If you planet, Goodgym will come

On a Sunday afternoon 11 runners gave up their time to volunteer for a local charity. The Wales Millennium Centre was hosting their first ‘Wasteless Community Banquet’, food was provided by ‘Fareshare’ a local charity who are the UK’s largest charity fighting hunger and food waste, they believe that no good food should go to waste so redistribute surplus food to charities that turn it into meals. The menu was cooked by ‘Oasis Cardiff’ a non-profit charity that aims to help Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Cardiff, they also run a mobile kitchen with vegetarian and vegan food inspired from the refugees.

The WMC is a large arts centre and theatre they are a home for the arts in Wales, and a cauldron of creativity for the nation. Part of their mission is to broaden people's horizons and offer every young person in Wales access to the arts but today they wanted the local communities to come and experience the arts in new ways, so they were putting on this free banquet for invited groups, free tours, local music and entertainment from community groups, Butetown carnival and Wonderbrass.

It was a short 1.5 miles of a run, we welcomed Laura to the group and her first Goodgym Run, great to meet and run with you.

No sooner had we arrived than we got to work, we met Gemma Hicks the community engagement officer who was organising the event. We went back of house to gather the pallets of tables and cages of chairs, 28 tables were put out and into 4 rows for a banquet style dinner, 168 chairs were put out, 6 to a table. Then it was time to lay them, menus, plates, cutlery, table decorations and napkins. But wait are these cookies, for us.............

All under the wonder of the exhibition ‘Gaia’ an installation of the Earth using detailed NASA imagery of the Earth’s surface. It was a colourful delight; runners were laying coloured napkins in specific orders some green some red etc. And in an hour the set up was complete, but wait time for a few more tables, a drinks station for the juice and some additional at the back for crafts for making masks for the festival vibe.

We took our usual group photo courtesy of Robin, and then came the offer for a backstage tour, most runners took it up and went off with Robin whilst Mikey took back Laura our newest runner of the day. He then ran back to meet up with everyone else and then once again ran back to town, farewells were said and everyone made their way home.

Gemma had offered anyone from the day a chance to attend the banquet, Mikey, Ben, Lucy, Aimee and Emma took up this opportunity and arrived at 17:30. There was entertainment from some local musicians before the food was served, it was passed down the tables in true community style. On the menu was food from Sierre Leone, Sudan, South and West Africa, Ethiopia, Kenya, Ghana and Eritrea, and we had certainly worked up an appetite.

The entertainment continued through the evening before the butetown carnival made a procession out to the Senedd – the national assembly for Wales. The party continued for another 60 minutes before finally wrapping up.

It was a great evening and worth all the work to see such community spirit.