This week, 2 members of GoodGym Cambridge headed to Fulbourn Hospital parkrun for volunteering duties 🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️

Harriet and Caroline arrived on their bikes with unplanned synchronicity, and in plenty of time before the start to catch up over their various travels 🌎

Harriet blazed a trail as parkwalker while Caroline tried timekeeping for the first time. Plenty of sun was soaked up and the (other) Time Team worked smoothly with all going to plan! ⏱️

After the race was done, the pair stayed back to enjoy goodies from the cafe, a chat with the Fulbourn regulars and a bit more sun ☀️

This week, GoodGym Cambridge returned to Jimmy's. This was our second visit and we were delighted to be back at the hatch, helping with the evening meal service 🍽

We started the evening with a 3 km jog around Parker's Piece, where Catherine and Caroline welcomed Christopher to his first GoodGym task! 🙌

The trio then met Nick at the task and the four GoodGymers rolled up their sleeves, donned their aprons and rocked some flattering hairnets ready to dish up dinner. On this evening's menu were a phenomenal shepherd's pie (both meat and veggie), carrots and cauliflower, gravy, and the biggest squares of carrot cake we'd ever seen 🥕

Once everyone had eaten, Catherine and Christopher made light work of the washing up, Nick cleaned all the surfaces and Caroline wrapped up the leftover food. The team had a great time chatting about the weather, politics, work cafés and online followers, and everyone admired Catherine's super new t-shirt 💯

We look forward to our next visit to Jimmy's!

We were out pounding the streets again this weekend in support of Cambridge City Foodbank, delivering letters to raise awareness of their work.

Meeting to run to the task, Catherine welcomed Dani, who joined (definitely not defected) all the way from Luton, and Debbie who came for her first GoodGym session. Delighted to have you both join us 🙌

Taking a scenic route along the river and through the graveyard (only the best for new GoodGymers), we met Daiana, Scott, Michele, and Beth on Mill Road. An altogether jolly group of posties 📨

In pairs, each taking a main road, we split off to get delivering. Although the main focus was posting, there was time to admire some beautiful flowers (particularly the wisteria and roses) and stained glass, providing lots of inspiration. In just 30 minutes we'd delivered 250 letters. Swift work, and not at all motivated by the thought of coffee and pastries...

We reconvened and relocated to Mill Mediterranean Coffee Spot and enjoyed mammoth drinks and a variety of sweet treats while we chatted about the joys of storage units, garden centres, and bowling. Rumour has it that someone once got married in a bowling alley but we're unclear if they actually walked down the lane 🎳

Summoning pastry-based energy, Debbie and I ran back to our meet point through Midsummer common, enjoying the trees and activity on the river.

A social was the perfect opportunity to mark good deed milestones for Scott and Michele who are both celebrating reaching 10 Good Deeds 🎉 Absolutely brilliant and a solid commitment to making a difference in our community 🫶

Today was fun. As well as good deeds, we had good movement, good laughs and good pastries - all the best bits of GoodGym 💛

A beautiful morning spent marshaling at Milton Country parkrun. Basking in the sunshine and to the backdrop of birdsong, I cheered 368 people round the course. At both ends of the spectrum, I congratulated someone on their first ever parkrun and there was a 500th parkrun celebration (with cake)! Well done to everyone who took part 🙌

Not strictly parkrun tourism, but definitely worth noting, on the other side of the world Caroline has been taking on a new challenge, hiking in Peru. The highest a GoodGym Cambridge T-shirt has travelled (4215m)! An amazing achievement, well done 💪

It was a hot one this morning at Coldham's Common parkrun.

My first time doing post-event close down at Coldham's, which allowed me to enjoy the run first. Shout out to the marshals who were giving so much positive energy, and one even had a dinosaur puppet cheering us on (very motivational) 🦖

I was fortunate to be volunteering with Tina, who had definitely closed down a few parkruns, packing the trolley perfectly and successfully wrangling the name sign (if you've tried to do this you'll know what a skill it is!). Wheeling the trolley was the 'fun' part with all wheels wanting to go in different directions. It certainly needed some strength to manoeuvre, and I suggested it we give it some whoomph 💪 (welly x oomph, I think?? It was early.) It worked, and within half an hour the trolley was stored away in the smartest parkrun container I've ever seen!

Well done to all 407 finishers 🙌

Another sunny evening spent improving green spaces in Cambridge 🌿

We were back at The Fields Child and Family Centre working in the children's garden, which had been taken over by weeds. In need of some help to finish the work started by the Centre team, Sal called in the big guns. Known around the city for our elite weed-fighting skills, of course Goodgymers accepted the (community) mission.

Ilse, Beth and I jumped on bikes to make the dash to the Centre and Scott ran across town double-quick time (not at all because he was running late). We were delighted to welcome new recruit, Rowan, who joined us for her first task 🫡

Met by Sal, we got straight to work. Rowan, Scott and Beth were on weeding duty, Sal was sweeping, and Ilse and I cleared the raised beds (leaving grass in one for the dinosaurs, obviously).

It was T-shirt and shorts weather at last, and as some GoodGymers were wrangling copious amounts of mint, it was feeling fresh and summery. With many hands, we had the area cleared within the hour, leaving it ready for playing and planting over the coming weeks. We had chance to hear about the positive work Sal and her teams are doing in their Centres across Cambridge, both to improve the environment directly and providing learning opportunities for the community. 💚

Before we left we had time for a quick team photo, which would not have been out of place on an album cover from the early 2000s. Less squadron and more Blazin' Squad.

We did good, got fit, and stayed connected. GoodGym mission complete 🙌

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Pun credit: Scott