Wow! What an epic afternoon. We had a team of 7 GoodGymers who turned up to spend the afternoon at Farley Community Centre to help make sure that the Christmas Dinner for senior residents went off with lots of festive cheer. It was great fun and lovely to see the older folk really enjoying themselves.

Yasin, Gill and Derrick were first to arrive, and soon got busy getting the hall ready: setting up tables, getting out the chairs, sweeping etc. Dee and Mayra joined the team and helped to finish off laying up the place settings and getting ready to serve the food. Once service started it was all hands on deck to make sure that all 50 guests were served a cracking three course dinner as swiftly as possible, so we were pleased that Freddy arrived to help out too.

There was time for the GoodGymers to enjoy a lunch themselves and Omar and Gill even got involved in the dancing (well who can resist a bit of Reggae?) before starting the mammoth task of clearing up the dishes while the party goers enjoyed their bingo and raffle. Omar excelled himself as the most efficient pot washer in the GoodGym team.

By 5 o'clock we had cleared the hall, wiped the tables and swept the floor, leaving it all immaculate. Vera was so pleased with our efforts that we were all given a box of biscuits as a thank you, and as the night drew in we all set off on foot for home.

This week our group run took us to the Green House Community Hub's new cafe. With the cafe due to open at the weekend it was all hands on deck to get the finishing touches done and the furniture assembled.

With ten Goodgymers we soon turned the space into a hive of activity, building flatpacks, moving furniture, last bits of painting, weeding outside. It was all happening!

With a good bit of teamwork we managed to get all the flatpacks done in quick time and got the cafe team a day ahead on their plans. The cafe is well on the way to being a welcoming new community hub.

All that in the middle of an 8km run as well!

We had a great turnout this week with a mixture of walkers and runners so we sent the walkers off early for a head start while the runners got warmed up to take on the evenings uphill struggle to our task.

We were all heading to the Green House community hub where progress on the new cafe space was coming along well. The main cafe space had had one coat but needed another coat and some cutting in. With red, white and green walls to paint we split into three colour coded teams and got going.

The red and green areas being smaller we managed to get finished and left them looking properly smart. The white area was too big for us on this occasion but we got it half done so there's not too much left for their weekend volunteers to work on.

Before we could leave we had to take a moment to celebrate birthday girl Mayra, so with the help of Mr Kipling we enjoyed a round of cake and sung happy birthday!

Tonight, 9 of Luton Goodgyms finest came together to support Penrose roots to recovery. The team made there own way to the task, some running from town, and others making their own way. Tigger even parked up early then went for a cheeky 10k run 🏃‍♀️ beforehand.
We were welcomed by Lynne at Penrose with all the tools to get stuck in to turning over a vast bed, preparing it for planting potatoes 🥔. There were quite a few weeds to clear and the team cleared quite a few wheel barrow full. We didn't get to dig the trenches but we'll no doubt be back to support again soon. Great job team. You're all awesome.

Despite the miserable weather, Martin , Mayra , and Gill turned up at High Town Baptist Church ready to get stuck into food preparation for tonight's FoodCycle meal. They had been hoping for a bumper delivery of food, but today there was no food surplus from Sainsbury's and only a few boxes of veg from Aldi. Gill's quick thinking meant that she had bought over 100 Quorn sausages, to go with some chips and wedges we had stored in the freezer a few weeks ago. Mayra got busy turning some tins of kidney beans and chopped tomatoes into home made baked beans and the main course was on it's way to being sorted. In the meantime Martin got busy with the help of another FoodCycler in preparing a delicious and hearty leek, potato and parsnip soup and while Gill was detailed with pudding (a vegan upside down banana sponge with syrupy orange segments and of course some custard.

While the cooking crew were kept busy Fredy arrived for his first time at FoodCycle and was soon put to work getting out the tables and chairs, and getting the hall ready for our guests. He was then a wizz at getting drinks made and then serving up the dinner alongside the others on the hosting team.

Once again GoodGym made a huge impact on the successful running of the session and there were lots of empty plates and satisfied guests who paid tribute to their efforts.

Well done Team - it was a great effort and a fabulous meal.