Tracey joined the YMCA paint party in Alvaston where we freshened up the street furniture; benches, bike stands and bollards. It was great to catch up with Matt, Emma and the rest of the team from the YMCA, and to see their new minibus, the "green machine".

Many thanks to the YMCA team for inviting us along, to the benefactor who kindly donated the paint (rather a lot was needed), and to Steve's Fish Bar, who generously provided a free lunch for each of the volunteers.

It was great to help our friends at YMCA Derbyshire raise funds for their training and education centre for young people.

The Museum of Making was the venue for this year's annual YMCA ceilidh where guests had purchased a table and raffle tickets with money going towards to the centre.

YMCA Key College specialises in educating young people for whom mainstream education may have been unsuitable. Students from the catering course at YMCA were helping out on the night and were all smartly turned out for the occasion and eager to help. Many of them had helped out at similar events previously and had lots to tell me about them, including an event at Derby's cricket ground. The young learners were professional throughout all aspects of the service and a real credit to the team from YMCA. I was paired with Scott in a mentoring role for the evening and also spent a lot of time chatting to Kieran, speaking to both of them about how long they'd been at the college, what course content they had been enjoying and what their future plans were. As well as some more informal topics like what they'd usually be up to on a Friday night and what their favourite foods were, seeing as the 3 course meal we were serving was why we were there on the night.

After a briefing from Becky who headed up the catering department, myself and the learners greeted everyone to the venue and served up a three course meal clearing tables inbetween courses. This was set to background music from a live band and the guests enjoyed dancing after their meal. The catering team from YMCA had taken over the venue's kitchen to prepare the meal so it really was a fully YMCA organised event.

It was great to see lots of the guests had a vested interest in the young learners, many of them chatted to them as they recognised them from previous fundraising events and were eager to see how they were getting on in life.

The service and clearing up finished at 10pm and there was no need to get my marigolds out my bag so I headed home after saying bye to everyone.

Our main contacts at the YMCA were thrilled to have some help from GoodGym again, even though it was just myself. I've asked them to stay in touch for future events that we can hopefully support with. Unfortunately no photos as it wasn't suitable to have my phone with me whilst being a part of the serving team, it was good to set an example to the young learners who hadn't been allowed anything like phone access until after the service. I've included a photo from the YMCA catering team that was in the public domain, some of these people were at the event including Gary who was leading the catering team in the kitchen.

Gwyn and Tracey joined a team from YMCA Derbyshire to help bring a shine to Markeaton Primary School.

We were welcomed by members of the maintainence team, who are understandably proud of their school; the building is over 100 years old (this is less than the combined age of the two GoodGym attendees, but more than the combined age of the four YMCA team members)!

The walls of the school are formed of beautifully polished brickwork, giving a tile-like appearance. During termtime, they act as a background for displays of vocabulary, progress charts and reading lists, all of which are attached by blu-tack.

Our role was to remove the blue-goo, and mop down the walls until they sparkled. We worked one classroom at a time, with the YMCA gang following in our wake armed with Henry the hoover.

Between us, we managed to mop and hoover eight classrooms and a hall, and thoroughly enjoyed the experience, lubricated by a cup of tea or two.

This week is community week for YMCA Derbyshire, and we were delighted to be invited to join them in one of their garden tidying tasks.

Gwyn and Tracey were given a very warm welcome by Matt; YMCA Derbyshire's community connector. We then strolled along London Road to the neighbouring St Osmund's Church where we joined a group of enthusiastic young people from the YMCA, who had begun the tidying on the previous day, and Cath, the pioneer minister and provider of tea, smiles and scrummy cakes.

Tasks were divided up to ensure we were socially distant, and that all the regions needing attention were covered. Other teams did a great job of weeding flower beds, and we joined a couple of the young people clearing a very overgrown area at the back of the church hall, where holly and ivy were in abundance.

Once the trimming was done, we filled several bags with the cuttings. The place was transformed, and everyone was so grateful and appreciative of the hard work put in by everyone who volunteered - a great team.

Community week continues until the 1st August, so if you have some free time to join the friendly YMCA team, please get in touch for a very rewarding cake-fuelled experience - details are in this link.