A treble weekend and a treble good-deed opp for Louise, Deb and Tanya. We are suitably impressed with your efforts!

After hot-footing it across from Saltwell Junior parkrun where we had helped out with a mini-takeover, Louise, Deb and Tanya met Paul, Jose, Amy and Dan ready to get stuck into a bunch of prickly and heavy jobs at new task location Hodgkin Park. The tasks we do with Urban Green are always firm favourites as brilliant task leaders Mike and Maddie have everything organised and proper physical tasks waiting.. as well as tea and biscuits - what's not to love?!

Regular GoodGymers will be relieved to see Dan back where he belongs with a wheelbarrow in his hands as he worked on clearing overgrown paths, collecting bricks and rebuilding a damaged wall with Paul, Amy and José.

"This feels a lot like Tetris!"

Close by, Deb Tanya and Louise were learning exactly what a pin cushion feels like as they got stuck into clearing brambles which were going to be transformed into goat feed! How very Goat-Gym of us.

Hundreds of squats later, Louise reflected that she might just feel it tomorrow.

"It's not like I am recovering from a marathon or anything!"

We are really grateful to spend mornings like these, making the places we love safer and better.

Check out all those photos.. what a difference!

What a scrapin' good start to GoodGym 2022!

A fantastic seven gathered on a very wet lunchtime to lend a hand to our friends at Ouseburn Trust. It was great to see Amy and José back for this one and catch up on their Christmas in Spain!

Paul, José and Tanya ran ahead while Liz, Amy, Aimee and I walked and as always brilliant task owner Dave was bang on time ready to get us started. Ouseburn is such a great network of paths through the city that there is always something for us to do.

Our job today was to make the steps safe and clear the surrounding paths, as fallen leaves have covered most of the area and created some very slippery routes underfoot. Armed with spades, brushes and in my case, a massive rake, we headed off on the short walk through Ouseburn to get cracking. We even spotted some goats having a walk from Ouseburn Farm along the way!

In just 40 minutes, we split into two teams as we raked, scraped and brushed the leaves and mud away to make the walkways MULCH safer for everyone passing through. Even better was that we missed most of the lunchtime downpour.

"It makes such a difference to everyone to make these paths safer!" - Dave, task owner

I wasn't sure we would be able to get José and Liz back, they'd managed to get so far away on their mission to clear the uphill section, but in 40 minutes we were done.

It was a great day to BRUSH UP on the skills for every successful GoodGym task. Check out the before and after pictures and go and give everyone a cheer.

On a very warm night at Newcastle Eagles, six of us spent a stress-busting hour pulling up some very prickly weeds.

We were helping out at the arena where this weekend they are preparing to have their first event with fans in over a year. The car park gardens are maintained by the community foundation and its a long-time regular task of ours that we love to do.

This week's focus was an area of wild flowers that needed lots of attention and we loved catching up while pulling up lots of prickly things. It is the best squat workout you can imagine and we could really see the difference. We are back next week for one last visit before the return of group runs.