MAN WITH A PAN!

Well done and big thanks to our lovely team of GoodGym runners who yet again smashed a task for the local community.

This time we were helping raise awareness of the Man with a Pan project run by AgeUK, which is a fun, friendly 5 week practical cookery course where participants will learn how to cook healthy, nutritious meals, meet new people and gain essential cookery skills.

It's aimed at older men who have been recently bereaved, have caring responsibilities, may be lonely and isolated and have never really learned to cook and/ or live alone and don't have the skills to cook healthy nutritious meals from scratch. It's a project really close to our hearts and we're hoping to do more work with them in the future - watch this space!

Anyway, back to the task in hand and also the essential Group run equipment of wooden SPATULAS (hence our wonderful pun - thanks to Isaac for that one!). Utensil models and stalwart Group runners Jo and Vicky.

After we had assembled, warmed up and chatted about the task and news we headed out to our leaflet destination of Sale. Once there we set about posting our leaflets through doors (with the help of our wooden friends to protect our fingers - pick up one GoodGym Trafford point for getting this tip!) and chatting to people we met along the way about the Man with a Pan initiative. We managed to deliver over 400 leaflets, amazing effort guys! Triumphant team!

Thanks for delivering the leaflets for us, much appreciated!

Streets pounded we returned home at a fair clip, and cooled off back at our lovely base location of St Matthews Hall in Stretford whilst chatting about the spooky halloween task for next week! Whooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Well done again to the team!

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A little bit of local knowledge goes a long way...

Massive shout out to our team of Trafford GoodGymers who managed to deliver a whopping 500 flyers for AgeUK last night. AgeUK are running a local Health and Wellbeing event in the area on 6th November (click here for their website) and wanted to raise awareness with local residents. Thanks to GoodGym Trafford, 500 people will have info about it in their letterboxes!

We met as usual at St Matthews Community Hall in Stretford at 6.30pm and had a chat about the leaflet task, the mission over the weekend (still time to sponsor to raise money for Bone Cancer Research), and news...congrats to Isaac who after being away on a mission of his own last week, let us know that he passed his assessment up in Scotland - WELL DONE.

We warmed up inside as the wind was chilly (but no rain again - HURRAH!) and then set off down the road to Sale with our leaflets on board. With the help of local Isaac (we literally ran his usual 5K route!) in teams we navigated what can only be described as a rabbit warren of streets and distributed the flyers. We even managed to have a chat with a few locals along the way. Isaac showing us round his manor The GoodGym Trafford Busy Bees mid task!

After looping back round we then ran straight back home together clocking up a whopping 8.64KM in total! We stretched off, chatted about getting ID verified and the most recent Coach Pairing in Trafford (hurrah!) and congratulated ourselves on another job well done by the team:

thanks very much GoodGym Trafford!

See you next week...

Live from Gorse Hill Studios...

GoodGym: The RETURN

A whopping well done to our fab team of Trafford GoodGym-ers who returned to Gorse Hill Studios to finish off the clearance of their front garden last night ahead of them repurposing it for growing produce to be cooked in the their new kitchen.

As usual we met at our base location of St Matthew's Community Hall in Stretford at 6.30pm where we had a chat about the task, warmed up and set our Stravas to stun before heading off up Chester Road (with a lot of footie fans) to GSH.

We were introduced to the task and the studios by Liv who gave us an ace tour and really brought the benefit of the facilities to life for us all...

Above, drama is life for Jon

Once we had got into the CUPBOARD OF DREAMS (aka tool shed) we set about trimming, clearing and scraping the the heck out of the patio...

She's got the key, she's got the secret...

We whacked some feel good tunes on and really transformed the space ready for it's revamp...

After we had congratulated ourselves on another job really well done we tidied away and made our way back to base in two teams, with different lengths of run route home.

All re-assembled, we stretched off and chatted about our group run/ task for next week, wished Isaac luck for his upcoming fitness assessment and also races for Martin and John. Good luck all!

Big shout to Fiona who is making massive strides on her running - keep up the good work! Special mention also to Isaac and Vicky who have been on every single GoodGym Trafford Group run which now makes six on the bounce! And big thanks to Jo who backmarked us admirably.

See you all next time!

HAPPY 10TH BIRTHDAY GOODGYM!

Big whoops to our mighty GoodGym Trafford Group runners who ran 4K last night to help at the lovely Victoria Park in Stretford. Celebrating 10 years of GoodGym in style were the dynamic duo of newbies Jo and Jo and super trooper Mishy who joined lots of our lovely regular runners to really get stuck into our task.

While we were all assembling we had time to chat about the different ways that GoodGym helps local communities, listen to a few tunes and to look at the lovely Fit Togetether 10th birthday books. Then when all ready, we welcomed everyone and read the letter from Ivo, the founding GoodGym member which was great!

John modelling the birthday sign-in table.

After we had limbered up and headcounted in we ran to Victoria Park to meet the lovely Sarah from Friends of Victoria Park who met us with all manner of tools (hurrah!) including THE CLAW which were to put to good use. She explained the history of the park, how the Friends of Group run Wednesday morning wellbeing sessions and what we could do to help.

Tools in hand, we set about weeding the beautiful flower beds and finding out more about the park and the local area.

We were helped along the way by numerous doggy pals who were very intrigued by what we were up to and some of whom fancied a chew on our flag.

Following a good 40 minutes on the flower beds the transformation was brilliant...

It's looking lovely, thank you!

and we topped off our evening by celebrating the raising of the park's brand new Green flag by putting ours on the pole too! Hurrah!

We ran the long way back home to get more mileage on our Stravas and stretched off back at the ranch (St Matthew's Community Hall) chatting about our next community mission on 21st before heading off for our social at the nearby Head bar.

big well done and thanks

to everyone who helped us celebrate in style!