What a fantastically festive evening we had at My CWA tonight! We weren’t expecting Christmas decorations, wrapping, tinsel, Christmas trees and Christmas music!! But we got it and we are so glad we did! It was brilliant! Once bonfire night is over, it’s never too early to start thinking about Christmas (is it?!) and we embraced it wholeheartedly this evening (I think I may have even heard Maurice singing along to a Christmas tune…. 😉).

However, before we got stuck in to our task, we set off for our weekly dose of fitness. We had a couple of people who were recovering from colds and covid and so we took a group decision to walk this evening. It was a nice chatty walk and lovely to catch up with everyone and find out how their week had been. We did almost 1.5 miles at a fairly brisk pace – we saw the Christmas lights getting put up in the town centre – so it wasn’t just My CWA who were feeling festive!

Back at base, we were greeted by the lovely Bev and Kat who gave us our task for the evening. They got a very happy reception when they told us it was Christmas decorations. Karen was particularly delighted! We set to work on getting Christmassy! Every Christmas at My CWA, this fantastic charity provide lots of lovely Christmas gifts for the people who are using the service – people who are affected by domestic abuse. They get the opportunity to come in and choose Christmas gifts for their children and families. It’s such a lovely thing to do and helps to bring a sense of normality to these families who find themselves in challenging situations.

We set to work – Emily put together the Christmas Tree, Suzanne decorated all the racking with tinsel and Karen, Maurice and Nicola wrapped anything that could be wrapped! All with the intention of making the room look as Christmassy as possible ready for when people start coming in to look at the presents.

It was a really lovely evening and we enjoyed every moment of getting festive! Everywhere was looking lovely by the time we left. I’m hoping we’ll get to go back again for more Christmas tasks in the coming weeks!

Well done team – the room looked fabulous when we’d finished and this task definitely got me feeling festive – I think I’d best set to work on my Christmas shopping now!

Have a lovely week & hope to see you next week!

Lots of love Nicola xx

The British summer is still on a roll….. glorious sun, warm evenings, just lovely. Yes, it’s a tad hot for running but we can still use our legs – and tonight we chose to use them for walking – and lots of it!

7 Goodgym lovelies arrived at the task (brownie points for Maurice who walked to the task too!) raring to go. As it was so hot, we took a democratic vote and asked who wanted to run and who wanted to walk. Nobody voted to run (phew!!!), so we set off on our walk. We weren’t far from our beloved park, so we headed in that direction, chatting as we went. It was so warm that we even had to cross the road to get into the shade (we're usually chasing the sun in this country, not the shade!!). We headed into the park and decided to take the reverse of our parkrun course. It was lovely to wander round the lake (although I won’t lie, it was a bit niffy tonight - must be the heat!!) and take in all the lovely scenery. We enjoyed the local wildlife too – we saw a rabbit and squirrels along the path this evening – they were lovely. We do love our park!

Back at the task, we collected our leaflets from the Motherwell office and set to work. There were 7 of us tonight, so we knew we had a good chance of getting all the leaflets delivered... 500 in total! So off we set… armed with leaflets and a rough idea of where we were going to deliver them. There’s not really an awful lot to say about leafleting… other than it’s lots of walking, lots of letterboxes and the occasional overprotective guard dog! Luckily, we didn’t meet any feisty dogs tonight and all our fingers remain in tact!

We covered just short of 4 miles (in addition to our walk beforehand) and got all leaflets delivered with the exception of about 25. We’d have loved to have got them all done but we'd already gone well over time and I didn’t dare to push it too much!

When we’d finished, we headed over to the local pub, The Woodside, where we enjoyed a well earned drink, a few bags of crisps and a good chat. The drinks were refreshing and the company was as lovely as ever.

A very productive night, despite the heat! We hope that Motherwell get lots of traffic at their uniform exchange as a result of the leaflets.

Amazing work everyone! We literally did go the extra mile tonight!

Have a fantastic week and see you very soon!

