Ten GoodGymers descended upon Stepney Bank Stables on an overcast, but dry, Monday evening to continue the job of painting the fence at the arena.

Welcome to first time attendees Rory, Nicole and Sofia. It was lovely to meet you all and we hope to welcome you back again soon. At least you know how to find us now Sofia! Well done for persevering and tracking us down.

Well done to Claire and Arie for completing their second GoodGym good deeds. We hope to see you in the red t-shirts next time!

The fence received another good amount of paint tonight but the job wasn't quite complete. The darkness moved in rather quickly, much more so than two weeks ago at the same location. Everyone did their best in the gloom, with perhaps one more session needed to finish the job.

It was a bit chilly in Saltwell Park this morning - definitely autumnal and the first outing of my gloves this season. Of course, a slight chill was no deterrent for all the children who ran, walked, skipped (and were briefly carried!) around the junior parkrun course. It's impossible not to come away smiling! #loveparkrun

On a very pleasant Monday evening, we arrived at Newcastle University Students' Union to be met by Natalia. She was there to help us write letters, cards and postcards to unwell children, a quite unusual task for GoodGym Newcastle.

We were joined for the first time by Yining, from Shanghai, by Juan, from Málaga and by Lide, from Northern Spain. Thank you very much for coming along!

Best wishes to Joanna after the loss of her cat and good luck to Scott for this week's house move.

We used lots of craft materials, cards, postcards and a wide array of pens and pencils to send some positive messages to children not in the best of health. We hope our cards and letters cheer them up!

Please join us next week at Stepney Bank Stables!

Scott attended Apple Day, washing, chopping, pressing and scratting apples. A good time was had by all at The Bike Garden.

I've attended a number of these volunteer fairs on behalf of GoodGym but this one was the best yet. The engagement and sheer number of people that came to talk about GoodGym far exceeded any of the other ones. This was helped by being registered for the medical school's citizenship volunteering, which let to dozens of medical students coming to ask about GoodGym. If you are one of them, or any of the other students that heard about GoodGym today, please get registered and comment below!

I was so busy that I didn't have time to get someone to take a photograph of me stood at the table. Six and a half hours is a long GoodGym session, but the time seemed to fly by due to the many conversations I had!

The organisations were positioned in alphabetical order. My neighbours were The History Society and, the rather more surprising that they exist, Gilbert and Sullivan Society. They both bribed people to stop by offering sweets and chocolates. Maybe that is something for us to try next year as it seemed to work pretty well!

It was a busy night at Stepney Bank Stables as 12 Newcastle University students, from a wide variety of places including Buffalo (New York), Nova Scotia, Costa Rica and even Coventry joined us. They joined some of our regulars in painting the fence at Stepney Bank Stables' arena, filling some goody bags for a party and smoothing some walls. Everyone worked hard and some good progress was made!

Sara from Stepney Bank Stables was as welcoming as ever, giving us a tour of the stables, which involved meeting several of the resident horses. GoodGymers new and old always relish meeting the four-legged residents, one or two of whom were a bit grumpy tonight as their evening meal hadn't been served yet.

We'll be back at the stables in two weeks to try to make some more progress with painting the fence.