It was our favourite Monday of the month last night, as we went for our regular visit to Doddington community roof garden, followed by the pub quiz! Only one thing could make it better - a new face joining our group. So imagine how happy we were to welcome Laura to her very first session! (and not least because she cracked the tricky anagram question in the aforementioned quiz...)

We started off the night with a balance based warm up and, giving we've just entered the spookiest month of the year, a poll about scary movies - yes or no? The answer was a pretty much unanimous no - obviously we're all too busy getting out there for runs and doing good!

We had a bit of a soggy run as we headed down to Doddington, a former derelict car park which has been transformed into a thriving community garden, but arrived ready to get cracking on various jobs.

Malissa explained that the main task for the evening was the rid the garden of various grasses, mallow, bindweed and salvia. After a quick run through of what exactly we were looking for we got stuck in, each tackling a different corner of the huge space.

Keeping in with the Halloween theme of the evening, we managed to dodge the many massive spiders as we watched over by the clowder of cats that have made the garden their home. We filled compost bins, pulled weeds and dug out soil until it was time for us to leave.

With the rain setting in we opted out of a fitness session and headed instead directly for the pub where we tested our grey matter. Out of a lucky 13 teams, I'm happy to report that the Bindweed Babes came a very respectable 5th and Jesmond Dene parkrunners finished in third! Great work everybody.

If you're looking for a fun and rewarding way to spend your Saturday, why not join the group at Unigate Nature Reserve in Streatham helping to clear the paths to make the area move accessible? It's a task that will make a big impact and will double up as a great workout too!

Next Monday we're back to waste Not Want Not to empty a room to make space for donations. Hope you can make it!

Eight of us made our way to Strand on the Green school, running walking and cycling a total of 4km to help with the school with some jobs.

Chris was leading tonight's session after our lovely leader Ana was struck down by the post holiday lurgy. Get well soon!

Chris gave us a run down of the job's we'd been asked to help with.

1. Sanding benches on the astroturf
2. Digging out a patch of ground by the car park and covering it with tarpaulin
3. Transporting some of the rocks from an area by the entrance to the school to hold down the tarpaulin.

After 45 Minutes of vigorous sanding with one body torch between five Goodgymers that will teach us .... the older benches were looking much smoother and ready for treating. Take a bow Kymm, Katie, Emily and Gus for putting your backs into it even when the light was all but gone.

Meanwhile Chris, Jon and Luis dug out the area that was to be covered by tarpaulin and transported the soil to the secret forest. Before Emily and I joined them with the rocks we'd located by the entrance.

After the traditional end of task group photo we headed back in groups and warmed up at The Pack Horse.