We returned to Sherwood Community Centre last night for our latest task. Under skies filled with pretty fireworks, loud bangs and other sounds (more on that later), we met Louise on arrival who set us to work on various exciting jobs around the centre.

Leah, Florence and Tom started off by moving books and radiators around the maze of the building. The books included a diverse range of titles (as shown in the photos), although most were about steam trains and the wars. Once they had finished this job, they moved onto dusting and painting the hallway area, and Tom had the honour of hanging the welcome sign in the foyer.

Also inside the building, Matt turned his hand to a spot of painting while Nigel celebrated his 50th good deed with the important task of painting over the ‘Barbie’ pink wall in the kitchen.

Meanwhile, outside, Peter, Khiltee and I tackled the leaves in the grounds, sweeping, raking and bagging as much as we could in the hour. As well as being treated to a soundtrack of booms from the fireworks, we also noticed that we could hear two very distinct hoots of owls coming from the trees above. As we stopped to listen, along with some of the centre-users who were leaving after their exercise class, we caught a glimpse of one of the owls swoop from one tree to the next. What a privilege!

Thank you to Louise from the Sherwood Community Centre for hosting us and, as always, giving us lots of fun tasks to do. We will be returning next week for more (sign up here).

Now, to the milestones. Congratulations to Nigel on his 50th good deed, Peter on his 60th and Leah on her 80th. Oh, and it was my 150th! 😛

It was back to the food bank in The Meadows for eight Goodgymers last night. Mark from the food bank soon had us organised and so we set to work. Hannah, Bozena and Aj set to organising stock. Meanwhile some generous donations meant a number of pallets where stacked higher than Peter so Matt (six at a time!), Scott, Tom and Kevin got stuck in to moving tuna, mandarin segments and rice puddings by the dozen upstairs. Some would say this was good Hyrox training if anyone had somehow got themselves roped in to one (not looking at Tom in particular!) but was definitely a good workout for everyone there!

Sadly our post-Goose Fair litterpick at Forest Rec didn't live up to the excellent rubbish standards of last time we cleared up after a major event there – Nigel's inflatable alien really will take some beating, it seems!

That's not to say we got a bad haul though! Despite someone (the council maybe?) managing to give the place a good cleaning between Rachel and Peter's pre-task reccies and our arrival, we still managed to fill a good few bags of rubbish.

Hannah's crank took the prize for most unusual bit of litter, while Elspeth and Leah managed to find half a loaf of very stale, very mouldy bread, followed by its bag a few metres further down the fence.

Shoutout to Scott for coming to his very first task with us – hope to see you again soon!

Someone please remind me to charge the headtorches, looks like we'll be needing them for outdoor stuff from now on!

It was a bumper turn out at this week’s task as 11 Nottingham GoodGymers headed to the Meadows Foodbank and Pantry. Mark greeted us on arrival and, once he found his to-do list, he set us to work on a variety of tasks.

Dayna and Elspeth took on the task of sorting and tidying the clothes in the foodbank. Matt, Bozena, Rafe, Nigel, Rosemarie and Vytautas did a huge clean of the floors, shelves and fridges. Meanwhile Peter, Tom and Rachel headed upstairs to tackle a flat pack Ikea table and a clothes rail.

As some of these jobs proved quicker than others, a few of the group then turned their hand to dating some of the food, and photographing and cataloging some toys and baby items which are going to form part of the foodbank’s Christmas campaign (see information poster in photos). Finally, as if we hadn’t ticked off enough different activities this evening, Nigel took on the important job of folding bits of paper for the foodbank’s raffle which was due to be drawn in the coming days.

We welcomed Rafe to his first GoodGym session, and also Elspeth who has recently moved to Nottingham from Leeds where she used to do GoodGym.

Also congrats to Dayna who has now done 10 tasks, and a big well done to Bozena who did the Robin Hood Half Marathon at the weekend!

GoodGym Nottingham recently decided to mark various milestones within the team with a task and pub quiz combo.

The group congregated at the Carlton Hill Sensory Garden (Garden for the Blind) to do a spot of tidying and litter picking. We had expected to pick up where we left off last time and get stuck into more of the overgrown bushes, however someone had beaten us to it and the garden was actually looking very clear and tidy. Leah managed to find one patch which still needed a bit of a prune, whilst the rest of the group split up and looked for litter and anything else that needed a little chop.

The group did still manage to fill a bag of cuttings and get quite a bit of rubbish from the surrounding streets, so it was still time well spent.

After the task, we headed to the nearby Brickyard Pub to eat pizza and do the pub quiz where we placed fourth. Not too shabby, although we have realised that our knowledge of James Bond themes and Thomas the Tank Engine needs work.