This week has seen National Fitness day, National Get Outside day and National Car-free day, so what better task for GoodGym Newcastle to get stuck into than helping Dwellbeing Shieldfield set up their car-free day?

Dwellbeing Shieldfield is a Community Benefit Society - a welcoming community group and co-operative for people of all ages and backgrounds who share life together, support their neighbours and celebrate their community. Today was their car-free day - one of their social events where community members play an active role in shaping life in their neighbourhood in the Shieldfield area of Newcastle.

It was lovely to catch up with Eleanor and to welcome two new members to GoodGym Newcastle, Marta and Giovanna who joined GoodGym as part of their employer, nielsen's volunteering programme. Welcome Marta and Giovanna!

There was a wide variety of tasks for us today, reflecting the wide variety of activities on offer during the day. Marta and Giovanna made two giant checkers boards and managed to place the counters on the correct squares! Eleanor and I avoided trapped fingers in erecting a gazebo then turned to green fingers as we planted out some planters to mark the street closure - these will be moved to a local community cafe after today’s event. We all joined in arranging seating areas with beanbags, deckchairs and mini picnic tables scattered around the area. We also built and decorated a white picket fence to make sure the cycle lane was still accessible, ensuring none of the guests at the event would be in the way of cyclists passing through. There were some delicious looking snacks and fruit and a clever smoothie bike where people could pedal to power the smoothie maker! It was lovely to see some of the children from Shieldfield joining in with preparing the event - they loved getting the games ready and designing an obstacle course across the grass! The street was completely transformed and the sun was warming up on this late September morning as I left the group to enjoy their day - I’m sure everyone will have a wonderful carefree car-free day!