The plan for the group run was to return to Holy Trinity Church to complete the Spring clean we started a couple of weeks ago. With the Dave on vacation, responsibility for leading the run was passed to Gill- but with a fairly direct route along the A6 it should be quite straightforward. With Gill on her bike she met up with Sam & Omar in the town centre and after a warm up led by Sam they were on the 3 of us were our way to the task. Part way through the run/ride a crazed ringing sound could be heard, getting closer and closer. As they tried to clear the path, the noise was added to by Gail's unmistakable laughter… and then there were 4. Before long the church was in sight along with another red tee shirt and another bike. Joe and Estherhad run and cycled to join us… and then there were 6. A good sized team to get the job done swiftly, or so we thought. However the church was in darkness, the door was locked and a quick phone call to the verger established that there had been a mix up and he wasn’t able to let us in. After some deliberation (i.e. standing around looking like the lost sheep from the parable 🐑 ) it was decided that, rather than abort our attempts at doing good, a spot of plogging was in order. But being unprepared was a problem. Targeting the Tesco local - Sam and Joe bought 3 pairs of Marigolds while Gill managed to blag some free bin bags from a member of staff. Marigold yellow with GoodGym red might not be the best colour combo, but with one glove each we were bobbing and weaving to pick up the litter on the route back towards the town centre. Plogging with a bicycle is not the easiest - but needs must and good team work meant we collected a fair amount of rubbish. Well done team.

This week we ran 2.5 km to the 61 Football Club where they're busy doing off-season maintenance to the club house. Our task for the evening was a deep clean of the muddy changing rooms after a winter of soggy players bringing the pitch inside with them!

We gave the floors a really thorough scrub and mop-up to get the mud out and gave the walls a good wipe down too, leaving it all looking much smarter by the time we called it a day and enjoyed some biscuits and a cup of strong orange squash to fuel our return run back into town.

4 of Luton Goodgyms finest came together on a rather warm Sunday morning to help Debra from 9Red CiC reorganise one of her storage sites. The garage was a real Aladdin's cave of costumes, cookware, projectors, gardening equipment, children's arts and craft materials and there was even a 3D printer. We arrived to see what looked like a shut the door and worry about it later scenario (much like if my wife asks me to put the clean towels away at home). But Luton Goodgym soon got to grips with the erratic stacking of boxes and phenomenal balancing acts that were going on in the lock up and after pulling 99% of the contents out it was all put back in neatly, everything had its own space and it was all left very accessible.
There was also a chance for Laura to spread her wings and live life as a butterfly 🦋 for a short time. Debra was extremely grateful and I'm sure we'll be working with her again soon. Great effort team, 👌 what a really great task.

It was great to be supporting at Luton Futures for another fabulous celebration being put on for some of the older residents of Luton. It was the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of VE Day, so we felt honoured to be invited to share this event with some of the locals who have memories dating back to the war or post war period.

First to arrive was Dani who was soon put to work putting out the cutlery on the tables. Then when Gill joined her they were tasked with festooning the hall with metres of Union Jack Bunting. Dani must have got in some serious elevation as she went up and down the ladders to attach the bunting strategically from points around the ceiling.

Omar was next to join the fray, and was soon helping with bunting, before being requested to help with one or two of our GoodGym Allies to unload the food and load up supplies form the other community centre where the food was being cooked.

Bread rolls, cups and water were placed on the tables before Dani had to make an exit, But Omar and I continued with the preparations.

We were later joined by Derrick and Mayra, who were on hand for providing an excellent table waiting service as well as doing a blinder on the washing up.

The party goers had an excellent time and Vera commented on the feedback she had received about GoodGym and felt that once again the GoodGYm team had ensured the success of the party. After the hall was cleared and cleaned we said our goodbyes with the sound of Vera Lynn fading in our ears., "We'll meet again, don't know where. don't know when..." although I have a very good idea that it won't be long before we do and Vera has hinted where the venue will be.

Watch this space, your excellent help will be requested soon for another community event.

It was a lovely sunny evening, the day after VE Day, and we had been asked to help prepare the veg for tomorrow’s senior’s VE Day Celebration for some of the older folk. Gill and Yasin were first to arrive at Hockwell Community Centre and located a couple of sacks of potatoes to get started on. This was Yasin’s first experience of using a potato peeler, but after a slow start he soon got into a rhythm. Once Martin arrived the three of them got stuck in, with a bit of competitive peeling making the job go faster than expected.

Eventually Omar, Myra and Dee arrived. There was another first, as it was Myra’s first opportunity to wear her black GoodGym T shirt and it looked great. They joined the team and once the spuds were competed it was on to a sack of the most enormous carrots 🥕 we’ve ever come across! We managed to avoid the temptation for innuendoes, but we couldn’t resist using the carrots as antlers, ears and drumsticks. Well it had been a long day for several of us, and we needed to let off steam. Carrots were peeled, chopped and then all the veg was stored in the kitchen ready for cooking tomorrow morning

We finished in record time - with half an hour to spare. So a bit of healthy competition paid off, and we were all able to leave early to get home for our dinners. Well done team, great job.