Paint no stoppin us now

You might not get all of it done tonight

We love pleasantly surprising our task owners and that's what we did tonight!

It was a night of firsts for our almost 6 month birthday (tomorrow!) as we had our first school task, first big painting job and the first time in ages we have all been in the same room for the whole task!

Tonight our group run took us to Gosforth as we visited Newcastle School for Boys for a Changing Rooms-style makeover on, well, the changing rooms! Newcastle School for Boys is a leading independent school in Newcastle including a junior and senior school educating boys from Nursery to Year 13. This was also the school where regular GoodGym runner Louise's son went (check out her Proud Mum photo in tonight's pics when she spotted his face in the corridor!) We were offered the task this evening as the boys are currently on Half Term break and Steve the caretaker needed a hand with a big painting job.

On arrival to the school, Katy and I went ahead to check out the space that we were giving a lick of paint to and Steve warned us that we may not get it done. Now we love a challenge like that and we knew we could prove him wrong in the best possible way. Steve had very kindly laid everything out for us: rollers, emulsion, brushes, dust sheets and the icon of all tasks: blue roll so as soon as everyone arrived we were immediately able to get started.

"I was nearly crying with laughter at the start because I paired up with Carol Anne and we realised we were the shortest pair and neither of us could actually reach very far! - Charlotte

Luckily our GoodGym group is like a (slightly dysfunctional) family with people of all ages, shapes and sizes meaning there was someone who could fit into, or reach up to, any nook or cranny in the Changing Rooms. I won't mention where poor Emily ended up having her head next to. Much giggling throughout tonight while we slapped the paint on both the walls and occasionally each other and tried our best to not leave bottom imprints in the new paint. We love to leave our mark but that may have been pushing it.

40 minutes passed and job done!

Another brillant example of team work and GoodGym magic, and fingers crossed we will be able to go back and work with some of the older students in the new year!

Have a great week everyone. Hopefully I will see some of you at the Community Mission for Apple Day and at another new task next week.

Happy running! Anji