All I want for Christmas is glue

We got an early Christmas present tonight in the shape of GoodGym royalty, uber-tourist Deborah who was at her second-final GoodGym location, completing the full set with Huddersfield tomorrow. What an amazing achievement! Make sure you check out her profile for all those amazing badges. We were also joined by new runner Abigail who ventured out in the freezing cold to do good for the first time. Kudos!

We started off the evening with a discussion about hot water bottles and toasted skin syndrome (google this, it's incredible, thanks Hannah!) so feeling warm on the inside we ventured out for a festive warm up of the Christmas ABC game (top marks to Rachel getting JINGLE for J!) while Charlotte led the walking group off through a very busy Northumberland Street. I forgot to give the group a conversation topic but in general everyone seemed to be discussing Christmas panic, mine about Santa not coming and everyone else's about buying presents in time.

It was our third visit to Newcastle University Students Union tonight where we were helping the fabulous NEST project, the society that provides activities including 'creative' and 'conversation' for refugee families in our city. You can read more about what they do here and get involved if you want to! We had just two jobs to do tonight:

• Making decorations for the NEST Christmas party

• Sorting out learning packs and trays for the NEST classes on Campus

Katy wasted no time getting stuck into giving everyone her best Primary School Teacher lesson in making the perfect snowflakes while Charlotte made sure we all knew she "didn't know how to fold"- luckily for Charlotte she doesn't know how to give up either and we didn't hear another peep out of her! I'm going to give my Star pupil award to Amy for the beautiful Christmas angel she made (see photos for evidence!) and the top lols award to Peter who basically chopped through his paper on his first attempt at a snowflake. It was a fabulous task where we cut, glittered and glued to the sound of Christmas tunes.

I don't think they are going to use that one though, Peter.

Meanwhile, the learning pack group did a fabulous job of checking and organising folders of exercise books and popping them into trays. This is the kind of job I would have loved help with when I was teaching, so any teachers out there give us a shout as we can obviously save you a big chunk of time!

As a thank you for the help we have given NEST in our visits, we were given a Christmas card made by one of the young people who uses their service with some fabulous glittery decoration and a beautiful message. I will bring this along next week for those who didn't make it tonight!

The fitness session tonight was one of my favourites! Led by Katy, we were given a game of Christmas Tree Tag and a game of corners without corners in which we all had to be reindeer, baubles, angels and Christmas trees. So much fun, despite some quad-burning forfeits. Check out our Christmas tree group photo, complete with Katy as the star.

I'm going to give an early shout out to Carol Anne who will be the first member of GoodGym Newcastle to hit 50 good deeds TOMORROW, first to receive THE black tshirt and first to wear the secret item for 50 good deeds which will be revealed next Monday so don't miss it! There's a Community Mission next Monday ahead of the Group Run where you can finish off your Christmas shopping at the same time so get involved if you can.

See you next Monday for the final Group Run of the year folllowed by food, drinks and the first ever GoodGym Newcastle awards.

Anji x