There was a February chill with hail, rain 🌧, and a blustery wind to welcome Peter and Ben to St George's community centre in Collyhurst. We were also welcomed by a brand new sign outside that had been installed the previous day!

Once Peter had found the centre, Cath gave us our paint brushes 🖌, rollers, dust sheets, and paint for us to get to work sprucing up the corridor area of the centre 🎨

One wall was orange, to match Peter's post holiday tan, and the other magnolia. Masking tape became our best friend to reduce paint going where it shouldn't while a handy folding chair 🪑 enabled us to reach parts near the ceiling.

Peter was very adept with the roller while Ben cut in and filled in patches near sockets, fire escape signs, and around door frames.

Despite the area size, we out did ourselves by finishing(!) the job in the corridor with minimal spillage, even covering the area outside the toilets. I put this down to the fantastic supply of tea, coffee ☕️, biscuits 🍪, and pastries 🍩 fuelling our efforts. The friendly pup 🐶 helped too.

It was a great way to spend a Saturday morning indoors helping out the community centre. Hopefully next time a bigger group can help with painting in the hall and reception area!

Welcome to Georgina, Pavel, and Sam! Great to meet you for the first time!

Big welcome and thank you to Ivo too, GoodGym founder, who made his way by train to come and check out what we're up to. Thank you for coming along and for the hints and tips for future sessions.

Tonight we had a couple of missions:

• Collect donations of clothes to donate to local homeless charities
• Pick up discarded waste and litter following the high winds over the weekend

Thanks to Peter and Eoin (collection from work), Pavel, and Rhi who brought bags of items along to pass on to Sophie (via Eoin) and the Friday outreach team to pass on to those who need warm clothing donations over the winter months.

For the litter pick, we made our way towards Ardwick, picking up litter as we went. The largest collection of litter was around one of the green spaces overseen by Ardwick Climate Action known as Greek Street, likely items discarded by passing drivers on the main Mancunian Way.

We found a lot of takeaway items, plastic bottles, vapes, bags, and cans plus a purse (handed into a police station as it contained ID). In the end, we collected 6 full bin bags and cleared a green space that hopefully can be used by locals and those passing through. The location information was passed onto Keep MCR Tidy to arrange for collection as soon as possible.

On the way back, a few of use had a light jog back to St Peter's Square covering Vimto Park and Piccadilly Gardens in the process.

In true Mancunian fashion, tonight's run took place in constant rain!

Despite the downpour, Peter and Ben made the fairly rookie mistake of loading their bags with lots and lots of heavy tins, jars, and cartons, forgetting that we would need to run with it for 2.3 miles down to Hulme to the drop-off point.

We had:

• Lots of jam
• UHT milk
• Pasta sauce
• A big tub of peanut butter (smooth)
• Rice pudding
• Tinned vegetables
• Tinned meat
• Spaghetti hoops
• Other non-perishables

Despite the weighted loads, we had a good run down to the big ASDA in Hulme with rain, and splash from the vehicles up on the Mancunian Way, keeping us soaked for the duration. While doing the drop off and getting a selfie outside, it was interesting to see a group of police officers getting keys cut using the Timpson's self service machine there - only the best and most secure of course.

Despite the rain, we were all smiles by the end, hoping that small good deeds can make a difference in the local community.

With Manchester finally thawing out after the cold snap, a few of us met up in St Peter's Square.

Sophie and Peter had already arranged a donation for Don't Walk Past for the Friday evening (11th Jan) outreach to give out sleeping bags and warm clothing for local homeless in the cold weather. Ben managed to provide some hats and gloves nearby this week. We will likely arrange more collections through the year!

On top of the donations, we had more local GoodGymers complete their document check for their DBS, so they are able to carry out nearby missions that get triaged towards GoodGym as a group that can help. It would be great to have more people mission verified to help out with this!

There were also some trainers to be recycled so a JogOn package was prepared to send for refurbishment and reuse, or for shredding and recycling of materials. A great way to help the circular economy of sportswear!

Peter and I completed a loop of the city centre for a nice evening jog.