A quick run this week out to the Hightown Baptist Church via a short or long route depending on preferences.

Our task for the evening was to give all the chairs in the hall a good scrub down to remove stains and spills that had accumulated. These chairs are used each week for the FoodCycle sessions so they get a lot of action on top of normal church activities.

With a big group of us we were able to get them all scrubbed up with plenty of time to spare for a workout session in the luxury of the indoors and a soft carpet!

The activities for the workout were all down to chance as we used fitness dice to prescribe each component of the session. This led to a lot of jumping jacks and walking lunges!

We added small recovery stretch sessions in between as everyone got a roll of the dice, and finished off with a round of squash from the kitchen before locking up and heading back into town.

(apologies to Buddy Holly)

The weatherman didn't say clear today,
He didn't know that we wanted to say,
"Please don't be raining,
Raining in the park."

The sun's not out,
The sky's not blue,
So many clouds right over you,
It was raining,
Raining in the park.

Oh littery, littery.
And it was the first time for Lee.
🌧️
We get our hoops and off we go,
We’re picking litter as you know ,
It’s still raining, raining in the park.
🌧️
We keep on going, in the rain,
Soaked to the skin but don’t complain.
It was raining, raining in the park .

This morning I had my first visit to help Miss M who has recently come out of hospital and in need of some help. We sat and made her shopping list together and then I headed off to Lidl to hunt down all the items she’d requested. There were a few bits and bobs that I was unable to find but the rest was soon in my bakset. Then it was back to her flat to unpack the shopping. After helping her take the laundry downstairs and fold up some towels and clean clothes my task was complete. Miss M, although a little confused about who and what GoodGym is, was extremely appreciative of my help and is hoping another of our group might be able to help her next time.

Neill helped out at Riverbank by preparing ground for planting and planting over 200 bluebell bulbs. In April the children will enjoy a carpet of blue.

This week's Group Run took us to Wardown Park to fill up barrows of woodchip for mulching trees.

Sounds easy, but we needed to move those barrows over the hill of Pope's Meadow to deliver the mulch to the People's Park orchard. It's a steep hill so with three people pushing the XL barrows it was still a hard job maintaining momentum and pushing on to the top of the hill!

We met Konni from the Luton Orchard's Project who was delighted to see us and have this mulch delivered ready for her volunteers on Friday to distribute around the trees.

With empty barrows it was once more over the hill for us to return them and then before heading back to town we stopped off for a plank challenge and to try out a plank-based lights-out game for a bit of fun core-toning activity.

Another fabulous evening at FoodCycle and they qere sonomeased to have lur team of 6 GoodGymers providing some vital support. Gill and Lucie were coking - Lucie on the starter made a delicious celery and stilton soup while Gill made use of the lemons 🍋 to make a lemon and sultana sponge pudding. Ezrik joined them in the kitchen for his first FoodCycle task and did an amazing job of the washing up. Teklay had his first turn at hosting alongside Sam and Abdulrahman and they did a great job of setting up the hall, serving the guests and tidying up after. Another evening of great team work. Well done all.