Last night we channelled our original GoodGym roots by combining a group run and a good deed – something that we don’t always get to do in Nottingham.

Bozena, Peter, Rosemarie and Rachel met at the Bridgeway Hall Methodist Centre to head out on a jog around the local area. It was one of those evenings when half of us were running late due to traffic and general life/work chaos, so we set off a little later than planned, but we still managed a gentle 1.15 miler led by Peter.

On return to the Bridgeway Hall, we met with Leah and first time GoodGymer Faizah and the six of us enjoyed a few stretches while we waited to start the task. At 7pm we were joined by Tom and we all headed in to meet Mark from the Meadows Foodbank who, as always, greeted us with open arms and a list of tasks that he had lined up for us.

We spent the next hour hard at work around the foodbank. Peter and Tom took on the task of sweeping and mopping all the floors in the main store area and kitchen. Rosemarie and Faizah tackled a huge pile of carrier bags, dividing them into piles based on their durability (‘bag for life’, ‘bag for a few years but not life’ (?), ‘slightly less sturdy bag’, ‘paper bag’ etc etc…).

Aided by Mark’s son, Leah squashed down a pile of cardboard to leave outside for recycling. They then moved onto packing six 2-person boxes and two children’s boxes with food and supplies. Rachel cleaned the fridges and freezers and gave the pantry area a sweep and mop.

Meanwhile, Bozena had the unique task of sorting through a pile of donated books to see which were to go on the shelf in the foodbank and which would be better donated to charity. She had a great time checking out a range of ‘classics’, including a magic book where the contents disappeared and reappeared again before our eyes!

Of course we had a group photo before we left and it was great to see so many GoodGym t-shirts on show (not always possible at this time of year when we’re all covered up). Don’t we look lovely!

Well done to Faizah for completing her first GoodGym task. It was lovely to meet you!

Thanks to Mark for hosting us once again at the Meadows Foodbank. We will make a date to come back very soon.

We may not be able to sing like Adele, but by golly can GoodGym Nottingham paint a wall!

After a last-minute task rejig, we were back with our new friends at The Place to get them another step closer to finishing their fantastic renovations.

Rosemarie and Vytautas were giving a coat of paint to some of the trunking around the two rooms, while Peter, Nigel and Leah were cutting in and rollering another coat of white paint onto the walls.

Having blitzed that pretty quickly (many hands make light work and all that), including a coat over the area we were chipping the old paint off last week, we moved on to coating the door frames with some fresh wood paint.

As always, our fabulous hosts made us a well-earned round of tea towards the end as we took a step back to admire everything. The Place is almost unrecognisable from our first visit - the team has done an amazing job and we can't wait to see the finished rooms soon! I've been assured we'll get invited to the launch party, so watch this space!

Jules, Tom and Rosemarie headed to Lees Hill Park in Nottingham to help Kathryn with various tasks in the community garden.

As ever, Kathryn was incredibly grateful for GoodGym's help and said "They were great today. It's inspired me to buy a load of bulbs and some foxgloves for the space".

For our latest task we returned to The Place Activity Centre in Sherwood to help with their renovations. We were hosted by Kirsty and Lauren who greeted us on arrival and provided us with tea and coffee during the task – amazing! It was a few weeks since our last visit and we were really impressed with how the transformation of the downstairs rooms was coming along.

The room we were painting last time was almost done, so on this visit we turned our attention to the second room where the painting was underway. Matthew, Hussein and Tom started by giving one of the walls another coat of white paint. Nigel and Leah took on moving some big shelves and all their contents into the centre of the room so that the other wall could be accessed. Once they had done that, they started scraping off the old paint on that wall in preparation for its paint job.

Meanwhile, Rosemarie took on the satisfying task of pulling up a load of tape from floor in the foyer area. Remember during the pandemic when we had to keep 2-metres apart? This tape was a relic from those days. Finally, Rachel took on scrubbing off the paint stains and sticky coating from the sink in the room which had seen better days (taking a ‘before’ photo but completely forgetting to take an ‘after’…).

The hour whizzed by and before we knew it, it was time to down tools, drink up, take a photograph and head off home.

The team behind The Place are working to a tight deadline to get their renovations finished by the end of October, so we were more than happy to agree to go back next week to help some more. It’s the perfect place for a task on a chilly Autumn night, and with friendly hosts and tea and coffee, who can resist?!! Sign up here.

It’s been a little while since we celebrated any milestones, so here is a little update on how this lot are getting on:

We welcomed Hussein to his first GoodGym task – lovely to meet you! Matthew has now done 4 tasks (plus the all-important pub quiz). Rosemarie is on 9 so will be hitting her 10th very soon, and Nigel is now on 21 – we missed your 20th, but congratulations on that milestone! Leah has just hit the big 40 so the countdown is on to her half century, and amazingly this was Tom’s 80th task – will he be the next to 100?!