We ran and we ate pancakes, but unfortunately in a first for GoodGym Huddersfield we didn’t actually do a task last night. Yet another day of heavy rain and sleet unfortunately rendered the planned painting job at Berry Brow Infant School not possible, but GoodGym friend Katrina from the school had promised to make us pancakes so we were definitely up for still making the run there.

Leaving from our alternative start point at Lockwood Park, we had about 2.5K to run to get to the school in conditions which were not quite as wet as they might have been. Kati Law, Ben Godfrey, Zena Whalley and myself chatted as we made our way to the school, looking forward to our promised pancakes. By the time we arrived Katrina was already busy with her pancake mix and had brought along a range of toppings for us to enjoy.

Cups of tea and pancakes with a selection of lemon, sugar, maple syrup and chocolate spread (depending upon taste) made for a more than acceptable replacement to painting in the rain, plus we all enjoyed a good laugh and catch-up whilst enjoying Katrina’s cooking. Following one or two pancakes ( or even three or four in some cases) we were sufficiently refuelled for the run back to Lockwood Park.

Thanks to all the pancake eaters for turning out once again for yet another wet session last night, and special thanks to Katrina for cooking. We will of course return to Berry Brow on a lighter and drier night in the summer to finish the painting! In the meantime the normal GoodGym service will resume next Tuesday, when we’ll have to work twice as hard to make up for this week!

Painting a fence in the dark and the rain is perhaps not the conventional way to spend the run up to Christmas, but then as we all know GoodGym is not a conventional running club. And to be fair last night we were even more unconventional by bending the rules and meeting at the task. This gave us time to do a run, complete a task and (arguably most importantly) be enjoying our GoodGym Christmas curry by 8:30pm.

We were back at Berry Brow Infant School to do a task for long term GoodGym supporter Katrina Whale who wanted us to finish some painting we had started during the warm light evenings of the summer. Last night was neither warm or dry but 6 intrepid GoodGymmers turned up at the infant school for a swift briefing and a run around the streets of Newsome. It was nice to run and see the pretty Christmas lights, arguably less pleasant was the steep hill effort up to Newsome village which certainly got some lungs and legs working. Well if we were only doing half our usual distance and eating a curry, we’d better make the run count!

By the time we ran back down Newsome hill to the school Katrina was already busy with a brush in the playground. The picket fence which we had started staining in the summer needed to be finished, and in conditions which were just about on the suitable side for painting we got on with the job. As ever some chatting kept our spirits up in the cold and damp conditions and we’d soon completed the fence leaving time enough to do another.

But come 8pm the much anticipated curry was calling, so we packed up, put on our Christmas jumpers and headed around the corner to local restaurant Laxmi for our well earned dinner. It was nice that Katrina was able to join us for the meal, along with all the night’s GoodGym crew consisting of Kati Law, Ben Godfrey, Wendy Redmile, David Bilton and Richard Byrne. A couple of other familiar faces in the form of Louise Galvin and Carol Carney also joined us for the curry too.

Thanks to everyone who joined in last night, and indeed all those people who have run and done tasks with us during 2019. I hope to see you again in 2020 doing even more good turns and willing work in out local community. Merry Christmas to you all.

Thanks to Wendy Redmile for keeping up the Christmas spirit with this week's title pun.

It’s the start of September so GoodGym Huddersfield went back to school last night. Back in fact to our old friends at Berry Brow Infant School for some more painting of fences and playground furniture. However painting wasn’t the only task, the school had some leafleting to do promoting their free nursery provision. It was just as well GoodGym friend and task provider Katrina Whale from the school had come up with two tasks as twelve GoodGymmers turned up last night, all eager to run do a good turn for our local community.

