The problem with the January challenge is that we do so many good deeds that our taskowners run out of things for us to do, as was the case late last night with the council's eco team and the scheduled task at Clarence Gardens. We'd already done all the work earlier in the month. Fortunately, with a flurry of WhatsApp messages and our wonderful run leader Laura we were able to come up with a couple of tasks to fill the void and keep everyone just about busy enough.

Tonight we gave a big GG Yorkie welcome (and one dissenting boo) to Jenni who was joining is from GoodGym Reading. Great to have you here, despite Pete's rivalry! We also welcomed back Carys and Rohail who had enjoyed themselves so much last week tjat they decided to return. There were a fair few tired legs tonight after some fantastic running at the Brass Monkey half, so a lot of people were grateful for the steadier run out to the allotment task with Vicky, whilst Ed led the larger group to the community gardens with Pete and Lucy bringing up the rear.

Dan very quickly realised we would be working on the gardens at the end of his road and was almost tempted to get his "goodgym-curious" partner out to join us. Another night perhaps. At the task Laura had prepared a list of jobs that needed doing and the GG York crew got to work weeding, pruning, digging and sweeping. As we worked away we managed to spend a bit of time getting to know our newer members a bit better. Turns out Rohail is yet to try a jacket potato (cheese and beans seemed to be the best choice for an entry-level jacket) and Carys just casually dropped that she done some pretty epic running events in the past, including the Berlin Marathon!

Meanwhile, over with Vicky...

A splinter group of ladies headed to Holgate Allotments and were tasked with covering all the community allotment paths with woodchip. We quickly got stuck in and soon had a conveyor of wheelbarrows going back and forth. Alongside this was team weed, who cleared some of the paths before the bark arrived.

We had almost finished when the other group arrived, but being the perfectionists that we are, we had one final push to make sure we got the job done! We were very proud of our work and the paths look ace, if we do say so ourselves!

Once both tasks were completed we regrouped for an epic game of musical cones, with a little bit of cheating and some heated debate over the rules, before we headed back to the pub where some joined in with the cool down but most got themselves a reasonably well earned pint

Lovely stuff

We were back at South Reading community Centre on Saturday, continuing to get some of the building painted and looking lovely and welcoming. We were able to admire the upgrade made to our white painting of the corridor last time, with the cartoons now covering the walls and bringing some more colour to the space!

Our task for this weekend was to give to entrance area a lick of paint, and it definitely needed it! With grubby walls, scrapes and some cobwebs, we had plenty to get stuck in with! Shirley got stuck in with some pro-polyfilling, Jeni (for her first GoodGym task!), Chris and Jenni got to work with masking taping around all the doors, windows and the posterboards on the walls, and Emily got to work with the magic sponge trying to get off the worst of the marks.

With all the preparation done, we were ready to get stuck in with painting! We worked from one side of the space to the other, taking it in turns with rollers and brushes, and making sure the high bits were done in between, to get everything looking much brighter, cleaner and welcoming.

As we were finishing up, the owner of the community cafe next door popped in to check our handy work... and a request for us to paint some walls for them in future, so we'll be back again at the community centre soon!