Anna Chatfield, Moorhouse Consulting talks about the special fundraising event held by the team of management consultants last  month…
 

The weather forecast for the weekend is hot and sunny and our team of twenty are raring to go!  Our challenge?  To transform key areas at City Gateway’s youth and women’s’ centres in Limehouse into modern, attractive and bright spaces that will encourage members to use them to improve their general skills.

We split into two teams of ten and spent Friday night finalising our plans with the team leaders – what to tackle? Team 1, led by our Marketing Manager, Paula, will lead our renovation at the women’s centre, where they hope to transform the outdoor area.  I will lead team 2 at the youth centre, and our mission is to turn a cupboard/store room into a music studio (!), give a fresh coat of paint to the main walls and update the centre’s office. 

Saturday, 9am – all systems go!  We split into three teams; one tackling the office, one re-painting the main walls and one transforming the storeroom / studio. The youth centre’s office is used by it’s full time staff as well as its members, who drop in for 1-2-1 sessions.  We start by giving it a good spring clean, paint and gloss all the walls and frames, and buy brand new furniture (with the funds raised by our Moorhouse colleagues doing a sponsored ‘Bike Run’– more on them later).  The team on the main walls need to sand them down then get cracking on the two coats of paint. In the cupboard/store room the music studio sounds like a tall order! But we spend hours cleaning, painting, and lastly putting in new furniture, and it soon feels like a space born for creativity! 

Meanwhile, our colleagues at the women’s’ centre are making great strides working on the outdoor garden (where members grow their own vegetables) and children’s play area.  The team clear away all leaves and rubbish that has accumulated, wood preserve the fences and shed, build new garden furniture to brighten things up, create a children’s area with sandpit and hopscotch, and even put in a new raised bed to help with the planting.  This renovation has now extended the indoor café area, which many women use to improve their cashier and customer service skills, to help them get jobs.

Sunday – we’re all tired but well up for our celebratory party.  We have almost 60 young people attend the BBQ at the youth centre, and at the women’s’ centre they have a whopping 190 guests, including children, who enjoy the kids entertainment and drawing competitions that we lay on.

Around 2.30pm our ‘Bike Runners’ arrive in town to join the party – these are our colleagues who have travelled 360 miles from Wales to London, over forty-eight hours, on foot and bike!  We think they deserve a drink…

What a weekend!  We’ve enjoyed every minute – and look forward to working with City Gateway more in the future.