A dry and misty start in Colchester, for this week's junior parkrun. Louise was at the helm, run directing, with the rest of the team marshalling around the park. With additional support from the Duke of Edinburgh award volunteers, plus lots of regular helpers, the event was well staffed, and everyone did their bit to encourage the runners and walkers. Colchester junior parkrun is always looking for folk to help ensure that the event runs safely and smoothly, but it is a lot of fun and very easy. Email the volunteer coordinator, to get involved.

Well done everyone for supporting nature this weekend. Remember to upload your findings to the RSPB website, when you get a moment. There's a live leaderboard; with two million birds recorded so far..... what will be the final tally?! Full results will be published in a few months time. Thank you for getting involved, I hope you enjoyed your birdwatching.

A chilly evening in Colchester was brightened up by some litter picking action around the streets and past the college by six goodgymers. We received some thank you's from passers by, chatted about all kinds of things, and admired the local runners doing reps up the hill. This weekend, whilst drinking tea and eating biscuits indoors - do an hour's birdwatch for the RSPB. Sign up to the task on the website - the perfect goodgym mission!!

Eight elves helped out at Level Best this evening, wrapping gifts for the trainees at their Christmas party. Everyone did a fantastic job, and although it looked like a tricky task to start with, as there were a variety of different shapes of gifts to wrap, and specific name tags to match each one, the paper and sellotape was soon flying into action, and beautifully wrapped piles of gifts started appearing. Conversation topics amongst the group this week included: Paris marathon, Cocodona 250, teaching, flamenco, compost, baby names, and Goodgym!

Two heavy bags of litter were gathered up by two Goodgymers in an hour, during a quick pick around the neighbourhood. Highlights included - seeing another local litter picker out busy gathering trash as well, and collecting a hat, tie, and sock, amongst the usual red bull cans, sweet wrappers and drinks cups.