It's Tuesday evening, and as always we had a team of GoodGymers heping at FoodCycle. Gill was leading in the kitchen while the others set up the tablea, greeted the guests, and served them with a delicious three course meal. Abdulrahman demonstrated his versatility by jumping from the hosting team into the kitchen team as we were shirt handed and needed some help with plating up. It was another succeaful meal and all cleaned up in record timing.

This morning three of us met at High Town Baptist Church to finish the deep clean that Gill started last week. Omar and Nuriya joined her and got stuck in. In fact fact I thought Omar might get stuck in the the space behind to oven as he cleaned behind it. After 2 hours of scrubbing, washing, sweeping and tidying the kitchen was sparkling.

Although we were expecting 4 or 5 GoodGym volunteers at High Town Church today, there was one solitary GoodGymer who turned up to deep clean the kitchen. Working solo, Gill donned her rubber gloves and got stuck in to giving the kitchen a spring clean. She wiped the grime off the top of cupboards, then emptied them all so she could give them a good clean inside and out. There was a certain thrill at being able to organise the contents as it was all put away again, and although she was on her own, Gill managed to get all the cupboards and drawers cleaned and reorganised. Hopefully we will be able to get a small team out next week to complete the other half of the kitchen and get it all looking sparkly and clean.

We spent a beautiful day serving hot meals and sweets to people in need in this very cold weather. I hope we were able to put smiles on their faces. ☺️💐💙 Abdulrahman

It was a busy evening as FoodCycle were very short of volunteers, so it was great that so many GoodGymers turned out for the first FoodCycle meal of the New Year. Gill had been on food collection last week, and turned up early to unlock the church and start weighing some of the produce. She was then the project leader in the kitchen and supported the other volunteers in creating a delicious three course meal, including her cho chip pudding with hot chocolate sauce.

Another first for the day was Teklay, who, as a newer member of GoodGym made his debut at FoodCycle. He was soon allocated the role of potwasher, which he embraced wothout complainnt and was soon elbow deep in the sink, washing and drying pots, pans and dishes. Abdulrahman, Neill and Susannah then joined the hosting team. Susannah was a fabulous Maître D, welcoming the guests and providing them with a tiket for their goody bag. Neill and Abdulrahman completed the setup of the hall, were great waiting staff and did a brilliant job of tidying up at the end of the meal. We served over 40 meals and as Abdulrahman said, put a smile on all uor guests faces. Gill

Four Goodgymers joined Foodcycle Hightown Baptist church

This evening we served 45 guests plus takeaways . It was great team work and effort from everyone as always- food collection team, cooking team, hosting team , pot washer , host and helpers/project leaders ❤️ Last dinner of the year was amazing Christmas feast

Thank you everyone for making people around happy 😊

Merry Christmas and happy new year! Lots of love , good health, happiness and joy to everyone 🎄❄️❤️

On today’s menu was: Starter Broccoli 🥦 cabbage and cheddar soup Main Roast Quorn , pups in blankets , roasties, stuffing , cauliflower cheese 🧀, sprouts , carrots 🥕, parsnips

Dessert Mince pies 🥧, custard 🎅

There were just two GoodGYmers who turned out on a dreary night to support FoodCycle this evening. Although there was areduced team Martin and Gill work tirelessly to help create a sumptuosnhot meal for the guests. There was a lot of chopping to be done to create the filling for stuffed peppers. And then the tasks changed for Martin, to help creating the stir fry for the main course, while Gill wrote up the menus board and helped set out some of the surplus food ready to go in goody bags for our guests. WE also helped to serve the food as there were only a few people on the hosting team today. Despite waking our socks off, we managed to have a good catch up with the rest of the kitchen team and make sure a newcomer was made to feel welcome.