7 of us met at Sanctus ready to help wrap some Christmas presents and make up some gift boxes.

Andy and I ran an epic marathon-esque distance from HQ ( around 1km), while Fay and Sallyann walked, and we met Ben, Martin and Leah there as they have just come straight from work.

Claire was there to greet us and set us up and get our production line going. And may i say what a well oiled machine we became with some wrapping, some on box production and some box stuffing. She was even kind enough to make us teas and coffees to keep us hydrated caffeinated.

As we were deeply engrossed in our task (and top chatting) some lovely people arrived with some food donations and on seeing us doing such a good job they realised they had extra minced pies and kindly offered them to us. We politely declined (but not too much) and after a few more offerings we accepted and gobbled them all up with coffee and tea. mmmmmmm minced pies.

With everything wrapped and packed, we cleaned any crumbs off the table, stacked the chairs back and went on our merry ways.

Thanks for coming guys, what would have taken one person all day, just took us 45 mins and great chatting to boot.

Next week we will be clearing leaves at St John's Church Hall

thanks again all

Run Happy

Rich

We did our annual foodbank reverse advent calendar collection and got a lovely boot full to donate. Well done everyone who took part, it's for a great cause.

10 GoodGymers made quick work of preparing a bumper crop of leaflets ready for our leaflet drop next week. The leaflets were sorted and folded in no time, which meant we could have a chinwag as we finished our drinks before the run back to HQ!

We will be leafletting along the avenues next week, you can sign up here:

After a late message to see if anyone else wanted to join us, it was great to end up having ten of us at the task!

We welcomed Bronya and Lucy for the first time, and Leah and Jess for their first GoodGym session for a while.

Ben led us out down the High St for a slightly longer route to Sanctus, and we arrived to our task surprisingly sweaty for a November evening.

Our lovely task owner Sarah showed us the hallway and toilet that could do with a fresh coat of paint, ready for Sanctus' Christmas meal in a few weeks. As we had such a large group, some of the team painted and some gave the chairs and tables a good scrub.

Richard E showed off his professionalism by giving the high corners a quick dust with a paintbrush, whilst the others went straight for pouring paint out. After speaking to Sarah about how many people Sanctus support everyday and seeing the cleaning team working hard, I returned to the painting area to find that Ben had somehow shut Jane, Jess, and Richard P in the toilet, but this clearly helped as they managed to get the whole room finished.

Whilst the last areas of painting and cleaning up were finished, Sarah showed a few of us round and told us more about everything Sanctus does for those who need its help. A great charity and task, and we look forward to returning!

Refreshing to have some different energy in the group this evening, everyone actually wanted to do the same way back to ARU to get a bit more distance in!

Next week, we have leaflet preparations at The Oddfellows.

Also, let's not all be TOO jealous of Sallyann going to San next week.

See you all soon,

Laurie