With the crowdfunding now over and SUCCESSFUL, thank you to everyone here who donated and supported us. Very literally we wouldn't have been able to do it without you.

Looking forward to running some exciting activity days next term.

If you want to receive our post-activity day newsletter please get in touch with Branchup@southamptonhub.org

Thank you all so much again!

The Branch Up Team x

You may have already heard, but there's BIG news!!

We reached our minimum, which means Branch Up will be receiving all the donations meaning we can run three more exciting activity days!!

But can we reach our target to make those days bigger and better? There's two days left, let's see what we can do together!

Interested in making regular donations to Branch Up? Please don't hesitate to get in touch with our coordinator via branchup@southamptonhub.org

Our First Activity Day to Marwell Zoo

by Simran Dhanjal

On Saturday 14th March 2015, Branch Up went on its first activity day! Our intrepid volunteers met at Highfield Campus, whilst our excited children met at Wordsworth Primary School and formed a small walking bus with a few of our volunteers including Simran and Sabina. We all met on the Avenue, where our coach picked us up and off we went to Marwell Zoo.

We had a lovely group of five children and six volunteers. Each child was paired with a student volunteer, who would be their partner for the day. On the bus journey to the zoo, each pair took the time to get to know each other, and there were many rounds of eye-spy. 

We arrived at Marwell Zoo at 11.30am, and following a swift exit from the bus, we made it into the park! Each of the pairs partnered up with another pair and set off on some free-time before lunch. Every child was given a map, and had to navigate themselves and their partner around the zoo. This meant that everyone got to see their favourite animals straight away, and allowed everyone to get acquainted with the layout of the park - something that would be very important for the afternoon activity. 

We met at Cafe Graze at 12.30pm for a minipicnic of sandwiches, fruit and crisps. In this time all sat together and had a chat about all the things we had seen so far. The groups had seen everything from meerkats to wallabies! 

After lunch, before our big activity, we found some open space and played a few games. We played a few games of Splat, before moving on to games suggested by the group. This lead to an excellent few rounds of Wink Murder being led by Crystal. After this we set up our afternoon activity - a scavenger hunt around the zoo. Each pair had a list of questions to answer and things to do and find, which they could only answer by going around the zoo. As soon as this was said everybody was off for over an hour and a half! 

We met up back by the penguins, and started to talk about some of the cool things we had seen during the hunt. When we got back on the bus, and went through all the answers. Everyone had found different answers and got to see some really cool animals. 

From our feedback, it seems that everyone had an excellent time. 5/5 kids said that the day was ‘brilliant’, and that they wanted to attend another one. They also gave us lots of ideas like the cinema, Legoland, and baking! This was amazing to hear, and we can’t wait to see everyone again, hopefully with some new faces too!

If you'd like to receive our full newsletter, complete with more pictures, please email BranchUp@Southamptonhub.org

Thanks to everyone who has donated to Branch Up so far!

We're currently at £388, £112 off our minimum with FIVE days to go!

If you'd like to help out by sharing our campaign with your friends, family, pet dog, next door neighbour, boss... other acquaintances, we'd really appreciate it!

In other (very very exciting) news, guess what? Branch Up held its first ever activity day!

On Saturday, five children, six volunteers and the Branch Up team all headed to Marwell Zoo for a scavenger hunt and most importantly to see the penguins!

It was a roaring success. Sim (our fantastic kids officer) is currently writing up our post-day newsletter and it will be appear here soon.

For now, please enjoy this picture of the Branch Up team being very big kids, taking our Scavenger Hunt selfie!