After the success of last year’s festival themed window display Christine and the team at the BHF had asked us back for a repeat performance. Julie, Rachel and Claire met at the Quaker centre for a sunny 2.5km run to the shop where we met Emily, Jana, Jade and Luke. After fuelling up on some carrot cake bars (getting some veggies in), we headed up to the ‘Narnia’ store room to look through the treasure trove of donated items for anything we could use in the display.

We filled 3 big cages full of sleeping bags, tents, mats, folding chairs and festival gear. Jana kept an eye out for any colourful festival fashion to dress the mannequins in. Sadly the fluorescent pink shell suit Julie found didn’t make the final display!

Julie and Claire moved the cages downstairs in the lifts to where Jade and Luke had made a start on the backdrop of the display - putting down some astroturf and camping chairs. Next our feature tent was put up and the display started to take shape. Jana, Rachel and Emily brought down the remaining items and started putting them in place.

Soon we were halfway through and there were sleeping bags and camping chairs everywhere! We started to wonder how we would get everything done in time, but we kept going and before we knew it the window was looking very impressive. Well done everyone!

Christine always has plenty of jobs that she needs help with so keep and eye out for more tasks coming up.

We love our group runs to the British Heart Foundation to help them create new seasonal window displays and Tuesday’s session was no different. Harnessing people’s New Year’s resolutions to get fit, eight GoodGymers brought together all the donated gym equipment - from static bikes and rowing machines to cross trainers and step machines - to the front of the shop for one giant keep-fit display.

Everyone helped to shift the equipment down in the lift and across the ground floor - with Julie and Dave going the extra mile to bring down a final treadmill and rowing machine, to complete the display!

Tom, Emily and Claire had fun ‘wrestling’ three manikins into some striking sports wear!

Rachel, Jade and Emma created the display’s backdrop filling box shelving with an assortment of other relevant items, gathered from across the shop, including yoga mats, weights and healthy recipe books! Rachel and Emma decided to kick off the sales purchasing some items themselves! And hopefully the display will entice many more shoppers, raising money for this important charity.

It was a bitter run in the cold along the river back to our base at the Quaker Centre but it is always great to work with Christine and Matt at BHF - we hope to be back again in February!

This morning we were back at the BHF for the second time this week, helping to hang and sort the mountain of donated clothes they received from a TV production company.

After a warm welcome from Christine we headed downstairs to the piles of bags, and worked our way through. Jas, Mira and Saber took over the men's clothes rails and found some smart suits and jackets. Melissa, Emma, Emily, Jana and Julie worked through the women's bags and hung up some smart work clothes, winter jumpers and even some sparkly Christmas party outfits!

After filling 12 rails ready for the shop floor we packed up ready to go home, but not before grabbing a few bargains from the shop!

A big welcome to Emma on her first task this morning, and well done to Jas on his 10th task.

We do love a trip to the BHF in Kingston town centre... always a magical mystery tour assisting them with a huge variety of tasks. Tonight's mission was to create two Black Friday areas on the shop floor - one for TVs and one for reclining armchairs.

We split into two teams to attack both of the areas. This meant heading down into the basement (or Narnia, as it's nicknamed) to collect the TVs and test out the reclining chairs. Of course every function of the chairs had to be assessed, including the massage option on one of them!

Once happy with all items to be put out for sale, we utilised the lift to get everything up to the shop floor and set about displaying the items ready for customers to snap up in the Black Friday sale later in the week.

The task was complete and whilst we tucked into a few treats laid on by BHF, Emma announced that our leader Rachel has been nominated for a local borough award, the Eileen Gray Trophy. This is presented to either a coach or an athlete who inspires others - someone who has motivated and been an inspiration to others to reach their full potential. We can all safely say that Rachel has done this and more! Massive congratulations, we're all super proud of you.

This morning we had another visit to the BHF to carry on with sorting and hanging their mountain of clothes donated from a TV production company. With 3 of us working hard we managed to get almost 4 rails of smart suits, woolly jumpers, trousers and dresses hung up neatly ready for the shop floor, but still had enough time to try a few things for size!

If we thought we might have been tricked when finding out that the British Heart Foundation were short of Halloween stock to create a window display for our planned task - they had another treat for us instead.

The charity has dozens of packages on their lower floor donated by the likes of Amazon and Apple and we were asked to open, sort through, and hang as many as possible on rails so they can be offered for sale.

We split into two groups with Petra, Rachel, Jana, Hanna, Emma, Sati, Jennie and Nina arranging theirs in organised rows to rival those at Selfridges while Claire, Louise, Pooria and Tom found quite a mixture in their pile including a Cruella Deville costume, a jujitsu gi and one or two others more suitable for an, ahem, special occasion.

The best thing about visits to the BHF is there’s a different type of task whenever we come, plus hobnobs, a warm welcome and a huge amount of gratitude for helping out.

A big shout out to Sati, Hanna and Pooria on their first task. Welcome to GoodGym and thanks for all your help.