Love & hugs always Nicola Xxx

PS - Goodgym is still my favourite way to spend a Wednesday night!

Tonight, we were back at the wonderful charity, My CWA (Cheshire Without Abuse). An amazing organisation that supports victims of domestic violence.

It was a lovely (slightly humid) night as Claire, Suzanne & Maurice met up for the evening’s task. We started our evening with a quick warm-up and run, taking on a circular route around Crewe that was just a slightly over 2 miles (3.46km). As always, it was a lovely chatty run, catching up on what we’d all been up to since we last met. Couldn’t quite believe it when Claire told us that she was doing a 25 mile training run at the weekend (in preparation for her ultra) and was setting out at 4.30am for the drive over!!! Claire, you are inspirational (and crazy in equal measure!!! Lol!). Enjoy your run and we look forward to hearing all about it next time we see you.

After our run, we arrived back at the building (actually, I’d describe it as more of a rabbit warren than a building – the place is huge!!). We were welcomed by the lovely team – Bev, Kat and Rach and then set to work assembling some furniture. It was a lovely (although, I think some of the team might disagree – I’ll come to that part soon) clean and fairly straight (hmm) forward task of putting legs on some of the lovely new furniture that they’d recently taken delivery of for their counselling rooms.

We set to work and quickly(ish) got the job done. We were then kindly fed!! I think that is a Goodgym first for us (and never ever an expectation!). Dominoes pizza! Dominoes!!! That’s only ever a special occasion treat in our house, so you can imagine my excitement to see 2 large boxes on the conference room table! It was deeeelicious! 2 pieces in and we set back to work putting together some more chairs. Claire and Suzanne had been helping with a separate piece of furniture (this is the part I said I was coming to) that was proving to be a little more tricky….. a flat pack chair from Ikea (say no more). So tricky in fact that Claire continued working on it while the rest of us troughed pizza (she promised she didn’t want any!). Over the time that Claire’s been coming to Goodgym, I’ve learned that she loves a puzzle or a challenge (she won’t be beaten) so she was in her element with the chair and went on to put to a further 2 together!! Well done Claire!

It was another really lovely evening spent in lovely company and My CWA were so grateful for our help and support. The rooms are going to be looking really lovely with all the new plush furniture in. Thanks for having us My CWA and we look forward to coming back to help you again soon.

Well done team, you were AMAZING as always and I loved spending time with you all.

See you at the next one! Love always Nicola xxx

We had a fabulous and productive time at the Sherborne Community Bungalow this week.

Claire, Suzanne, Karen, Emily & Maurice set to work on helping to clear one of the rooms in the bungalow ready for decorating. There was a fair amount of stuff that needed moving, including shelves that needed dismantling.

Muscles were flexed, screwdrivers operated and the task at hand was completed. I had wonderful feedback from Joe who was running the project who said everyone did an amazing job and our help has really helped to speed up the process of getting the room decorated. Once it's been decorated, it will be put to good use by the local residents and wider members of the community.

And a big shout out to our run and walk leader volunteers and photographers tonight too! What would I do without you?

Well done team, another incredible job done as always!!! Sorry to have missed this one!!

You know I think you're all amazing don't you?!!! ;-) xxx

This wonderful bunch of lovelies were so good tonight - with a last minute change of plans due to COVID and the weather, they could so easily have bailed..... but they didn't!!

Claire, Donna, Maurice & Suzanne put on their warm gear and came out to do a group litter pick down Crewe's busiest street. Starting off at our local community college, they worked their way through the college grounds, through some more local streets and finally onto Nantwich Road - home to lots of fast food outlets and so can sometimes be a bit of a rubbish magnet.

Despite an early set back with some rather tricky bin bags, they beavered away in the cold, gathering as much rubbish as they could and they smashed the challenge to cover 2 miles of ground along the way.

Thanks for being so willing to continue with tonight's task despite difficult circumstances. I appreciate your commitment and dedication so much.

You are all truly awesome xxxx