.com/es/20200421-reino-unido-voluntarios-nhs-servicio-nacional-salud
* We are looking for residents and volunteers to share their stories with us. If you have a story to share and would like it featured on our social media accounts, please get in touch.
* If you've signed up as a volunteer and would like to receive one, contact your group admin to claim yours.
* Please follow us via Instagram/Twitter/Facebook @UKMutualAid or tag us at #UKMutualAid

Mental and physical wellbeing

* This week we launched our Online wellbeing event with yoga, clap for the heroes, peace be the journey and salsa class. If you have any quality skill that you want to share with your community, please, contact Paloma.

Quick facts - Since 15th March

* We have received 1,083 help requests.
* 994 are marked as DONE. The volunteer has completed the help request.
* 31 are CONNECTED, this means operators will check in on them in a few days to ensure requests are completed.
* 11 are still in progress where we are finding the right volunteer, group, or charity to respond.
* 45 are repeat requests from the same residents.
* 2 is currently waiting for an operator to connect them.
* We now have a total of 1,860 volunteers registered with UK Mutual Aid (mutualaid.co.uk).

Useful links

* To ask for help, go to helpme.mutualaid.co.uk
* To check if there are volunteers nearby, go to map.mutualaid.co.uk
* To volunteer, go to join.mutualaid.co.uk
* To donate, go to https://opencollective.com/barnetmutualaid

Thanks for reading, everyone! If you have any questions, please PM me. Have a lovely Sunday evening!

#UKMutualAid
#StayHomeSavesLives #ProtectTheNHS

Weekly Newsletter - May 3rd

Dear residents, volunteers, neighbours,

This newsletter is our regular weekly UK Mutual Aid update to keep you all informed on our grassroots efforts in responding to COVID-19 in Barnet.

The newsletter is sent each Sunday and will bring you news and updates from our various volunteer teams who are providing aid to residents.

This week, the update is brought to you by our team leads.

Operators

* Over the last seven days, the team has received 131 help requests from residents around Barnet.
* This week, we've referred 21 people in need of hot meals from local hotels housing local homeless people to our food hub team.
* We've added four new operators to the team helping to connect more residents with volunteers.
* Our volunteers have received 984 help requests since 18th of March.
* Or approx 1 out of every 400 Barnet residents.
* If you’d like to join the team and help match residents in need of help, please PM for details.
* You need minimum a few hours free each week to make calls and basic spreadsheet skills.

Pharmacy

* Eighty prescriptions delivered this week.
* Six new local pharmacy teams are now recruiting for volunteers.
* If you are in any of the following areas and would like to join the team, please enter the Whatsapp groups in your area and contact their group admins.

Community Organisers

* Looking to raise funds to help with the activities of the Food Hub as well as reimbursing volunteers for shopping costs on behalf of vulnerable residents.
* Targetting around £5-8k for Barnet (pop. 392k) similar amount raised in Lambeth (pop. 325k). Less than the £18k raised by Oxford (pop. 186k) Mutual Aid.
* Currently we've received £430 in donations.
* Please donate at https://opencollective.com/barnetmutualaid

Food Hub

* Claremont Road had its first volunteer zoom meeting this week.
* We are making referrals to Trussell Trust in Collindale, Stonegrove and Claremont Road.
* Please call 02031377488 or go to helpme.mutualaid.co.uk if you know anyone who needs free meals or food delivered.

Marketing

* 1,500 additional volunteer badges have arrived.
* We are looking for residents and volunteers to share their stories with us. If you have a story to share and would like it featured on our social media accounts, please get in touch.
* If you've signed up as a volunteer and would like to receive one, please follow us via Instagram/Twitter/Facebook @UKMutualAid and contact us via your social media account to collect. #UKMutualAid

Volunteer mental and Physical Health

* We held our first yoga session for volunteers over zoom on Wednesday.
* Session is free if you are a volunteer and takes place every Wednesday at 5 pm.
* Please get in touch if you want more details.

Barnet Council

* Barnet council has kindly helped organise the delivery of kitchen equipment to Stonegrove to support our food hub activities.

Stats - Since 15th March

* We have received 984 help requests.
* 841 are marked as DONE. The volunteer has completed the help request.
* 71 are CONNECTED, this means operators will check in on them in a few days to ensure requests are completed.
* 29 are still in progress where we are finding the right volunteer, group, or charity to respond.
* 42 are repeat requests from the same residents.
* 1 is currently waiting for an operator to connect them.
* We now have a total of 1,840 volunteers registered with UK Mutual Aid (mutualaid.co.uk).

