Our lovely team of Trafford Goodgymers ran to help out at the Longford Centre tonight....and we had a blast!

We met as usual at St Matthew's Community Hall at 6.30pm and chatted about our news which included yet another Coach pairing which takes us to FIVE in Trafford - yippeeee! Once we'd warmed up we trotted off to the Longford Centre with Dave leading the way and Vicky and Gemma safely backmarking us.

Jeannie the fab Task owner was there waiting for us ready to introduce the centre which provides support and accommodation for local homeless people to help them move forward to secure permanent accommodation.

We managed to achieve the following while we were there:

• Have a good sort out and re-organisation of the clothes donation room and turn it into a walk-in wardrobe that Carrie Bradshaw would appreciate
• Clean up and tidy the medical/ support room
• Clean up and tidy the ICT room
• Wash up and dry for the Cookery class who were making delish dahl and garlic naans
• Recruit a new member for GoodGym Trafford!
• Finally manage a GoodGym hashtag photo!

#eachforequal

It was great to have Anders and Meera back with us again - come and see us again soon!

Once we'd completed all our tasks we legged it back to base, stretched off and chatted about food (as usual!)

All in all a lovely night and another good lot of work achieved for the really excellent Longford Centre. See you all next time!

What a cracking task!

12 lovely runners from Trafford ran to the Longford Centre last night to help out.

We met at our usual haunt of St Matthews Community Hall where we met THREE new GROUP runners and a newbie for a document check to be a COACH RUNNER. Wow!

We chatted about our news including our nomination for the January Challenge prize and our upcoming Community Mission for Stretford Parkrun on 29th January and then set about warming up as it was super chilly outside. All briefed and ready for action we headed out into the cold together.

We ran over to the Longford Centre which is a residential facility that provides accomodation and support to individuals who would otherwise be at risk of being without permanent accommodation. It's been in action around two years and as well as offering people 8 weeks of accomodation it aims to help people move forward providing support on job seeking, accessing benefits and also life skills such as cooking.

Part of their programme is to update the building to make it more homely and attractive - which is where our painting skills came in useful!

Once arrived at Longford (and following a squat challenge while we all assembled!) we met Jeannie, the centre's Volunteer Co-ordinator who introduced us to the centre and the tasks in hand.

We were tasked with painting the upstairs kitchen as it had become a bit grubby and tired over time. As we had such a cracking turnout, we divided ourselves into three teams - painting, kitchen and cleaning - yet again three tasks for the price of one!

So whilst at the Longford Centre we:

• Cleaned, taped and painted a kitchen
• Washed up and helped in the kitchen with the cooking class
• Set up and helped residents enjoy their dinner (particularly "Mr B" who was very intrigued to find out what GoodGym was all about!)
• Cleaned the lounge and surrounding areas

GREAT TO SEE GOODGYM IN ACTION, EVERYONE WAS IMPRESSED!

Once we had gathered ourselves back together we ran back to base and stretched off going through our successes and talking about plans for next week's run.

Big shout out to our new Group runners for this week - great to see you and have you on the team!

Gemma

Coral

Dave