Blue Monday! The only thing that’s blue with the Goodgymers are their fingertips on this bitter cold evening. If anything, the team were very chirpy today and full of Monday spirit. Lots of runs completed over the weekend meant that we have exceeded our 450km target for January! We are still sitting strong in our division on good deeds (63/90 completed). So, thank you and well done for all your efforts

Our task tonight was to help The Parvaaz Project. After the welcome brief and warm up we headed out on our 1.5km distance to Northampton Avenue

We got to the task premises a few minutes ahead of time and Natasha our task owner was still en-route. So to fill the time, we played a really mature and sensible game of Simon Says, followed by Duck, Duck, Goose!

Natasha soon arrived and gave us a download of the tasks. The carpets at the centre were in need of some loving attention. This task involved moving some furniture and then using the rug doctor machine to clean them. And also an outdoor litter pick

We divided into two teams

• The Warm Ones
• The Cold Ones

And cracked on with the tasks

As usual, Darren got swept away in the moment and was first to start lifting and shifting

Now, generally, all carpets want are to get laid without being walked all over! Doesn't everyone!

So we did our best not to roll around although for Chris that was a bit tricky and some level of self control was needed. To be fair though, he was still feeling a bit worn out from his cold.

The first mission was to figure out how to actually use the rug doctor… in these situations there is only one phone a friend option… out of either Matt, Poly, Ester or YouTube… YouTube wins hands down. Online degree in carpet machinery achieved, Darren got to work showing off his new found skills.

Now, we don’t want to stain your impressions of us, we actually are a hard working team. We like to have a joke and a laugh whilst we work but in the main we are not too rugged and generally we got it covered. So no need to keep your scotch guard up, we are a little frayed but there is no friction with us.

Whilst Sally, Tierney, Chris, Ricky, Emma, Darren and Emily worked in the warmth of the centre… James, Sandy, Ruth and Kam were out in the cold clearing the carpark and garden area of litter. There was no level of bitterness at all of the inside crew, after all.. all they did was lay around feeling flat, whilst the cold ones could no longer feel their fingertips! But being bit wooden beneath the surface and a bit heavy duty meant that no one took it to heart.

The warm ones did a fantastic job of moving every piece of furniture, giving the area a spring clean and repositioning it all back. The cold ones had an entertaining litter pick! A few undesirables found and disposed of from the car park. Two bags of rubbish cleared!

40 minutes in and we were task complete! Natasha was totally floored at what we had achieved.

We down tooled, tidied up and made our short run back to base. Another good deed in the bag

We have a community mission this coming Saturday (two in fact). Our first one is the parkrun takeover at Upton Court Park. Although we have filled all the parkrun volunteer positions now, you are still welcome to come join us and help spread the Goodgym word amongst the parkrunners. https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/upton-court-park-run-takeover

Straight after this task (09.45 meet up for a 10am start) will we be doing a litter pick of the park. Please feel free to join us on this task if you can. https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/keep-our-park-litter-free

Enjoy the rest of your week Manjit