6 Goodgymmers made their way to St Mathews to for some gardening. Mel and Dave had been on the 5am sunrise run and this weekend had also been to one of the hardest uk parkruns Great Yarmouth along with Stu who was first in his age catergory, our superstu is king of the sand!

Everyone got stuck in, there were lots of weeds to heave out and luckily Stu came prepared with a pic axe because the ground was solid. After some sweat and tears the soil was turned over enough to get planting.

Looking much for ready for summer we had brightened up the street, a lady from one of the flats commented how lovely it looked from above, really makes a difference when people may not have their own gardens. Just myself cycled today and I went the long way home making it up to 20 miles.

Weldone team you all brighted up my bank holiday with your general banter, enjoy the rest of your day.

3 GoodGymmers arrived at St Matthews Big Local to re-paint the planters outside the centre.

We got stuck in, the boys being pro's and Stu was keen to put me right with how much paint to put in the brush, always have a banter between us.

One passer by congratulated us and commented how lovely the planters look from her balcony, which was lovely to be able to make a difference to the community. Weldone team fantastic work all 3 planters look as good as new.

Number 49 next in 30 min is my 50th task!

4 Super Goodgymmers braved the chilly evening to St Mathews Big Local to help prepare their area for spring planting.

St Matthews Big Local Charity's aim is to make a difference in St Matthews, with the community at the heart to bring everyone together. The area we were looking after this evening is right infront of the community centre to give a warm welcome to visitors.

We weeded the raised beds and the areas under some trees, turning the soil over too, so that it was all ready for planting flowers in the beds come warmer months. Remarkable day for Nick reaching 100 good deeds, amazing work, look forward to seeing your angel wings t-shirt! Very well deserved.

Weldone Team, great to see you all and good luck Martin on your half at the weekend, you've worked hard for this.

10 goodgym Elves made their way to St Mathews Big Local, running 2 miles where we found lots of selection box's and games. Team Goodgym Leicester sprung into action all taking on Elf roles, working hard wrapping listening to Christmas tunes. Huw organised the fastest wrapper challenge, the team were all super speedy with everyone's competitive spirit, well you know me now, thanks Huw.

Just like magic all the presents were wrapped. Time for another game, pass the fitness parcel, each layer had an exercise like crunches or jumping Jack's, then the person holding the present when the music stopped had to role the dice to see the forfeit, 90 seconds was very popular so was 20 reps. You all did amazing doing 90 secs of squats, weldone to our winner Mel she showed another Elf skill 'sharing is caring' with her winning chocolates.

On route back we did a speedy anti clockwise and clockwise on the track, Huw was chasing down a crown. Next time we will see if we can beat our times on the track. Weldone all we did so much with our brilliant turn out. Thank you so much to the 3 new members (names all begin with A coincidentally) Andy,Aruna andAmanda thank you goodgymers for making everyone feel so welcome and looking after each other, plus Jimmy our back marker, grand job.

Our penultimate task of 2021 and one of the best! We visited St Matthew's House to help St Matthew's Big Local get prepped for their children's Christmas party doing the elves' job for the evening, wrapping all the presents!

It was lovely to see Jimmy return after getting a pass out from grandad duty for the evening. The runners ran across down in an unusual manner this evening, armed with a carrier bag each making running a fiddlier task. We were donating some unneeded men's shoes for Afghan refugees in Leicestershire, an extra good deed for the evening aside from the main event!

To the wrapping, Christmas playlist on we split up the jobs, paper cutting, sellotape prepping and wrapping and set to work. Some fantastic teamwork, some questionable singing along to the Christmas hits and we wrapped up the task just before 7pm in perfect time to enjoy the mince pies and chocolates left for us as a thank you!

A run back past the clock tower to see the lights in the city centre and we had another good deed in the bag, cracking work everyone!

Next week we're out and about with Santa and his sleigh, come and join us for one more slice of goodness before we break for Christmas!

HD

The first properly dark run of the season tonight and we headed the short distance over to St Matthew's Big Local to help planting the crocus bulbs they'd received from the Rotary Club as part of their campaign to raise awareness of polio day.

The last task we did around World Polio Day was the fabulous relay run around the city delivering the bulbs to various houses of faith around the city. Tonight's work was much easier on the legs, the bulbs were left for us and we simply had to tidy the borders around the trees and plant them.

Of course, there was some desire to leave our mark on the task with Dave and Jen arranging one set of bulbs to spell GoodGym, will be interesting to see how they come through in spring!

Luckily the evening was dry, we'd all certainly had enough of a drenching at the Leicester Half on Sunday which raised a fantastic £20,000 for LOROS plus thousands more for various charities the runners ran for.

Super work again tonight!

HD