What a task - or should I say tasks? Two big groups of Saturday runners took a hilly route up to St. Alban's Church, led by Alice and backmarked by Gary and Dave. Before we set out, we gave a big welcome to Ruth and David who were completing their first run with GoodGym and Zdeni who was completing her 50th. Upon arrival, we got stuck in to not just 1 but 4-5 tasks - depending on how you count.

One group headed out with fliers and seemed to really be working up a sweat heading to all the surrounding streets. A second group set about raking and gathering leaves to tidy up the church grounds. A third, very crafty, group made christmas tree ornaments out of old christmas cards. Clo and Ruth hung the shooting star. Finally a fifth group helped to put up the Christmas tree, decorate it and trim the leftover branches for wreath-making. Needless to say, watching the tree go up and be slid across the floor was a bit nerve- wracking!

Technically a sixth tasks seemed to be enjoying the nice hot Ribena and biscuits provided by the church. They way back was thankfully mostly downhill and we ended with a run through a human tunnel of GoodGymers.

Thank you to all the runners for their efforts. All in all, it was a very festive start to December!

Who would have thought a humble line of railings could have such an impact on the look of a place? Certainly the primary colour sections outside the Filwood community centre make the place look that extra bit more fun and welcoming, so it was great to be able to help out with some of the painting today.

After a (fairly challenging) hill up from Victoria park we were split into teams by our host Tim, with one group for each colour and one for a bit of extra scraping and brushing down.

The bulk of the painting had already been completed during some previous volunteer sessions so our job was to find any bits that had been missed - and make some difficult decisions about which colour to choose on some of the boundary supports between adjoining sections!

There's really nothing as satisfying as a bit of painting so it was fab to spend an hour out in the sunshine helping to support the amazing work of the new administration team at the centre - which even looked in danger of closing down at one stage.

Welcome to our new recruits Andy and Tom - we certainly needed the extra pairs of hands today.