Meeting at our alternative rendezvous point of Lockwood Park it was good to see a total of three first time GoodGymmers as part the Huddersfield crew. Welcome to Jane McCrea, Jo Talbot-Patterson and Anna Kingston, joining old timers Kati Law, Ben Godfrey, David Bilton, Peter Phillips, Laura Merriman, Vicki Knight-Phillips, Zena Whalley and Richard Byrne. I made up the numbers completing the impressive total of a dozen GoodGymmers. I also had the dubious honour of sporting the GoodGym Huddersfield Superhero cape for the evening, this being the occasion of my 50th GoodGym run.

After a warm-up at the rugby club it was swiftly into the 3K run to the task at Berry Brow. Avoiding main road running, the footpath to Armitage Bridge provided a very pleasant alternative in the September sunshine. Less pleasant perhaps was the final pull up Waingate, but we all made it and arrived at the school ready for action.

Dividing into two teams the painters were swiftly dispatched into the playground to get on with painting a fence blue, whilst four leafletters grabbed a huge stack of flyers and made their way up the hill to Newsome posting as they progressed. A little local knowledge often goes a long way with these things and fortunately Laura and Anna, both of whom have lived in the area all their lives were able to plot the most effective route to get as many leaflets posted as possible within the time available. The fence painters certainly certainly seemed happy in their work too, chatting away as they gradually transformed an old picket fence from a worn woody brown into a new vibrant blue colour.

40 minutes hard labour later it was pretty much job done, the leafletters returned and the painters down brushes in preparation for the 2K run back to Lockwood Park. In the gathering gloom (looks like we’ll be back to working with headtorches pretty soon guys☹️!), there was just time for a group photo on the school climbing frame (and for me to do justice to the superhero cape by sliding down a fireman’s pole) before running off downhill back to our start point.

Thanks to all last night’s GoodGymmers, once again it was great to see us maintaining double figures for attendance following on from our busiest ever month in August. Let’s keep it going through September!

Thanksto Vicki Knight-Phillips for some of the photos.

The plan for last night’s task was to have been painting fences at Berry Brow Infant School. However the heavy rain would have been washing away any paint quicker than we could put it on, consequently Katrina from the school had to be inventive and come up with another job for GoodGym at short notice.

By the time we had completed the 2K run to reach the school, all 8 of us GoodGymmers were already pretty wet, but Katrina’s characteristically warm welcome lifted our dampened spirits. One of the great things about GoodGym is that generally people are always very happy to see you when you arrive to do a job!

So whilst there was no painting to be done, the school’s Birthday Garden needed a trip and tidy up, a job which could be done in a downpour. It is not entirely clear why the Birthday Garden is so called, but what was clear was it would benefit from a little GoodGym attention, and a crew of 8 there was a good chance we could make a real difference in the time slot available.

Resisting the (very strong) temptation to stay in the warm and drink tea, we were all swiftly on the job. Kati Law and first time GoodGymmer Wendy Redmire got to work on a particularly wild looking flowerbed, whilst Katrina Crossley and Helen Rutherford neatly trimmed a Laurel hedge taking care on some extremely slippery decking. Mark Donnelley cut back some bushes, whilst Louise Galvin, Katrina Whale and myself wrestled weeds from between paving slabs, all accompanied by the sound (and feel) of the incessantly heavy rain.

After 45 minutes of hard labour we were definitely wet, possibly a bit cold, but feeling satisfied that we’d done a top job and that it was better to be out doing good than in and feeling bad about not being out doing good (or indeed watching Take That at the Stadium, which had been Huddersfield’s other top attraction last night). Saying our farewells to Katrina and promising to return and paint her fence in the hopefully more clement conditions of September, we set off back to Lockwood Park. There were no complaints at my proposal for a shortened relatively direct route, although the rain had eased a little by then, and by the the time 8 soggy runners were stretching in the car park it had largely stopped.

Thanks to everyone who braved the conditions last night, it was great to have 8 runners out GoodGymming. I shall hope to see you all again next Tuesday!

Thanks to Helen Rutherford to the run report title.

Wood staining a pergola, some stumps, seats and a rather grand throne was on GoodGym’s job list last night. It can never be said we don’t get variety in our work!

