Oh great, it's my turn to feel silly running through the centre of town in angel wings!

You read it here first, I have finally gained my wings and achieved my 100th good deed with GoodGym Newcastle! Phew. #GGNCL has changed my life in so many ways and brought so many great people into my life, that it feels impossible to choose a favourite task amongst that 100, but at a push I'd say the massive one we did at Newcastle University or that first visit to Recyke Y Bike with the amazing sunset on the way back. They have all been so brilliant, and if you haven't done so in a while, spend some time this week looking back on the run reports and reflect on all the great things we do Thanks to everyone who has made GoodGym Newcastle what it is today, you've made it amazing.

It was another big turnout for our first visit of the year to Newcastle University students union. We love working together with Newcastle Uni as they give us such a great variety of tasks and work hard on integrating students with GoodGym Newcastle to provide them with great ways to get fit and do good things during their time at University. Tonight we were heading there to support NEST, a student-run volunteer project which offers amongst other things free English lessons to the refugee community in the region. Through the delivery of these lessons, refugees improve their written and verbal communication skills enabling them to gain necessary language qualifications required to gain employment in the UK. Boosting their confidence empowers them to integrate themselves into the local community, reducing the stigma and prejudice from existing residents.

We think what NEST do is nothing short of amazing.

We had a catch up on some great things that happened over the weekend including Tom's 50th good deed- yay! and heard about the last few community missions planned for January. Our partner- balance warm up game was as popular as ever with some weird and wonderful contributions from all! This was a great exercise in welcoming new runner Elliot along who happily got stuck in without questioning why we would start our evening with a Primary PE game in a car park.

It's a short jog to Newcastle Uni which was lucky as Paul casually ran another marathon yesterday and didn't have too long to grumble about his legs! Task owner Bridget along with another few volunteers from NEST met us there and ushered us into a toasty warm classroom for tonight's Good Things. There were two tasks waiting for us: sorting through and organising learner pack book bags, and creating number and letter display posters for the families who access NEST. Rachael took charge of the poster organisation while her crew showed off their artistic flair/failing while Debbie took charge of the laminator. Meanwhile out in the corridor the bag packers loved the chance to relax while they organised the book bags. This was a perfect example of the impact such a large group can have on completing tasks that would usually take charities much, much longer.

We used the courtyard area for the fitness session tonight which was a pulse-raising, competitive super fast game of chain tag in which Darren showed the best way to win is basically to spend half of the game hiding. This was definitely a fun way to get some interval training done and there were some red faces by the end of it!

I'm not sure where Tom is, but I think he's cheating

Thankfully the short jog back to base gave everyone the chance to make friends again.

Once again there are two chances to do good things this Saturday as we rumble on through the January challenge doing as many great things as we can. First up is your chance to help out at Newcastle parkrun where we are hoping for a big red tshirted takeover. If you want to get involved in this one, it's really important you follow the instructions in the listing and contact Newcastle parkrun to get yourself added to their volunteer roster. Even if the roster looks full, there will be the chance to double up at marshal points and wave the flag (literally!) for GoodGym Newcastle. If you're coming along to run, let's see you in your red and black tshirts: I will look for you to grab a big group photo near the start at 8:45am. Straight after that, I am leading our monthly visit to Nunsmoor Park where we will be helping out with jobs in the park right up to lunchtime. Stay as long as you like for that one!

There are more great things coming up to the end of the month and onwards, just keep checking the listings for more updates from the terrific task force.

See you next Monday for more running, walking, goodness, games and occasional fancy dress.

Anji x

A big, huge, massive WELCOME BACK to GoodGym Newcastle for 2020

Tonight a massive 24 runners and walkers assembled for their first dose of Good things in the new year and it was so great to see such a super mix of old and new faces. Welcome to our new runner Nada for getting stuck in and making us all smile!

We had loads to catch up on including a massive epic challenge that Andrew, Evan and Darren took part in yesterday: The Winter Wipeout. Not content with just doing something very hard and in very hard conditions, the three of them took part in less-than-standard running gear. Well done you three, we are really proud of you!

We warmed up with a quick recap of Best Christmas Presents which made us all smile. Choices included a Dyson hoover, a candle of Beyonce's face, a few pairs of trainers and not forgetting "This is quite lame, but, ALDI FACEWASH". We then split off into three plogging groups for the task. Heading off on three different distances were the walking group with Charlotte, the longer run group with Paul and the medium distance and chats run with me. We'd be taking part in a general tidy up on the way to, in and around Leazes Park to give us the chance to kick of 2020 with a sociable (and easy!) task for the night.

The task itself was much easier than previous visits to Leazes Park with many of the areas we usually find a lot of litter surprisingly clear- this was of course great to see! We did find enough to fill a few bags and there was also a dumped Christmas tree in the bandstand to take care of- Martin and Jon to the rescue on that one. It also gave everyone a really nice chance to catch up and ease back into GoodGym for 2020.

The fitness session was another story

A few people mentioned they were starting to feel cold so that gave me the perfect excuse to get everyone working extra hard! Two paired games to start, then into teams for a spot of file running, recovering with easy laps by the lake. Kudos to everyone for such brilliant effort in this tonight, and shout out to Paul for standing in the cold to be our human turn-back point.. we didn't almost forget you.. honest.

