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

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