The GoodGym Nottingham volunteers came together on 10th December for their annual festive social at Bustler, Sneinton Market.

With rounds of mulled wine, other alcoholic and non-alcoholoc beverages, and tasty food from Bustler's streetfood stalls, we marked another year-full of helping organisations and projects around Nottingham and various milestones achieved.

As always, conversation and debate flowed, with the key questions of the night:

"How is it that several group members had not seen Home Alone and is this really as shocking as some thought?"

"What is the best apple?"

"When is a berry not a berry?" (for the benefit of those not at the previous years Christmas social)

A big thank you to everyone who attended (and to Rose and Vytautas who made a brief surprise appearance before joining their rival party). We hope everyone has a lovely, relaxing break and we're looking forward to more good deeds in 2026 (we've already got loads of tasks booked in, check them out and sign up here.)

On the chilliest night of the season so far, nine GoodGymers returned to the Meadows Foodbank and Pantry for our Wednesday task. Mark always has lots of lovely jobs in store for us and this evening was no exception.

Jules, Marie and Rachel worked through a pile of recent donations in the clothing section, picking out anything that was warm and wintry to go on the clothes rails. Anything else was sorted and put away in the boxes and some items were bagged up for the charity shop.

Meanwhile, Leah and Nigel headed upstairs to the stock room, finding the nearest and furthest ‘best before’ dates on a range of food items. Tom and Hannah started making up some small bags of miniature toiletries that had been donated to the foodbank, whilst Matt and Khiltee sorted out some toiletries gift bags upstairs before heading down to help out on the shop floor.

We welcomed Marie to her first ever GoodGym task, we hope to see you again! We were also joined by Talia, a journalism student from Nottingham Trent university, who is writing a report on community initiatives as part of her final year assessment project. It was lovely to chat about GoodGym with Talia and we wish her the best of luck with her report (hopefully we will see her back as a GoodGym volunteer in future!).

Thank you to Mark for hosting this at the foodbank. It's always such a pleasure to do tasks there and we hope to return very soon.

For our latest task we headed back to the Edwards Lane Community Centre (home to the Chayah Development Project). Florence, Hannah, Nigel, Leah, Peter and Rachel met Hya on arrival who, after taking everyone's tea orders, set us to work painting the back wall of the sports hall which needed a little refresh.

After 'coveralls' and 'overshoes' were donned, we opened the large tub of brilliant white paint, only to find that it was looking a bit less than brilliant. In fact, some might say it was looking distinctly bluey-grey. We checked and double checked that we were to use this paint and were given the go-ahead. So, off we went with our brushes and rollers, debating amongst ourselves whether we were painting with grey/blue paint or whether it was, in fact, the kind of paint that turns white when dry. At times, we did start to think that the wall was turning white, but weren't sure whether it was just our eyes getting weary or wishful thinking!

Once the hour was up, the whole back wall was covered and we finished off by washing our tools and cleaning the floor which had become a bit paint splattered in the process.

This was the perfect task for a chilly, dark autumn evening and, after a quick photo, we departed very satisfied, although we are still none the wiser as to whether the wall will be white when we next return! (ok, so looking back at the photos afterwards it definitely looks grey, doesn't it...?)

Thank you to Hya for hosting and for the tea, and to Councillor Nayab Patel who came to provide support and treats once again.

It was back to the food bank in The Meadows for eight Goodgymers last night. Mark from the food bank soon had us organised and so we set to work. Hannah, Bozena and Aj set to organising stock. Meanwhile some generous donations meant a number of pallets where stacked higher than Peter so Matt (six at a time!), Scott, Tom and Kevin got stuck in to moving tuna, mandarin segments and rice puddings by the dozen upstairs. Some would say this was good Hyrox training if anyone had somehow got themselves roped in to one (not looking at Tom in particular!) but was definitely a good workout for everyone there!