We met at our usual place in the Showroom cinema and welcomed new runner Ollie - welcome Ollie!

We headed up the street to join Common Thread where Fran told us what are missions were for the evening: we quickly split into teams, half of us sorting through donations while the other half got on search for specific items to make clothes parcels for babies, boys , men and women.

We went through plenty of clothes and some of us unearthed real gems of accessories - Amelia found the best mittens- in the shape of strawberries - perfect for keeping cheerful this winter!

We ticked off all our missions and bid farewell to Fran and the other Common Thread volunteers. We will visit again on 14/12. Sign up!

We welcomed Oliver who was brought by his mum, Patritzia. We had a lovely chat with mum who is Italian and they moved recently from the Midlands. Hopefully we will see them again. From Showroom we (6 runners) ran to Maltravers Street and met up with David with all his tools, gloves and bin bags. We got to work cutting back , pruning and picking litter, and just like a magic trick, the litter and pruning had all gone and cleared away! We finished up with taking all the bags of rubbish and loads of big stuff that were dumped by either builders or workers. Then treats in the form of popcorn and protein bars were distributed before running back to The Showroom. Patritzia came back to the showroom to meet up with Oliver. She was very chatty especially to James who was encouraging her to join us for future tasks. But she has Back problems and was showing us photos of her as a ballerina when she was young. What a treat seeing all her wonderful photos. More treats in store for future tasks.

Last night was our 10th anniversary/birthday!

WOW! Time flies!

It was great to see some past GG regulars come out last night! Great to see Stephen, Dana and Sergiu! Hope to see you all back again soon!

Celine set off a bit earlier walking and timed it to perfection with the running group meeting her at the task location just as task owner Karen was heading back to her car to get more equipment as she wasn't expecting so many runners!

We got straight to it, getting tooled up with pickers, bags and rings, gloves on and head torches on now that the clocks have changed.

Generally it wasn't too bad compared to how we have seen this area. The strong winds may have had something to do with it, moving the litter around. One thing was very clear was that there was a distinct lack of bins in the area!

Find of the night has to go to Katy who found a large teddy bear, who looked like they had seen better days!

Once we were back to base most of us headed to The Rutland Arms for some food and drink and to share stories of past favourite tasks. We even had cake!

Here's to another 10yrs of GG SHF!

Mrs J is preparing to move into sheltered accommodation in a few weeks time. She wanted help to carefully pack up some of her fragile pots and decorations ahead of the move. We carefully packaged them up with bubble wrap and newspaper into boxes that I carried into the bedroom and stacked as they were too heavy for Mrs J. Along the way, she told me the stories behind them, showed me photos of family and her own amazing artwork. She is a goth at heart, so had some really cool skull paintings - I wish I'd thought to take photos!