Monday again.. how did that happen?! I’ve looked forward to the session all day on account of it having some quirkiness and the fact I haven’t actually been outside today and been totally buried in work.

I was really looking forward to meeting Paula tonight who’s certainly made a splash at GoodGym Newcastle, chalking off three good deeds in as many days, what a way to kick off your GoodGyming! Give her a big cheer. Really nice to see Aimee back with us too following her move back to Newcastle.

With black clouds looming we took cover near Stepney Bank Stables entrance while we caught up on the weekend’s activities that included two community missions and my big 250th parkrun. Yay! Regular GoodGymers know how long I’ve counted down for that one and it felt great. The inspiration for tonight’s session actually came a couple of weeks ago when we did a leafleting session in Byker and noticed how much litter accumulated around the fences of nearby St Lawrence Park. Always the primary school teacher deep down, I turned this into a challenge and made some fun bingo boards to give a twist to the session. Teams were divided, competitive sides exposed and off we went: time to tidy up and conquer!

You’ll see from the photos that each group had nine items to tick off and they had to take a photo of each to be victorious- the prizes for this included 80s inspired sweets and sheer glory. In just 20 minutes, Tom’s team (including Scott and Lucy) had won. Kudos! Just seconds behind was Paula’s team (with Damu and Aimee) also collecting every item and perhaps the most impressive random thing of the night, a pair of Turtle pyjama bottoms! Before long two bulging bags of rubbish were collected and we headed further into the park to complete an Ekiden-inspired relay race. Once again a very competitive activity with Team Turtle Pants this time taking the victory.

What a fun start to the week!