Journeyman James was early to this evening's task while Scurrying Sharon and Substitute Steve ran from our usual meeting place at the glass house.

We got straight to work moving materials down into the labyrinth which is the cellar, Steve ensuring not to bump into his favourite joist!

Multiple flights of stairs later we felt like we'd had a proper work out and we'd shifted a lot of stuff!!

Back to normal service next week with the return of Glorious Grace

We were back at ELIM church for our December community mission! 5 fantastic runners came together to help Florentine and Richard get ready for Christmas!

On a frosty December night, GoodGym Barnsley were pleased to be inside for this month's community mission! Everyone was looking very festive and smart in their lovely GoodGym tshirts, Jason's having arrived just in time that morning!

The church were planning a Christmas open-house event for the 22nd December and wanted our help to tidy up some of the building equipment and hang Christmas decorations! We set to work moving as assortment of objects including tools, planks of wood, paint pots, fridges and door handles.

I'm not sure I can handle these - punned Steve

In no time at all, we had moved everything upstairs that needed to be out of the way. So our next task was to decorate the church hall, but first we needed to find the Christmas decorations - easier said than done! We headed down to the cellar to help Florentine root through the stuff, she was adament they were in a "banana box", however it turned out there were quite a few of those, and none of them contained decorations! Finally Florentine spotted them, in the furthest corner of the whole cellar, behind around 20 precariously stacked tables and bar stools and many many other things.

Once they had been retrieved, we set to work hanging the decorations, Florentine deciding that we know best and letting us hang them however we like! Special thanks to James for helping to hang the highest decorations on the ceiling - lets give him a cheer! Steve also entertained us with his juggling giant bauble skills, check out the video here.

When time was up, we were all completely covered in glitter but feeling festive! Another great local effort to help our community, huge thanks to all that came to help!

Tonight's GG Barnsley community mission fell on #WorldKindnessDay !

Our act of kindness and doing good this week was back at one our regular task locations, ELIM Church, where Florentine had a large task ready to keep us moving! A team of 5 runners were ready and raring to go on any task thrown at them and rather pleased to be inside on what was a chilly evening!

Spectacular Steve joined us on his commute all the way from VEGAS! Having landed only a couple of hours earlier, he still made the huge effort on basically no sleep to be there! I think he deserves a cheer for that > cheer here.

Florentine showed us into the main room in the church, which was filled with a random assortment of objects and furniture, that needed moving into the cellar. Steve stayed with Florentine to establish what exactly needed moving, whilst the rest of us paired up and began by moving large wooden shelving units. We were assigned a room in the cellar to put everything, so started by lining up the shelving units to use for the rest of the stuff!

As a team we moved table tops, legs, clothing, shoes, toys, old fashioned projectors, a toaster, a microwave, a big old till, baby seats, plastic chairs and a HUGE toilet roll (foam insulation!) to name a few!! There was a lot of movement involved and many many trips up and down the steep staircase, so we definitely got a workout out of it!

We did as much as we could before our time was up, the cellar room was rather full and you could definitely see the difference we had made! Florentine was so so grateful as always for all of the help and support we gave her and thanked us for our kindness on #WorldKindnessDay !

Great work team, another awesome community mission!

They'll be no group run or mission next week, so the next meeting is on Tuesday 27th November! Find out more here.

GoodGym Barnsley's team of Five faithful runners joined together on what was a very chilly, dark evening to tackle the streets and churches of town. We were joined by Super Sharon GG Barnsley longest standing member (!), Sassy Steve and Joyful James from Sheffield, and Rapid Rachael raring to go!

After a quick warm up to stay warm in the wind, we headed off as a team of four on the steady uphill 2km to ELIM Church to meet Richard. Upon arrival, Richard admitted he had forgotten we were coming but quickly ushered us inside to stay warm while he found some things for us to do. Thankful we were inside, we set to work sweeping, mopping and wiping the main church room, hallways and upstairs room. The church is ALMOST ready to open finally, after what seems like forever, so it's nice to see!

