Cupboard be magic

A warm welcome awaited us tonight for a brand new smashing task!

It was a super task to welcome new runner Brooklyn tonight as it contained a trio of excellent GoodGym elements:

• Warm indoor task

• Team work to create a human chain

• Toys to play with

But as we celebrated Brooklyn joining the #GGNCL family, we had another big milestone to celebrate: EMILY'S 50th GOOD DEED and therefore the second outing for the Geordie cloak of Good Deeds. Emily has split her time between Newcastle and York GoodGym, spreading sunshine and smiles wherever she goes. Emily cited her favourite task as the regular mission to Nunsmoor Park where they have the best biscuits. We look forward to seeing Emily in the amazing black tshirt of Goodness soon! It was FREEZING for the warm up tonight which we blasted through while Charlotte led the walking group ahead to meet us at the task. A mixture of mobility exercises got us started then we were off and ready to go!

Our task at Nunsmoor Centre was a new Group Run, but it was somewhere we have visited for Community Missions in the past. Alyson at Nunsmoor Centre asked us for help tonight to sort out a few cupboards that needed emptying, cleaning and rearranging. The Nunsmoor Centre is a hub for activities in the Fenham area for families to access that relies massively on volunteers, and it was a wonderful space for us to complete both our task and fitness session.

We split into a few small teams to empty the main cupboard, pass items along a human chain, check them over while the cupboard was cleaned out, before passing them back along the chain to restock. The smaller team worked on two other cupboards to give them a good tidy and sort out as well as a deep-clean. These are the types of jobs that are easy for us to do in such a large group, but would take a long time for someone to complete alone. There were some weird and wonderful (mainly wonderful) toys for us to - ahem - check over including an array of musical instruments. If I had known that, the fitness session would have been putting a band together!

Speaking of fitness sessions, it was brilliant to have the hall to use for it tonight...

I've heard of this GoodGym! It's fabulous to see it in action!

There was a circuit of fun for the session: 2 minute stints at 4 stations: frog walks (yes they ARE a thing, ribbit) shuttle runs, rock, paper, scissors with squats as a forfeit, and the all-important planks. Twice round the circuit then a 4-set finisher. Faye said she was so warm it was nice to actually step back out into the winter air! Everyone worked super-hard on this and it was an amazing effort by everyone, although I do think there will be some sore quads in toon tomorrow.

Don't forget there are TWO chances to do good things this weekend with a community mission on both Saturday and Sunday so get involved if you can! We are back at Newcastle Uni for the Group Run next Monday where we are also being joined by ITV news so get along and grab your 5 minutes of fame!

Happy running!

Anji