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.

Wardown Parkrun was the venue for todays task, with a team of 6 Goodgymers attending this months GG Parkrun takeover. Covering various volunteer tasks from set up to Parkwalker and of course Marshaling (who did their own takeover at the top of the hill). An optional extra for the Parkwalker was a pretty pink paddle that was held proudly in the air all the way round the course. Well done everyone, great effort today 👏 👍🏻 💪

7 Luton Goodgymers turned out to support the Shri Guru Ravidass Sangat Gudwara with their 2nd of 6 cooking classes. A project bringing communities together by sharing skills, making friendships and creating memories ( and some delicious food). Well done to everyone who attended 👏 👍🏻 🙌

This week our Group Run took us up the hill to the sunny Ferndale Leisure Gardens, an allotment space that had been underused for some time and needs the old plots clearing out of all the old junk collected by past tenants to make inviting open spaces ready for new tenants.

In this visit we tackled a tough patch that we couldn't deal with last time. There was a pile of something buried under thick brambles. This time we brought some clippers to cut away the bramble and gain access. It was a pile of corrugated metal roof panels, old windows and wooden pallets among other random buckets and broken spades and old hose pipe.

With seven of us on the case we managed to extract all the junk and carry it up the hill to the entrance gate and sorted it into piles of wood, plastic and metal which will be collected for recycling.

We'll be back here again in a few weeks because theres plenty more plots that need clearing out!