It was medal Monday at GG as we celebrated lots of runners successfully making it round the York 10 Miler including Max who set a new personal best in his first 10 mile race. We kept the applause going for Max who was also celebrating his 300th Good Deed. Amazing effort. Give him a big cheer 🎉

We then warmed up and numbered off by listing our favourite buildings in honour of the birthday of the Guggenheim Museum. With suggestions including people's own homes, Durham Cathedral (but not York Minster?) and lots of love for Gaudi. It was then off to the task with Ed leading the way and Laura and Abigail back marking.

At the task we met Vicky who had already set the Govers and Martin off leafleting. They were joined by two other groups of 3 who were given very strict instructions to be back by 7.20 and take some photos (more on that later). The rest of the gang got to work painting the fence at a lovely shade of blue which happened to match Lyndsey's top perfectly. Who knew you a bright blue running top could act as camouflage!

As time ticked away, the painters realised they could get the whole task completed before the anticipated return of the leafletters so put in a big final effort to make sure no spots were missed before it was time to start the fitness session, little did they know (although they probably could have guessed) that the group of Max, Mitch and Nick would return almost 10mins later, sans photo.

But we didn't have time to wait for them as it was starting to get cold, so we started tonight's fitness session which was a ladder workout involving 30 seconds of an exercise followed by 30 seconds of rest, but adding in a new exercise on top every round. We started with step-ups on the tyres in the playground before adding in standing crunches, squats, tricep dips and of course finishing with burpees. Unfortunately we couldn't add in Abigail's new invention of the reverse star jump as there just wouldn't have been enough time to teach everyone how to do it. Maybe next week!

Then it was back to CVS but only after narrowly avoiding a wandering hedgehog on way out of Park Grove 🦔

I got to use a real power tool (jigsaw) and helped repair some raised beds.

made me happy!

Four of us went along to tidy up the area near the Grove's new mural ready for Radio York coming tomorrow.

We raked and litter picked. Job done. See photos

On a cold and frosty night we met Ann at the Groves Association headquarters for more stacks of leaflets and after a quick divvying up of remaining streets set out in pairs (with a roving Maddy catching Louise and Tay on the go after a parking nightmare!)

Rich and I quickly discovered that the "magic trades button" to allow deliveries to the many flats we were planning to do doesn't work in the evening, so only managed to do the flats with lax security standards. Heading back to base we found Babs and Vicky had finished already, and the final three weren't far behind (after similar trade button issues)

After a quick chat with Ann about their AGM and local history evening (all welcome, and "there may even be a bar") we all headed off home ASAP to warm our frozen fingers and noses!

Six GoodGymmers met on New Year's Day to deliver community newsletters for The Groves Community Association. For some of us, it was our second good deed of the day, having volunteered at York parkrun and then run/cycled over.

We divided and conquered, delivering the newsletters to many people to let them know what's happening locally.

Personally, my highlights were a lovely black kitten and two beautiful ginger cats that inhabited two of the houses we visited. Oh, and admiring the various Christmas trees and wreaths decorating the houses.

Tracy and Ann were thrilled to have some help with the newsletters so thank you everyone. What a way to kick off 2022!