There's not a lot that will stop a GoodGymmer completing a task.

We've litter-picked in -3°C, we've weeded instead of watching an important World Cup match, we've painted railings and cut down bushes by the light of a headtorch…

But this week we were foiled. Unfortunately, a group had gone on a coach trip down to Birmingham and left a tonne of cars in the car park at the ICCA. They'd told the staff they'd be back by 5, but at 6:45 they hadn't arrived. As any of you who've been to one of these tasks knows, that paint gets EVERYWHERE and we agreed with the staff that we couldn't risk getting it all over the cars. And even scraping would have caused the flakes to get all over everything.

With no backup litter-pickers in the car after a pre-holiday boot shuffle, we had to abandon the task.

Thanks to Peter, Nigel and Leah for trying! We'll be back at the end of November to try again.

Better late than never!

The painting continued at the ICCA, this time assisted by head torches.

It was a bit of a smaller group but we made some decent headway along the railings – all that scraping is really paying off as the paint goes on faster!

Let's see if we can finish before the summer!

Robert and MiniGGer Milo joined the volunteers for a rather blustery morning at Forest Rec thanks to Storm Boelo.

A hardy bunch of 25 kids finished the run despite the weather, and Milo claims he gave out at least 100 high fives with his big foam hand.

On a dark, damp night it was good to be inside the Sherwood Community Centre.

Laid out before us were a plethora of brushes, rollers, trays and paint and we rolled up our sleeves in true GoodGym fashion.

We split in to two teams with Matt, Charlie, Dayna and Peter on one side and Walter, Khiltee, Florence and first timer Martin on the other.

We were so efficient that there was even time for Charlie and Matt to vacuum, sweep and mop some floors and for Peter to make a start on cleaning the brushes, trays and rollers.

Welcome aboard Martin, we hope you enjoyed your first task with and hopefully see you again soon.

it was a bit nippy at the Forest Recreation for Junior parkrun.

Amongst the fallen leaves Peter put on his hi-viz and helped cheer on 41 young runners who ran and walked around the 2km course.

it might be 9:00 in the morning but I recommend it as a great way to start your Sunday (and the cafe does great coffee and cakes!!!)

Last night, GoodGym Nottingham headed to Sherwood Community Centre for one of our first properly dark tasks of the year.

Our mission was to clear a seriously overgrown patch of ground so a skip can be brought in, while also cutting back enough brambles to expose a gate which was totally unusable.

Meanwhile, Nigel took on a spot of mowing on the lawn next to the car park. However, this was abruptly curtailed when a yoga class began inside the community centre and it was decided that Nigel’s mower may disrupt the peace in the yoga room.

About 15-minutes into the task, the daylight started disappearing, so out came the head torches and a few portable spotlights and on we went.

As the brambles were gradually defeated, we made an important archaeological discovery – several large stone 'megaliths'. In true GoodGym fashion, we immediately began speculating whether we had stumbled across some kind of ancient Roman settlement or one of Nottingham’s greatest undiscovered historical sites.

By the end of the evening, we had cleared a substantial area, freed the pedestrian gate from its brambly captivity and made good progress towards getting the space ready for the skip, and, quite possibly, uncovered a piece of Nottingham’s Roman past.

Well done to Walter, Giovanna, Matt, Nigel, Leah, Peter and Rachel.