It was two days in a row of GoodGym tasks for Aimee, Richard and me, as we joined our friends at the East End Women’s food bank for the second Tuesday in a row.

Once again, our task was to check the contents of the food parcels that had been made up, add in any missing items and stack the crates ready for the drivers to collect and deliver. We quickly developed a system with someone reading the list, someone checking the parcels and the other person running to collect any missing items from the stock. We quickly discovered that Richard was by far the best driver of the loaded trolley as we moved the packed and checked crates from the store room into the hallway!

It’s tragic that there are so many people who can’t afford to feed themselves and their families at Christmas, but it’s good to know that we were helping just a tiny bit, so that people in our community can eat this Christmas, and even have a little treat of a mince pie and Christmas pudding. It’s not a lot to ask for.

This was GoodGym Newcastle's last task of 2024! We wish everyone a peaceful holiday period, and health and happiness for 2025!

It was lovely to be back supporting our friends at Building Futures East with their East End Women’s food bank. Lucy, Max and Adam had their first visit there today - congratulations to them on finding their way to the slightly awkward location, despite me getting the What 3 Words wrong!

The East End Women’s food bank is much smaller than the other local food banks, only setting up during the first Covid lockdown, and does a fantastic job of supporting local people when they’re going through difficult times. They’re even busier than usual at this time of year, trying to make sure that everyone in the community has a decent Christmas.

Our task today was to check some Christmas food parcels and make sure that each one had all the correct items. Adam and Max began with the family boxes, Lucy tackled the couples ones and I made a start on the bags for single people. Not sure if there were more singles bags or if I was just slow but with the others joining me we managed to repack all the food parcels with ten minutes to spare! Luckily, our fantastic task owner Dawn returned from a trip to Asda with extra supplies just as we finished!

I found myself feeling quite festive and threw on some Christmas tunes to work to so the time flew by. And the best bit? We’re doing it all again next week - check out the listing on our website!

It was the return of the leaflets tonight after a couple of weeks of doing other stuff. While digital media keeps on doing its thing you can’t ignore the value of the leaflet and tonight four GoodGymers set out in Byker to share the news of a bumper calendar of activities at Building Futures East for East End Women. The organisation was so happy about this one that they even gave us a mention on BBC radio Newcastle last week.

It was a male-heavy session tonight and I found myself outnumbered but definitely here for the girl power. I shared my dubious map-planning skills as the only walker, and the boys trooped off to run to a point in Byker and get cracking before meeting me (walking) there. Damu led the run for his 99th good deed and did it like a trooper despite a rubbish cold. He’s certainly earned those wings!

We had 250 leaflets and flyers to post tonight and with the maze-like streets ahead of us thanked the inventor of WhatsApp location share to make sure we met back up somewhere in the middle. Anyone who’s done a Byker drop knows it can get a little bit confusing.

Within just ten minutes I’d posted out my stash of leaflets and keen to help the boys I sent my request and found they were almost done too. I don’t know why after so many years of GoodGym I continue to underestimate the speed of our leaflet skills. Wandering back to the meeting point a member of the public kindly asked me if I was ok- I must have looked a bit lost! It’s moments of simple human kindness that I really love and I was really grateful for her checking.

Meeting back up it was time for the fitness session and return of the ladders. It’s been ages since I cracked the ladders out and it was as fun as ever seeing everyone display their ability and balance skills and give it a real go.

This Saturday we are celebrating a superb task owner in our Urban Green Newcastle task at St Lawrence Park. There will be cake! Come and say thanks to a legend as he retires and do good stuff at the same time. You can sign up here.

I was bowled over ;) tonight to get three big bags of donations from a small and perfectly formed bank holiday group, and also left tonight somehow convinced lawn bowls may be my new sport… that’s another story.

We did a donation drive for our friends at East End Women foodbank tonight (these will be dropped off later in the week, thank you) and combined that with a 4k run or walk around the quayside on a beautiful bank holiday night. The quayside was bustling and motivation was high, and we finished up at The Ship Inn for a social to end the bank holiday weekend. Despite the time pressure of mine and Tanya’s need to be back for Love Is Blind Reunion episode at 9pm, we had a lovely bonding catch up and the time flew!

If anyone is interested in organising future socials like tonight let me know and I’ll show you how to list them on the website, we really should make more of having such lovely places on our doorstep.

It was our last “normal” Monday session for a couple of weeks due to the Easter holidays bringing a bit of disruption and yet this wasn’t exactly a normal one in the truest sense. First of all it was a short one- partly due to only having 50 leaflets left to deliver and partly due to utterly awful weather conditions. (Come on, Spring, hurry along now, there’s a good season!). It rained relentlessly and was freezing tonight leading to my Heaton/temperature related pun.

In the absence of a run leader we gathered for a walking session tonight and caught up on the weekend’s community missions. I was dying to know whether Lucy’s Mum was available to commission birthday cakes for the upcoming GG Newcastle sixth birthday next month as her cake creations at yesterday’s big Urban Green Century celebration looked divine! The answer was, thankfully, yes. Woop.

Thankfully the first part of this route is all up hill which helped to get the blood pumping and keep us warm as we headed into Heaton for the final part of the leaflet drive we’ve done for our friends at East End Women.

I’m not joking when I say this was one of the quickest tasks ever with leaflets completed in about 4 minutes, leaving us plenty of time to have a proper life catch up and forget about the rain, a great start to the week.

If leaflets are your thing, or if dogs are your thing, or if combining both is your thing, then get involved with another flyer session this Thursday where so far only Louise is spreading the word for Guide Dogs in Benton. Please help if you can!

Keep an eye on session listings over the next few weeks and read them carefully, there’s lots going on but sometimes with unusual days and meeting points! Hope to see you soon.

It’s been a glorious day in Newcastle today with the feeling that spring has finally sprung, and with a sprung spring in our steps, four of us headed out this evening on a group session to support our friends at East End Women. While most of the work we’ve done with this amazing charity is to support their foodbank, they also host a variety of brilliant classes and sessions at their Walker base, and tonight we were flyering to let Heaton residents know about what’s on offer. It was also FINALLY a chance to see Lucy sporting the golden wings after hitting her 100th good deed a few sessions back- and my subsequent regular forgetting to bring the wings along. We salute you (again) on your 100th time of being awesome.

While I’m suffering with an ongoing dodgy ankle, Louise and Aimee ran up the hill to Heaton and Lucy and I met at our frequent meeting point Heaton Perk. Side note: I’d love to actually go there when it’s open! We’d made light work of this task a few months back so I also brought along some litter pickers so we could get tidying at the same time. We caught up on life lately (and the new Pepsi logo) and I thought about how good leafleting sessions are for not only step counts but also the opportunity to keep in touch with each other in this way. Before long we’d posted all 100 leaflets and got cracking with the litter picking.

As it was a small group tonight there was no opportunity for a huge game so we did a quick round of Copy Cats and practised some fancy (and not so fancy) footwork in a short drills and strides fitness session.

Big thanks again to Louise for stepping in to run lead this evening.

There’s a daytime session on Thursday this week as we help to launch the Tiny Forest in Bensham if you’re around to help it looks like a lovely session! If not, there are loads of other opportunities to do good stuff coming. Hope to see you soon.