Thanks for reading, everyone! If you have any questions, please PM me. Have a lovely Sunday evening!

#UKMutualAid
#StayHomeSavesLives #ProtectTheNHS

Weekly Newsletter - April 20th

Dear residents and volunteers,

This is our first weekly UK Mutual Aid newsletter to keep you all informed and updated on our grassroots efforts in responding to COVID-19 here in Barnet.

Except for this edition, the newsletter will be shared each Sunday and will bring you news and updates from our various volunteer teams that have come together over the last month to deliver aid to residents.

Operator team
* Our operator team has been hard at work since 18th of March and have connected over 700 help requests with local volunteers, charities, other Mutual Aid groups around us and the Barnet council COVID-19 helpline (0808 281 3210)
* Jesus House has referred their volunteers to help in our operator team.
* If you’d like to join the operator team and help match volunteers with residents in need of help, please PM me for details.
* You need minimum a few hours free each week to make calls and basic spreadsheet skills.

Pharmacy team
* Our pharmacy team have grown rapidly over the last two weeks.
* We now cover Landys, Landys Express, Westlake, Boots in Temple Fortune, as well as Warman Freed, Victoria Pharmacy and Boots in Golders Green.
* Pharmacy team have delivered 63 prescriptions last week and 151 prescriptions since they started.
* Landys have donated hand sanitisers and gloves to protect our pharmacy volunteers.

Community Organisers team
* We’ve started a new team of community organisers who are helping us reach local communities where we are less well known and work with schools, charities, pharmacies, GP surgeries across Barnet.
* They have also been able to print leaflets to encourage outreach in Barnet.
* Reach out to charities and organisations within Barnet: HomeStart, Age UK, Barnet Community HelpHub who we hope to be working alongside.
* They are hoping to start a new pharmacy team soon in East Finchley.

Food Hub team
* The Claremont Road NW2 food hub is expected to be ready by next week once all equipment and tools have been delivered and installed.
* The food hub team is currently asking people to submit their expression of interest in the food hub’s services by filling out this form at foodhub.mutualaid.co.uk
* They are looking to deliver hundred of free hot and frozen meals to people, families and groups that are struggling to feed themselves in these economically uncertain times.

Marketing team
* Our marketing team have been able to secure 1500 volunteer badges that will be delivered next week.
* If you’ve been volunteering and helping residents with shopping, prescription and other services, you can PM Paloma to pick up a volunteers badge which can be worn to identify yourself when delivering services to residents.
* If you haven’t followed us on social media, please comment, like, share and subscribe to our updates on social media.
* Instagram.com/UKMutualAid
* Twitter.com/UKMutualAid
* Facebook.com/UKMutualAid
* Tag us @UKMutualAid or use #UKMutualAid

Useful stats
* As of Monday 20th April, we have a total of 1,762 volunteers registered with UK Mutual Aid. Our first sign up was on the 15th of March.
* We have received 748 help requests since the 18th of March.
* 533 are marked as DONE, this means the help request has been completed.
* 124 are CONNECTED, this means operators will check in on them in a few days to ensure requests have been completed.
* 54 are still in progress where we are finding the right volunteer, group, or charity to respond.
* 31 are repeat requests from the same residents.
* 6 are currently waiting for an operator to connect them.

Useful links
* To volunteer, go to join.mutualaid.co.uk
* To ask for help, go to helpme.mutualaid.co.uk
* To check if there are volunteers nearby, go to map.mutualaid.co.uk
* To express interest in free food service, go to foodhub.mutualaid.co.uk

If there is anything you’d like me to highlight on the next weekly newsletter (This Sunday), please PM.

Thanks, everyone!

Sainsbury's Support for the Vulnerable

See Sainsbury's Latest COVID-19 Statement

If you are over 70 years of age, or you’re extremely vulnerable and live in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, you can get access to priority home delivery slots by calling us at 0800 953 4988.

We’re now working with the government to identify those in England who are extremely vulnerable and have shopped with us before.

If you got a letter from the NHS and registered on GOV.UK as extremely vulnerable to coronavirus, your details will be passed to us.

We’ll then prioritise you for home delivery slots, and we’ll be in touch to let you know when this has happened.

Welcome

Welcome to the Barnet Mutual Aid Blog.

If you have any useful information, links, tips etc - please post here.