MANnequin, I feel like a woman

I'm going to be bold, and write in bold, and say right here and now that tonight was my favourite GoodGym group run so far There I said it.

Tonight we ran via a few photo opportunity detours to the fantastic new charity project Smart Works Newcastle who provide clothing and coaching to women to support getting them into work in our city. In just 8 weeks, Smart Works have helped to get an incredible 15 women back into secure employment. Everyone arrived feeling inspired after the visit from the local press during our warm up, and conversation topic of hidden talents on the way there! We can basically set up a pretty good rock band and a football team in the next week or so if we wanted. It was great to use this time to break the ice for our three new runners. Welcome to the family Sarah, Michael and Fiona!

Michelle from Smart Works wasted no time in getting us to work with the tasks of:

Sorting clothing into sizes, sorting out the underwear boxes, tidying up the coat hangers, building new clothing rails, steaming items to hang up, sorting donations out into sizes and piles, eating lollies, dressing a mannequin, occasional dressing up in donations and creating fancy jewellery displays.

Hidden talents were once again unveiled and notably we found out that Dan knows a lot about types of heels.

It was one of those tasks where every room I went into was filled with laughter.

I will never unsee David in his "summer look" of a dusty pink off-the-shoulder crop top, and will never forget Michael helping Paul into his fitted jacket.

I was super impressed at the speed at which Team Flat Pack got the clothing rails built, before swooping in and getting stuck into another task! I don't even think I own a screwdriver. The task I was most jealous of tonight was the steam crew, steaming clothing to hang up. I have once straightened a tshirt out using my hairdryer though, which is kind of the same.

We found a cool little spot behind the MEA House building for the fitness task tonight which was a numbers game of strength exercises where once again all I could hear was laughter. I don't know if it was the fact we were going for food and drinks afterwards that kept people going but the energy was amazing! I'm already excited for next week's group run! Sign up here

There's a Community Mission this Saturday, the details are here And don't forget if you're mission verified, there is the first chance to do a mission this weekend so check your dashboard.

Have a super week with loads of HAPPY RUNNING, Anji x