It's Tuesday night so it must be FoodCycle for some of the regulars in GoodGym who enjoy teaming up with the other FoodCycle volunteers to help ensure the smooth running of the community meal.

This evening was no different.

Gill started the session early with a trip to Sainsburys to pick up a mountain of food surplus. After unlocking the church and doing the usual checks, she then unloaded the crates of food and got them all weighed and sorted before the others arrived. The kitchen team, joined by Martin and Gill were soon busy peeling, chopping and prepping another delicious three course meal. Ruth and Abdo arrived to set up the hall: setting out tables, filling the urn, putting out the cloths and cutlery and making sure everything was ready to greet the guests. And of course Abdo was on hand to ensure the menu was written up and suitably decorated. Mehdi had also arrived to help and joined us later for the meal. They were then kept busy serving the guests and washing up afterwards.

It's hard work, but good fun and fabulous team work. FoodCycle are very appreciative of all the help GoodGym provides. They couldn't do it without us. Well done all.

We had a great team supporting Foodcycle tonight, and it was lovely to have two of our regular GoodGymers making their debut at FoodCycle. Musa joined Gill and Martin in the kitchen and was soon stuck into preparing peppers and other veg for the stir fry. Gill and Martin meanwhile got working in a delicious apple and pear Charlotte for dessert. When the hosting team arrive it was great to welcome Yasin for his first FoodCycle session and Derrick was soon showing him the ropes. He even hot him writing out the menu! It was FoodCycle's 2nd birthday so after the guests had gone all the volunteers were celebrated with cake and kind words from the manager. There were special mentions of GoodGym as Nisa recognised the great support that GoodGym has given to this project to keep it going each week. We were also pleased to meet a new volunteer who had signed up to Foodcycle after receiving a flyer through her door from one of our flyering tasks.

Well done to all Goodgym members who have volunteered at FoodCycle over the past year. Your support has been greatly appreciated.

Tigger took a leisurely stroll from home, Gill a brisk trot from Church as she was concerned that she might be late, but wasn't. Musa marched up the hill from town, and Derrick and Yasin made their way to meet up with the team on route.

A pleasant walk awaited us, because Gill had planned our task around some well appointed residential roads with manicured gardens which we admired. Ludlow Avenue, Cutenhoe Road south side (even numbers) and back up Cutenhoe north side up to number 119.

It's always great to have a number of willing walkers for leaflet distribution as we make progress swiftly, have a visual Goodgym presence in the street, and have time to chat, and in the case of Cutenhoe Road, catch our breath. Gill had run up the Cutenhoe climb earlier in the morning and was treating herself to a recovery walk 😆

In just under 45 minutes we'd run out of leaflets before running out of road, and headed home for some well earned lunch

Tonight at Foodcycle, 3 of the kitchen spots were occupied by Goodgymers. Lots of chopping, baking and ketchup mastery took place as we all got stuck in to provide a 2 course dinner for members of the local community. The evenings menu was limited to 2 dishes as the hosting team was really short tonight. The first course was Shakshuka, a delicious tomato 🍅 based dish with lots of tasty editions, accompanied by a green salad, roasted potatoes and Tigger's fantastic banana 🍌 ketchup. Yes, you read that correctly, who'd have thought, hey? Dessert was rice pudding with a very tasty mixed fruit compote. Around 40 meals were given out and all left overs were taken away by the guests to eat at home. This was a great task tonight. Well done team, 👏 you were all great

This week we welcomed Omar to his first session with us and then split the team up to tackle two tasks.

We had a long range running crew of 4 people who headed off to Dallow and up Winsdon Hill, where litter picking was the task of the day. After 50 minutes rummaging around the long grass and woods on the hill an impressive pile of bulging litter bags and general dumped junk was hauled out and left by the roadside for collection by the council.

Meanwhile, a walking team headed off to South Luton armed with flyers for FoodCycle who need to find some more volunteers for their Tuesday night dinners. Their target for the night was a climb up the steep and twisty Armstrong Road, where effort is rewarded with a commanding view of the airport from the top.

Finally, a pair of runners who fancied a shorter run chased down the walkers and ran straight up to the top of the hill and started flyering their way down until they met the walkers again.

The flyers were all delivered in double quick time with so many on the task, whereas the litter pickers, despite bringing in an impressive haul, had to leave most of the hillside unpicked, but we will be back!

Four of our team were in Ready Steady Cook mode today - and although we weren't given a carrier bag with only 5 food items in it, it did feel a bit like that this evening when we arrived as there was very little food for us to base our menu on.

But it didn't take us long to decide that using eggs, peppers and potatoes squirreled away last week, and with the addition of some carrots we could at least make a pretty delicious frittata for the main course. Tigger was great at sorting through the box of carrots and getting rid of those that were well passed their best, while Gill and Caron form FoodCycle got on with peeling them all. Martin and Mayra joined the crew and were soon busy peeling, chopping, and cracking a mammoth number of eggs.

Our starter today was out of a tin, so didn't need too much preparation. Thanks Mr/Mrs Heinz for some delicious tomato soup, and Gill prepped the toast to go with it.

For dessert it was decided we would serve banana custard and Martin made an excellent vat of custard for his debut attempt at custard making. And it was fabulous. Well done!!!

We couldn't have served the meal without the excellent hosting from Abdo and Derrick and the other hosts. Thanks for singing up.

It was also great to meet Mehdi who had arrived unannounced for his first experience of FoodCycle and his first experience of GoodGym. We hope that next time he will sign up and help as a host or in the kitchen, now he knows how it works.

And at the end of the meal the guest and volunteers were all given one of Gill's home made cakes, celebrating her big 60 a day early.