It was a super warm night tonight but it didn’t stop 10 committed Goodgym runners from coming together for their weekly run and task.

Tonight, runners made their way to the task – some cycling and some walking. It was definitely a nice night for bike ride as the breeze was very welcome!

We met at the old Manchester University building – now used for other purposes, more recently acting as the bustling COVID vaccine hub. For many of our volunteers, they were very familiar with the surroundings having spent so much time volunteering there during lockdown!

We started our evening with a warmup – as the children have recently returned to school, we gave it a school playground theme (not sure how happy everyone was about that, lol!). Our exercises included skipping, hopscotch, jumping (like we used to do in the sack race!) and a good old run (I didn’t go so far as to make them play ‘tick’). And based on last week’s community mission, I thought Nigel might appreciate some kiddie-based activities!

We had two groups tonight – a running group and a walking group. It was a hot evening, so we had a very steady run around the business park. It doesn’t sound very exciting but actually, it’s quite a green business park with lots of trees and greenery (maybe next time, we’ll take in the woodland area).

After our exercise, we headed across to Autism Inclusive where we started the task of apple picking. Some of us collected apples from the floor, while others picked straight from the tree. Apples had to be sorted into 3 categories – rotten, slightly inedible but not too bad, and good. The rotten apples were collected and went straight to compost, the slightly inedible apples were collected by a local cider company (reducing waste) and the good apples were going to the food bank.

It was a lovely evening, and it was wonderful to see other members of the community coming together to support this task. We worked alongside co-cop pioneers, local volunteers as well as the Town Council Mayor. We had good conversation and good fun. It was another successful evening filled with fun, friendship, fitness and the feel-good factor.

Hopefully the children that use the facilities of Autism Inclusive will no longer have to dodge the apples as they play!

Well done everyone. Amazing community spirit as always!

xxxx