☀️ 16 great and good GoodGymmers met for our first group run in the daylight! And what a treat of sunshine we got for it too! Sarah from Move the Masses was there, handing out newsletters for us to deliver (there are still a few areas going for anyone else who fancies it…) We were thrilled to welcome back Kai after a 5-year break from GG (due to living in Manchester) - hopefully we’ll see you again a bit sooner than that!

🦸‍♂️ We cheered Steve Rice and awarded him his 50 good deed cloak, which was pretty exciting! The party pacers set off, along with Steve and his cloak!

🏃🚶‍♀️🚲We also celebrated Michal’s incredible Hardmoors 55 achievement at the weekend and chatted about our favourite run/walk/cycle in his honour as we named and numbered off. Favourite routes included some exciting international holidays and GoodGym trips. Oh, and Mitch was bamboozled by the question, before even being faced with any real-life bamboo!

🚸 Ed led the other running group to St Aelred’s School and then the cycle crew set off. We congregated at the school and were greeted by Briony who was delighted to see us. She set us to work on various different jobs around their new wildlife area.

🌱 We had a team of tree-planters, digging holes to plant some of the 120 trees they’ve had donated from the Woodland Trust to build a hedgerow. The baby trees then needed protecting, from litter (thanks Lyndsay!), animals and children. So the next task was adding bamboo sticks and plastic covers.

🌿 The rest of the group were in the wildlife area, armed with loppers and saws and chopping, hacking and generally demolishing every overgrown/weed-type thing in sight. A huge difference was made in the time we were there and a pond was uncovered by their handiwork (leading to the obligatory frog-hunt!)

😊 With all that productivity, it was soon time to head back. Briony was incredibly grateful and said some lovely words about the impact our little contribution will have to the school and its pupils. We’re heading back in a few weeks to spread woodchip in the wildlife area, which we’re pretty excited about.

📸 After a quick group shot, it was time to head back, taking advantage of the streetlights on the cycle path to do some Fartlek-style sprints.

👍 Thanks for all your hard work tonight, it was great to make such a difference 🙌

Mrs L's friend met us at the flat and showed us around, explaining the situation. We quickly got our heads together with a survey of the space and a plan of action! We decided that the 2 armchairs and the sofa should be moved to the bedroom to make space for Mrs L's hospital bed but we could reshuffle the other furniture in the lounge so that she would still have some home comforts around her.

There was a bit of Chuckle brothers "to-me-to-you" with moving the sofas but we were commended with how smoothly we got them through the doorways! We also used our Tetris skills to store the armchairs in the bedroom to save space. Throughout we tried to think about keeping things within easy reach for Mrs L and not block her wardrobes. The furniture didn't take long to move and we left a good space for the hospital bed. After a quick vacuum of the carpets, the task was complete and we were on our way.