4 runners ran an epic route from one side of a roundabout to the other in order to help the Barnsley Churches Drop-in Project.

Our usual contact, Peter, was absent tonight but there were some other old and new faces ready to receive us.

There were a couple of tasks for us to do tonight, making sandwiches and filling bags to hand out. We split into 2 teams of 2, one team in the kitchen area and one in the area adjacent. Kirsty and Michael on sorting and packing duty and Sorcha and James on sandwich making detail. Sorcha made ham and sliced them diagonally. James made cheese and sliced them into 2 rectangles. Which is the best sandwich shape?! Kirsty and Michael finished so speedily that they were able to come and help with the sandwich making. With all 4 of us on this we quickly used up all the bread, and this was our cue to leave, happily right on schedule. We said our goodbyes and headed off for a fun fitness session.

This week we completed the very difficult Bring Sally Up challenge in press-up positions. Fitness completed, we stretched off and said our goodbyes.

Hope to see you all again soon!

Tonight... NINE of us gathered to help Age UK Barnsley with a painting task and celebrate GoodGym Barnsley's 2nd Birthday!

An eager and hungry group of us set off from the usual start point, warmed up by high knees, zombie walking, lunges and squat frog jumps! Once we'd reached the pedestrian area of town, I got the group running in a chain, with the back runner increasing their speed to get to the front of the line. This brought everyone's heart rate up nicely on what was to be a very short run!

We were back at Age UK for the second time, to finish a painting job we started in July. We'd previously painted all four walls in the room with one coat of emulsion so tonight's task was to do a second coat and gloss the paintwork. Everyone grabbed their preferred tool and we had half the group rollering the walls and half doing the edges. James' height came in handy again as he foccused on the edges between the wall and ceiling! Tonight's topic of conversations centered around travelling, holidays and food, oh we're a cultured bunch! Once we'd finished the walls we finished up by glossing the skirting boards and tidying everything away.

By this time we were all starving and very much looking forward to our evening celebrating our 2nd birthday! It's not often that we sit down and catch up outside of GG so everyone was in high spirits and hungry! We ran the 400m to the restaurant, The Falco Lounge, a newly opened place with cool decor and fashionable food! It was a lovely evening with a great group of people!

It's been an amazing year - we have achieved a lot, helped new charities and gained new members!

In the past 12 months, GG Barnsley has helped 22 groups/charities/stakeholders. Of those 22, 14 are new to us in this last 12 months.

The group's we've helped are:

• Friends of Locke Park
• ELSH
• Barnsley Council (central area team, kingstone ward, town hall)
• Carers garden
• ELIM Church
• Wilthorpe Park
• Penny Pie Park
  
• YMCA - the main buliding and the allotment
  
• Lavender Court Together Housing
  
• New Lodge Community Centre
  
• Park Run Barnsley
  
• Hope In The Community
  
• Bluebell Wood Children's hospice
  
• BSARCS
• Trans Pennine Trail
• Ardsley Park
• BIADS
• Worsbrough Common Community Centre
• Emmanuel Church
• Athersley North Recreation ground
• Age UK
• Worsbrough Mill

We have done everything and anything asked of us - tasks included painting, gardening, litter picking, putting up and moving furniture, fundraising, fixing things, destroying things, laying gravel, cleaning toys, tidying, playing games with the elderly, sweeping sand, making christmas hats, putting up decorations AND digging for raspberries! To name a few!

Some of our successes this year:

• Gained more members
• Reached more groups in the community
• Three members of task force
• Two new run leaders
• Adopting part of the TPT
• Social evening with elderly residents

Quality rather than quantity

Many hands make light work!

Thank you to everyone, you should be very proud of everything you have done to help the local community in Barnsley!

Oh what a night

On a GLORIOUS evening after what had been a sweaty hot day, EIGHT eager Goodgymmers met at Athersley North football ground, for a community mission during a football match!

Tonight's community mission was helping the Athersley North Recreation ground with a painting task. Like most of the local groups we help, the recreation ground which provides space for young people from the area to play football, is run solely by volunteers. With our help and the help of other local volunteers, they were hoping to give the ground a bit of a facelift and freshen up the fences around the pitch.

We were met by Pete who handed us the paint, brushes, trays and lovely painting outfits we would need and showed us the area that needed doing. Earlier that day, a group from the local job centre had been along and completed one wall, the full length of the pitch, so we focussed on the top edge of the pitch.

