Five of us laced up to bring a bit of colour back to South Reading Community Centre, for a painting session. We were chuffed to welcome Daniel, the GoodGym leader from Basingstoke, who made the trip over to get painting with us. It's always a treat when the GoodGym family crosses postcodes. Even better: three brand new GoodGymers joined us for the first time.Louis , Rim and Afua. If a first session involving paintbrushes and good company doesn't hook you, nothing will. The centre is one of Reading's new Family Hubs, a welcoming space offering services to help give local children the best start in life. Our job was to spruce up the community rooms, and we gave the walls a fresh coat of eggshell that's made the room feel brighter. Now, the session listing did promise we "don't plan to make a mess." however a good bit of paint found its way onto the floor as well as the walls, but nothing a bit of white spirit and some elbow grease couldn't sort. We left the place clean, tidy, and looking all the better for a few hours of GoodGym graft.

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One GoodGymer headed to Prospect Parkrun on a lovely sunny Saturday morning to volunteer and give back to a community event we love. Taking on the role of funnel manager for the very first time, it was brilliant to get stuck in at the finish line, cheering on runners as they moved smoothly through after crossing. A highlight of the morning was watching a young boy absolutely fly around the course and finish at a blistering pace. Proof that there is no age limit on who might overtake you on a Parkrun!

Want to come along and volunteer around Reading? Join GoodGym and stay tuned for our next session!

We headed out along Kings Road for a litter-picking mission to help tidy up one of Reading's busy roads. We worked our way along the street collecting the usual mix of cans, wrappers and other bits that had been left behind.

Along the way we spotted the new fruit market at Jacksons Corner, but the real highlight was seeing the newly finished footbridge over the Kennet. We managed 4 bags of rubbish, between of three us, not bad for a cold Monday in March.

For this session of painting at South Reading Community Centre, we were back in action in some of the rooms used by different groups throughout the week.

Roshan joined us for his first ever GoodGym task, and Zelie ran to the session and was showcasing her red GoodGym t-shirt!

With some bits to finish up from our last visit, Shirley and Jenni got to work in the smaller room, making sure that all the missing spots were filled in, finishing the room to perfection. Zelie and Roshan got to work in the bigger room, filling in the stripe at the top of the walls and the bottom edges where the roller hadnt reached last time. It was a group effort to finish the last wall in the big room, which had suffered from having tables and chairs against it for many years! Hopefully with another coat it will be pristine like the rest of the rooms!

With all the spots and stripes painted, it was time to call it a day and enjoy the rest of the weekend, knowing that the groups using the spaces would have somewhere lovely to meet!

It was another rainy day in Reading, so thankfully our task was indoors! Three GoodGymers helped at Reading Repair Cafe; booking in clients, allocating repairs to the experts and learning along the way!

Zelie quickly became a pro at getting clients booked in and making sure they understood the repair cafe rules.

During the session, 18 items were brought in, including a couple of vacuums, a sewing machine from Reading's Library of Things, a bag for mending, a pan, a couple of broken toasters and kettles and a few tables too!

Sevan, joining us from GoodGym Ealing, even got stuck in with trying to install Linux on a laptop, however the laptop wasn't up to the job today.

While not everything could be fixed this afternoon, 59kg of waste was prevented and we saved the CO2 equivalent of growing 6 trees, for 10 years!

Four GoodGymers met, just as the rain started, to litter pick along Oxford Road. After running there earlier in the day, it was clear it could do with picking!

Jeni joined us for her first Monday task, and got stuck straight in! We wandered and collected all sorts of stuff; crisps packets, cans, chocolate bar wrappers, but we decided that the TV we found was just too big to bag!

Monday was 'world pizza day' - thankfully no pizza boxes were found, but it did give us dinner inspiration! With the rain feeling icy, and 6 bags of rubbish collected, we went back to our starting point, and off in search of a tasty supper!