Once again we were running out to Berry Brow Infant School to help preserve their impressive array of playground furniture. A sunny but chilly evening saw just 4 GoodGymmers set off from Lockwood Park for the run up to Berry Brow. The light evening and currently deliciously dry trail conditions allowed us to squeeze in some off-road running, arriving to meet our task master Katrina Whale at the school shortly after 7pm.

Katrina already had wood stain, paint and buckets waiting, so with little delay we were on with the job. The playground at the school is absolutely packed with all manner of wooden items and structures for the pupils to play on. Although I suspect this does represent something of a “Forth Bridge” challenge for the Goodgym crew, once we finally get to the end it will be time to start painting the first items all over again!

Anyway Kati Law, Louise Galvin, Ben Godfrey and myself have never been deterred by a little hard work and commitment, so were soon on with painting the playground pergola chatting away and catching up with one another’s news as we did so. This was followed by a coat on some stumps and then our biggest challenge of the night. In the centre of the playground is an impressive “Once Upon a Time” wooden throne, surrounded by 9 smaller seats. Our final task of the night was to paint them all with preservative to help ensure they would remain functional for many years of pupils to come.

They say that “team work makes the dream work” so the GoodGym team, along with Katrina set about the task in the final few minutes of our timeslot. Working on together through the increasingly chilly conditions, amazingly we got all 10 seats sorted and looking much better than they had before we started.

Leaving Katrina, who kindly offered to do the clearing up we set forth or the 2K run back to Lockwood enjoying the mainly downhill route as the dusk started to fall. Thanks to all last night’s GoodGymmers, we may have been short of numbers this week, but we were (as ever) long on enthusiasm and industry. Another good job done!

A septet of runners eager to do a good turn for the community and some sheds to paint at a local infant school.....this has to be another job for GoodGym!

Due to a Huddersfield Town Playing Wolves at the Stadium (and I believe achieving an all too rare victory) Lockwood Park Health Club hosted GoodGym yesterday evening. I’m not sure if the alternative start point was responsible but we were very happy to welcome two new GoodGymmers to our number. It was great to have Rachel Seymour and Erica Ward join us both of whom seemed very keen to get out, get running and get busy to benefit the local community.

So introductions and a brief briefing done, it was warm-up time. Instead of our usual dark car park at the Stadium we had the benefit of Huddersfield Rugby Union Club’s floodlights under which to perform our high knees and jumping jacks. Then it was out along Meltham road for the 2.5K(ish) run to Berry Brow Infant School. The unseasonably warm and sunny February day had now become a chilly evening and under clear, starry skies we headed on through Armitage Bridge and Berry Brow before the steep (and only) significant climb of the run up to the school itself.

When we visited Berry Brow Infant School earlier in the year to dig over some raised beds, Katrina Whale our task master had promised us plenty more work. And true to her word she had delivered, this time Katrina met us with paint brushes, two huge pots of woodstain and the challenge to paint three sheds in our 45 minute work window.

Always up for a challenge GoodGym were straight on with the job, dividing into two teams we set forth making the slightly sorry looking storage sheds somewhat smarter. As is usual for GoodGym many hands make light work, and the whilst the 14 hands of Kati Law, Ben Godfrey, Heather Wilshaw Jones, Louise Galvin, Rachel Seymour, Erica Ward and Katrina Whale painted, I busied my mitts with taking photographs and helping Katrina’s medical student daughter Molly with a bit of weeding. There was even time enough to do a little GoodGym recruiting, grabbing the opportunity to chat to Katherine, a passing Acre Street Runner who promised to join us for a future GoodGym session.

In what seemed like the blink of an eye three sheds were stained and the crew spent the last few minutes painting some wooden arches in a corner of the playground. Then it was time to depart, so after the obligatory “job done” final photographs, we said our farewells to Katrina and Molly before heading off for the slightly shorter (and predominantly downhill) return run to Lockwood Park.

Thanks as ever to all last night’s GoodGymmers, another top task performed.....you are all wonderful people and I shall look forward to seeing you once again next week to do another good deed for our community.