As part of the JANUARY CHALLENGE we are squeezing as many good deeds into one month as we possibly can, so get along to a Community Mission or two this month if you can. You'll find them all listed on the website, ranging from gardening to a takeover at Newcastle parkrun. There are a few of our old favourites in there as well as some brand new sparkling tasks for you to get involved in to start the year off with a bang. As well as this, don't miss out on a bonus Group Run on Saturday 18th January which is the ideal run to bring someone along to who wants to give us a try as part of a New Year's Resolution!

Hope to see you back with the same brilliant energy for our monthly visit to Newcastle Eagles next week.

Welcome back!

Anji x

We love a new task and we love painting!

It was all hands on deck (and on rollers) for tonight's Group Run as we headed off to the NSPCC in Sandyford to do a spot of painting. It was brilliant Cathy who hooked this up for us a few months ago, so big thanks for that. GoodGym works better when we work as a team and having this brilliant new task sourced for us was great. Go and give her a cheer! It was a chilly catch up on the weekend's action including a brilliant GGNCL takeover at North East Marathon Club's Town Moor Marathon and Half where we were once again guardians of the gate. We weren't able to list this as an official community mission, so I was blown away by the commitment from those who came along and enhanced the day for themselves and all the runners on the moor. You did a great job of spreading the word of GoodGym to a running community who wouldn't otherwise know we were there.

Epic

A very swift warm up of activation drills, arm swishing and avoiding bollards, we did our head count, gave new runner Lorna a big cheer and Louise and I led the way off to Jesmond to meet brilliant Task Owner Katy who was ready, waiting and organised for our arrival. The conversation topic tonight was around controversial opinions, and we heard everything from someone (ahem) who doesn't like Christmas, a few people who've never seen Game of Thrones, to someone who hates Harry Potter and my personal favourite "people have too many opinions about raisins" .. your secrets are safe with me.

This task has been a few months in the planning and it was a huge honour to finally get cracking with the amazing NSPCC in Sandyford. Their centre has a few rooms in need of a lick of paint, but that wasn't all we were there for.

Jobs tonight were:

• Painting two rooms

• Assembling donation boxes

• Putting sashes on teddy bears

• Putting up Christmas decorations

• Wrapping and labelling presents

• Eating a fine selection of sweet-related refreshments

Everyone seemed to love their allocated tasks and there was a brilliant industrious atmosphere as everyone cracked on with wrapping, rolling and occasional singing (I'm looking at you, Rachael) Task owner Katy was so pleased that we got everything done and she thanked us all with a gorgeous star pin badge which we will wear with pride knowing we made a difference to this fabulous organisation. We have promised a return visit so watch this space! As we'd run out of time to do a fitness session, it was a faster run back again expertly led by Louise who also gifted us with tonight's stunning pun. Thanks Louise!

We don't have any community missions this week ahead, but there are a bunch listed here from next Friday into the end of the year. Some of them are our usual gardening antics, with loads of Christmas/Wintery stuff thrown in for good measure. Get involved if you can.

Have a great week doing lots of walking, running and good things.

Anji x

Dark, isn't it?

Our first run since the clocks went back, so it was great to see so many along, wrapped up and glowing ready to take on an outdoors task for Youth Homeless North East which was hooked up for us by terrific Task Forcer, Andrew. YHNE aims to provide a regional focus, resources, and facilities to address youth homelessness strategically through policy and influence, putting young people at the heart of it. They rely on the support of fundraisers and volunteers like us to get the word out, and they are always super-grateful for our support. We decided to target the Jesmond area of the city for this one as YHNE received some great support from the area last time we popped over, and its also the perfect distance for our walking group to get involved too.

We had Amy back tonight for the first time since her move to the big smoke, where she's also run a couple of times with the wonderful GoodGym Newham ... it's good to share! And a few others back after a break so hello Louisa, Katie and Richard too.

"That's the beauty of GoodGym, you just come when you want!" - Rachel

I won't apologise for the cringe-inducing warm up tonight in which we hopped, jumped and skipped while passing compliments around the circle. We heard everything from "I love your leggings" to "You're such an affable man" and by the end of it everyone was smiling and warmed up inside and out.

We had the usual weekend catch up as there was another brilliant community mission completed for our friends at Nunsmoor Park on Saturday from a group of Community Mission regulars. We are back at Nunsmoor every month so keep an eye on the listings and sign up if you want to get involved.

It was then time to head off after Charlotte who had a walking head start for her 99th good deed tonight!

Splitting up into two groups (far and not so far) we scattered off and got going as quickly as we could to keep warm. We got around 200 leaflets out meaning we can continue with a part 2 next week and deliver to a different area. Bonus! We were close to Exhibition Park for the fitness session which was a quad burning triple circuit of hill sprints, step reps and lots of star jumps during which Katy wondered if there was an eye-spy world championship (it's a long story) and everyone impressed by doing the whole circuit twice with minimum grumbling.

No community missions this weekend, so we will see you back at Hotel Indigo next week ready for Lunges and Letterboxes part 2!

Have a great week,

Anji x