Firstly may I offer my best wishes from all at NESL to you this festive season. We are now closed for our annual Christmas closure and I am feeling reflective. 2016 has been a year of considerable changes and upheaval. It has seen new beginnings and new adventures but NESL is still a large part of my life: just not the only role I now do.

This time last year we had 103 slings on loan, we had 252 slings and we made 774 hires. This year we  surpassed this once again. In March we introduced our online inventory and check out system on MyTurn. This has made checking out of slings and admin much quicker: it even sends instructions and reminder emails automatically. We now have 612 families signed up with 439 active users. This Christmas we have 137 slings on loan. We now have 372 slings and carriers too (that is an 47% increase on 2015). In MyTurn alone we have made 1448 completed loans (this does include extensions to hirsa). There were also 220 loans completed before we introduced MyTurn.

In terms of social media. I continue to use several platforms. Our Facebook Page now has 3616 likes, our group over 1300. Instagram has over 430 followers and there are 1388 on Twitter. I have written 43 blogs. I have also written guest blogs for Birth and Baby Network, Connecta Baby and Babyfoote. Our biggest achievement was probably our involvement with Which? in assisting and coordinating the NE parent test panel for their sling testing. I believe the results will be out shortly too.

We continue to charge just £8 for 4 weeks hire and have 7 sessions a month. Although this is 1 less than 2015 my return to work meant I had little choice. Thank you for your support with my return to paid employment, I know of has resulted in lots of changes and less flexibility from me. Thank you to Kelly and Madeleine who have been so amazing in running 3 of the sessions. Thank yous also go to Suzie, Kirsty, Emma and Sarah too for their help.

Overall 2016 has been a brilliant year. Unfortunately as we see the end of it we have 3 slings which are overdue and had another AWOL for 8 weeks. Please make sure if you hire a sling that it is returned on time and with all accessories. 2017 will see me needing to fake further action to get carriers back.

I look forward to seeing faces new and old in 2017. Happy Christmas and may you have a peaceful New Year. Let’s see if we can make 2017 even better!