Anji Andrews

Cats and letterboxes were the order of the day as we started off on a 1000-leaflet-5-part-mission for our friends at FoodCycle.

FoodCycle was so impressed with the impact of our last set of leafleting missions that they called us in again, this time spreading the word to get more people into their fab communities for free meals and chats, as well as asking locals to volunteer.

We met at Monkchester Community Centre, FoodCycle's Walker base, and got cracking in two pairs, weaving between the streets and amazingly not getting lost or separated even once! There were so many cats out tonight keeping an eye on us- Michael and I counted 14 between us! So a cat related pun was absolutely necessary.

200 leaflets between four of us were done quickly and we were heading back to base after just 35 minutes!

Kudos

Join Charlotte for part two on Thursday in a new area: Felling.

Five of us helped out at Saltwell Junior parkrun this morning and it was another lovely morning in the park.

Michael, Aimee, Paul and I marshalled while Charlotte took care of tokens and first timers welcome.

The time flew by this morning with lots of impressive running by some little legs! Aimee and Michael made a quick exit to head off to another good deed with Urban Green Newcastle, so it's double kudos for them!

A big huge GoodGym welcome to a new duo in town, Rebecca and Debra. Go and give them a cheer for getting stuck in!

The perfect night for a midweek task and it was great to be back at Ouseburn Trust with a few GoodGymers that hadn't done this fab task before. I loved that we had every method of active travel covered tonight, with Debra and me walking, Emma, Lucy, Becca and Paul running and Charlotte on her bike!

Dave and a handful of Ouseburn regular volunteers met us and it was a short walk to the task location: the "steps to nowhere" just past Seven Stories. This pathway has been closed for some time and now it has reopened it was in need of some overgrown TLC. Armed with loppers, spades and that scrapy thing that everyone loves, we set about clearing the path to make it more pedestrian friendly now it is back in action.

Check out the before and after photos!!

The time flew by tonight and it was soon time to pack away and head back to the Cycle Hub for a ten minute circuit session now named "HOW LONG!?" in honour of Paul's complaints.

We have three sessions in three days coming up between Saturday and Monday. It would be great to have you along!

After over four years its still a buzz to get a newbie and tonight we said a big hello to Matt who joined us for the very first time.

Andy was the only runner tonight, with a walking trio, Charlotte cycling and task owner and GoodGymer Neil meeting at the task.

On a gloriously sunny evening we returned to Newcastle Eagles to continue weeding a stretch of the community gardens, and tonight we doubled up with a group of young cadets who were already getting stuck in when we arrived. After two sessions of this and what feels like a million squats, it does start to feel like (and look like!) we are making progress in this patch now.

With three bags filled in just over 40 minutes, we helped Neil to bin the weeds and take the tools back to the store before heading back to our base.

Another good weed ticked off.

Congrats to all on a smashing summer time town moor trial tonight.

Michael, Deb, Louise and Tanya flew around a 1k course led by Paul on the bike. We had a drill session to start and an easy run to finish off, before heading off to see the latest roar-some art installation in the park.

Top work!