Last night, members from GoodGym Norwich ran, walked and drove their way out to a care home to bless the residents with their beautiful singing voices (open to debate). We handed out plenty of sherry and some snacks before settling down with our song sheets, of which their were two different versions! We muddled through carols like Jingle Bells, Little Donkey and We Wish You A Merry Christmas, and included an action-packed version of The 12 Days of Christmas which the mini-goodgymmers particularly enjoyed - though it has to be pointed out that Hitch seemed particularly enthusiastic about that bit too! (we all know what a big kid he is especially when it comes to Christmas!) Afterwards, we shared some crackers, biscuits and more sherry before waddling off on our way home. A lovely night was had by all involved with plenty of Christmas cheer!

pun credit goes to Darren Watkins

When we start hitting the winter months, GoodGym becomes more challenging - it's dark, cold, tasks are more difficult to come by, people are less motivated in the normal world... but NOT in the GoodGym Norwich world. We had another incredible 33 runners this evening, which still amazes me the dedication everyone puts in.

It was our 75th Group Run tonight and we're going as strong as ever.

Leanne and Raven were doing their 1st good deeds and Neil his 1st in Norwich after moving up from Bristol where he'd previously been to GoodGym.

Cheska was completing her 10th good deed and Calum his 50th good deed, which also fell on his 27th birthday.

Katy collected in the remaining donations for the Norwich Foodbank, which she is kindly taking in tomorrow.

We visited the Oxfam shop on Magdalen Street again as they needed our help as it's a busy time of year for donations and they rely on volunteers like us.

The main task was to sort through all the Men's clothes donations which required: bags of clothes to be brought through to the shop floor, sorting them into item type, sorting them into size order, the hangers to have the correct size tag added, the clothes labelled up with price and size, clothes over a certain price to be security tagged and then all items to be placed on the shop floor displays. Basically there was a lot to do!

Before a blink of an eye we had a production line going on and everyone was getting stuck in.

5-6 GoodGymers were also cleaning the shop floor, being a hard surface and wet time if year, the floors get dirty very easily.

We managed 50 minutes at the task, which equates to about 27 hours of volunteering time! As we got to the end of the time, the task owner asked us not to bring any more bags of clothes out... the shock on his face when we said we'd got through them all! We don't waste any time for sure.

After the very satisfying task, we headed back to base via a run up Grapes Hill, which everyone got up very quickly this week!

Then it was time for the pub afterwards for a well deserved social.

Next week we're visiting the Norwich Foodbank, there may be 2 tasks next week so what this space.