With Anji down south the task force had to step up and help out. Katie started the group run welcoming new runners Fai and Lucy – welcome both! Also Welcome back to Kate as it was her first run back since last year! We heard all about Andrew’s brush with fame at the mission (last Saturday)

Katy was in holiday mode with only 4 days to go till the summer holidays, so for the warm up we played a game where in pairs we had to run around and be first person in your pair to shout out a holiday destination starting with the letter Katy shouted. Many exotic places came up including our own Newcastle! (perfect staycation spot?)

We set off for our nearly 4km run to St Marks in Gateshead. Paul leading the way and Aimee and Katy back marking. This task was the rescheduled task for Equal Arts that we cancelled due to bad weather in June. Equal Arts are a great charity who are improving older people’s lives through creativity. At St Marks they also had some (very large and fluffy) hens as part of their hen power project!

Once we arrived we were joined by Charlotte and Ross. We all signed in and task owner Jill showed us the garden. We helped ourselves to gardening gloves and tools and everyone got stuck in with weeding and tidying. Rachel and Louise did the flowerbeds. Rachel found a dead bird on a coffin of paper, which was a little odd. Amy rescued a snail!

As we were about to leave the one of the staff members brought us jugs of juice to rehydrate us in the heat. Sufficiently hydrated we headed off back. We didn’t have a fitness task because it was a longer run this week, but we did run up plenty of hills! When we arrived back at the hotel Paul took us through some post run stretches.

Next week are spoiled for choice with not one, not two, but three community missions this week. (Wednesday evening is tidying up at Ouse burn farm), (Saturday you can marshal the northern pride parade), (Sunday is littering picking up northern pride), (read about it here).

We will be back next Monday at Hotel Indigo ready to (return to WERS) an amazing service that supports asylum seekers and refugees.

Happy Running! Aimee

We completed our monthly Community Mission this morning to provide volunteers for Junior parkrun on the Town Moor.

This has definitely become a great event to be involved in as it has such a fun and friendly atmosphere, as Families are able to run together. Our help is always massively appreciated by the organisers.

There were 13 of us in total which is an amazing turnout (Myself, Michael, Louise, Aimee B, Nick, Abi, Dan, Rachel, Andrew, Katy, Emma, Amy I and James) Shout out to Abi and Nick, as it was their first Community Mission and a welcome back to James on his 2nd good deed)

We all met outside the cafe in Exhibition Park and walked across to the Volunteers briefing. We could not believe how good the weather was (Sunny and warm!) Previously we seemed to be jinxed by the Weather with it either being freezing cold, foggy or windy.

The volunteers briefing is always well organised, everybody was given a lanyard (with instructions on) and a whistle and the all the positions were clearly explained. The most important bit of the briefing was to have our best high five and cheers ready!

A variety of roles were completed including marshaling, funnel manager, finish tokens and tail walker.

Afterwards we all enjoyed breakfast and a good catch up in the cafe afterwards (Amy and James ordered what looked like the best ice creams!)

We will definitely be back to help again in June!

After helping clear paths Harbottle Park a few weeks ago, this time we were just down the road at St Lawrence Park. There were two tasks for us to complete. The first was digging an overgrown flower bed ready for local school children to plant all different flowers. The second involved installing a raised planter for them to grow vegetables. This was inspired by the book they are reading ‘Oliver’s vegetables’ to encourage then to eat healthier. Task owner Mike met us with a truck full of hammers, racks and different types of spades. We got stuck in right away. Amy and James started hammer the raised planter together. Me, Andrew and Miranda began digging and turning the soil in the huge over grown flowerbed, even removing a small tree!

The moment of truth was when the fully assembled raised planter was placed in the ground in the holes Amy and James had dug. Would it fit? Would all the holes be the right depth? Everything lined up perfectly and it all came together.

Half way through we had a break for tea, coffee and ginger nuts. It started to drizzle so we hid from the rain behind Mike’s transit van. I couldn’t resist climbing up the geometric bouldering balls in the park. The first holds were higher than expected considering it is clearly aimed at children and there was a moment of not knowing how to get down before I less than gracefully jumped off.

Back at it after the well-earned drinks Amy and James filled in around the wood base of the planter with the soil they dug out earlier, and compressed it with a mallet, to make the raised planter nice and secure. Me, Andrew and Miranda ripped out the remaining weeds and nettles in the flower bed. We finished right on time, just before the rain intensified.

Mike assured us there would be future tasks in the park in the coming weeks, so hopefully we will be back!