After 30 minutes of lots of arm action with the cloths and mops, the place was looking spick and span!

We jogged back to base chatting along the way. The group completed a super quick fitness session involving two benches and some balance bars. There was 30secs of dips, body balancing and bench step ups, followed by a sprint round the cricket field! With everyone nicely tired, we stretched and said our goodbyes! Another successful night at GG Barnsley.

Special mention to Steve, who is running on a dodgy calf muscle injury and still managed to stay with the group tonight! Awesome work!

Happy Running!

Tonight, five fearsome runners ran 4km to ELIM Church to help Florentine, Richard and the church congregation with some of the finishes touches to the lovely building! The five strong team were made up of Kat and James from GG Sheffield & Mairead, Sharon and me from GG Barnsley.

With James on time!, Kat raring to go and Mairead celebrating her S-Success we headed off up one of Barnsley many hills in the direction of ELIM Church to meet Sharon and team ELIM! When GG Barnsley first came to ELIM Chruch back at the beginning of April 2018, the building which was formerly a pub, had only just been purchased to turn into a church. It needed A LOT of work doing to it to make it ready for the congregation and GG Barnsley have played a big part in helping to achieve that over the last 6 months. It is amazing to see how we have helped and how much the building has changed, the old pub is almost unrecognisable!!

This week's task was to help cleaning the windows, skirting boards and some floors. Armed with buckets of soapy water, latex gloves and cloths, we moved our way round the huge building (with it's many windows!) cleaning and scrubbing everything we could find! James made it his mission to scrape all the "sticky stuff" off the windows whilst the remaining somewhat vertically challenged group of ladies got some good stretches in reaching for the top windows! In what seemed like no time at all we were done!

After the obligatory group selfie was complete, we were on our way back down the hill to Shaw Lane, with the wind whipping up a chill and beautiful clouds in the sky! We finished off the night with some healthy competition to test the groups arm strength. Lined up between the parallel bars, on a countdown, everyone had to hold a reverse hang tough position, with the last wo/man standing being the champ! Kat and James hung on in there for what seemed like forever, with James' challenge being to keep his feet off the floor and Kat's being the pain in her hands and shoulders. In the end it was James that wobbled first and Kat was crowned champion! Just to rub it in, she finished by holding it for 10 seconds longer and throwing in some leg raises!!

Lots of fun, chat and effort tonight at GG Barnsley! Nice job team, hope to see you next week at our Community Mission

Time for another Community Mission in Barnsley and a few of us met up at Shaw Lane for the short run to the Educational Learning Support Hub. Grace Bunsen Honeydew and Mairead Beaker Feeney were met by Steve Statler Gilmer and Kim Waldorf Longbon and we headed off to our Mission.

We were met on site by Sharon The Great Gonzo and our honoured guest, Justin Scooter from Newham! It was great to have a visiting goodgymer join us and Justin got right into the Yorkshire spirit and was up to speed with our banter in no time!

Fozzie Bear Richard got us straight to work cleaning some of the areas which had recently been painted, asking us to brush up, mop it (finally the pun reveal, mop it - muppet? Wait, if you have to explain it hasn't worked, has it?...) and finally move some of the remaining chip board down into the cavernous cellar.

We broke into teams and got to work in the different areas of the building and worked our way towards each other until we met in the middle. Then it was a case of moving some plasterboard downstairs, with Steve making sure everyone remembered the exposed beam he had forgotten about a few weeks before!

Once we were finished we headed off for a short run back, giving Justin some practice for his orienteering course the next day. Making sure he started in the right direction to get back into town.

Next week will be Barnsley's 1st Birthday! We'll be returning to where it all started at the Carer's Garden and it would be great to have as many people as possible along. If you've ever joined in on a Barnsley task, or fancy coming along for your first, you'll be more than welcome!