A great way to kick of the New Year by helping Sparks to get ready to open again after the Christmas break.

Sparks is a department store with a difference, piloting new ways to better serve our community and address the climate, ecological and cost of living crisis.

Sparks is a vibrant, positive venue where visitors can explore what a greener, fairer and more creative future looks like. Sparks brings organisations and individuals from across the city together to pilot new ways to better serve our community and address the climate, ecological and cost of living crisis.

They needed some help moving items around the the store, including removing all the cardboard amassed through Christmas deliveries, rolling out a big refrigeration unit ready to be collected, moving some big wooden panels and holding these up against the wall whilst they were screwed into place, relocating a large plug table type thing, but the main big task was to move a giant toaster which acts as a recycling storage facility for unwanted electrical items.

This was no mean feat as the toaster was very heavy, yet seemed determined to fall apart with every twist and turn. We managed to initially lift it into onto a couple of small trucks for part of the journey, but these became unworkable when the wheels were pointing in the wrong direction, so we then managed to transfer the structure onto what looked like giant loo roll inners, made of cardboard but very strong, and with a couple of us lifting and pushing from inside the toaster and everyone else cajoling, guiding and heaving from outside, and everyone trying to hold the structure together, we succeeded in transporting the toaster across the store to it's new resting place! Yay!

There was even time for a welcome brew and an explore to find some dressing up items in true GoodGym fashion.

Well done to Bryony and Charlotte who really got stuck into their first ever GoodGym task and it was also great to see some new and familiar faces again. Happy New Year and see you all again soon!