We arrived at 7pm and were told there'd be a match starting at 7.30pm so it was quite busy and definitely a first for us, painting around a football pitch, mid game!

Everyone got stuck in, picking a section of fence each, painting the wall white, brick by brick. It was quite a relaxing task with everyone sitting on the floor, enjoying the sunshine and having a natter. Thanks to Sorcha for coming up with tonight's report title! James always gets the tall jobs, so he was tasked with painting the tops of the fence posts and he even painted himself at one point!

Once our hour was up, we'd managed to paint 16 of the large sections of the fence, not a bad effort everyone! We took some obligatory photos and tried out the squat mexican wave that Wandsworth did earlier in the week! Not quite as impressive as there's given they had 48 runners and we had 8, but it was still fun to do!

Great to see everyone! See you next week for more fun at The Carer's garden!

Special annoucement: Tonight was James' 150TH good deed!!! That is an awesome acheivement James, you should be very proud! Sadly we don't have a tradition in place or a tshirt to celebrate this, but let's all give James a cheer here.

On this lovely sunny July evening, 5 jolly Goodgymmers ran to Barnsley town centre's biggest park to help with a spot of gardening!

Tonight was my (Grace's) ONE HUNDREDTH good deed with Goodgym and so I donned the traditional GoodGym wings to tonight's run to celebrate and draw attention to myself! In other news, Sorcha is back yay! After completing her final year at university, with more time on her hands, Sorcha returned to run with the group again - let's all give her a cheer here.

After a quick catch up and courtyard warm up, we set off at a nice steady pace up the hill to Locke Park. Jason was waiting for us when we arrived (having run 9 miles already that day!) and the park's volunteer Pat was there too ready to show us to the task.

We collected some tools from the shed and headed off to find the weeds weed be weeding. The area in question was covered in the sticky willy/cleavers weed which gets stuck to everything and everyone but is quite easy to remove. Once weed removed this, we foccused on the bigger weeds - everyone worked really hard and got stuck in - by the time weed run out of time, we had filled 8 large black bags!! The area looked a lot nicer and clearer, allowing the plants and bulbs to grow back!

The finish off, we did a group fitness session to the song Roxanne - it was a fully body workout involving Burpees. A burpee is challenging as it works the legs, arms and raises the heart rate. Everytime the group heard Roxanne OR Red Light, they had to do a burpee - if you know the song, you'll know it get's tougher as it goes on!

We finished the evening with a gentle jog back down the hill to base, some quick stretches and chatter about next week before saying our goodbyes. Another fun evening in the beautiful British weather! Thanks all!

See you next week for: Painting at Athersley North Recreation ground. It's a mission so we're meeting there - but feel free to run it if you have time!

Five of GoodGym Barnsley's finest runners came together to complete a community mission in a new area of town!

For this month's mission, we headed off to New Lodge community centre to help the volunteers there tidy up the outside space. Dawn was ready to meet us all as the runners assembled from different directions, with Sorcha running the 2.5km from Staincross, James the 4km from the station and me coming 2.5km from Honeywell. As always with community missions, there was no organised group run, but it was nice to see some runners keen to make it there on foot!

As there was youth club on at the same time as our mission, Dawn introduced us and asked the kids if anyone would like to help. With everyone wanting to be part of the fun, we headed outside to see what needed doing! There were three large picnic benches that needed completely destroying as they had become unsafe for the children to sit on. Armed with crowbars, spanners and hammers, we set to work on the fun task of tearing them apart! A lot of upper body strength was needed to rip off each piece of wood so it was definitely a good workout! The youth group were on hand to move the pieces of wood into a pile ready for bonfire night! Mighty Mairead looks to be enjoying using the crowbar to peel the pieces of wood away, see pics! Sorcha got stuck in too, moving back and forth with planks of wood to and from the pile! Once James was released from the Stocks for being late! He joined team tables too!

Whilst most of us were busy with the tables, Sharon took on the more relaxing task of weeding the flower beds with the help of some of the girls, filling a huge sack full! Dawn also handed out litter pickers and got the kids involved with doing good too!

We finished up the task in good time, just as it was getting pretty dark. Left with space where the tables had been and a huge wood pile ready for bonfire night, we swept up and said our goodbyes! Dawn was extremely grateful for all of our help and even offered us free food from the foodbank before we left!

We absolutely smashed this task team, it took huge effort, arm strength and patience!! Well done all!