Wow! What an amazing event we attended today.

We'd had short notice about a lunch being served for about 120 older members of the community and the organisers were hoping that GoodGym could provide some additional volunteers to help with the set up, serve drinks and meals, and tidy up afterwards.

I was leading from Task Force but unfortunately couldn't get out of work for the start of the task. But Kamal kindly agreed to liaise with Vera (the organiser) and the other GoodGymers, so that they were all able to make their way to Futures House in time to start setting up the hall. I was really greatful that he was happy to deputise for me in my absence.

By the time I arrived the GoodGym Team had got the room set up beautifully with festive table settings, crackers and all. We even had a guest appearance by Bakari, who has helped out on a couple of GoodGym tasks in the summer but who we have yet to persuade to sign up and become an official GoodGym member. And it was nice to see Fredy and Abdulkarim too who I haven't seen for a while. Of course Musa and Mohammad were there too and working hard as usual. I was impressed to see the team serving drinks and dishing up soup to the assembled crowd. Although I think some of the GoodGymers were a little surprised to see that, although senior citizens, some of the guests were pretty partial to a glass or two of various beverages, and white wine spritzers seemed to be going down a storm. I was also amused to see the number of people who were very excited to be offered a snowball. I seemed to be given mixology duties and was soon mixing up the Advocaat and lemonade concoction, as well as G&Ts, whisky macs and the odd vodka orange and soda. And of course there was a vast array of soft drinks too.

Once the soup dishes were cleared we were then kept busy serving up the main courses and dishes of vegetables to the folk. It was good to be able to chat with the guests while we were serving, but chat was kept to a minimum in order for us to get people's food to them still piping hot.

And before we knew it it was time to start clearing tables and get the puddings out to people - stopping only to take a few group photos with Vera and one or two of the other volunteers from Future's House. The guys then tucked into a well deserved meal themselves, before doing the final table clearance and later clearing up the room.

Yasin kindly helped to box up some of the leftover vegetables which GIll would be taking with her to the FoodCycle final meal of the year later that afternoon so that it would not go to waste. Special congratulations to Yasin too for qualifying for his Black Tee-shirt today. 50 tasks - go you Yasin!!!

For the final Group Run task of 2023 we were in Manor Road Park, where the river Lea flows out from the town centre. The banks of this section of recently restored riverbank had become strewn with plastic litter that had washed up on the sides so we set to work with our litter pickers tidying it all up before it got washed further downstream.

Also in the river was the remains of one of the park's bins, unhelpfully smashed and thrown in but skillfully retrieved by Martin with a big long rod and a hook on the end.

Some trolleys that had also been dumped in the river has unfortunately been washed along and out of the park and we couldn't reach them, annoying!

But we did manage to retrieve an enormous drainage tube and roll that up to the roadside for collection along with 7 bags of rubbish, the smashed bin a bucket and some other assorted junk.

We were a team of five on a frosty December evening, making our way carefully along the icy pavements with a combination of gentle running and walking to suit all abilities and energy levels.

We were heading back to the 61 Football Club for one last painting session before the end of year. On arrival we cracked out red paint for the back room floor and white paint for the referee's changing room. The spaces only being small meant we were done quickly and could give the entrance area a coat of white as well.

With that all done and brushes and rollers washed we were kindly given some chocolate to see is through the return journey back into the town centre.

The club is starting to look really smart thanks to all the recent efforts. To thank us for helping Richard and Cliff offered us the use of the club for our Christmas party 🎉

This was GoodGym's first time for helping out at a High Town Community even, and there were a few teething troubles. Gill and Ruth arrived in good time at the school, eager to get stuck into the task. However the enthusiasm soon waned when we were told by the Community Liaison person that we couldn't start setting u the hall for the Christmas Market until after the children's lunches had finished. We'd been asked to arrive ready to start at 1 pm but we would have to hang around until after 1:45 before we could get started.

GoodGymers are by nature active people, so sitting around in an overly hot school room wasn't the best start to the task, although it did give us a chance to get to know our newest member Mohammad.

Once the children had finished in the hall, we took the lead in clearing up - Tigger grabbed the broom from an unsuspecting dinner supervisor and got stuck into sweeping up the debris left from school dinners - hundred and thousands, squashed fish fingers and assorted crumbs. While this was done the rest of us started stacking the chairs and collapsing the tables that were not needed. We had been given a carefully planned map of the hall and were soon shifting things around to match the plan. It soon became apparent that the plan was a little "organic" so we needed to second guess what was in the minds of the organisers - it's a good job that one of our superpowers is telepathy!!! It didn't take us long to get the tables positioned correctly and labelled , ready for the stall holders.

Next we started clearing furniture from the main corridor and getting more tables ready for some additional stall holders. Musa , Yasin, Benjamin and Gill made a great job of getting the tombola ready. The teachers were super impressed with our efficiency. Meanwhile Tigger had identified that as the stall holders were arriving many of them needed support bringing their boxes of goodies in from the car park and was soon detailing us to help. Going outside the school with a subteam at such a pace I could only get a photograph of their backs, as they went to help bring in boxes of festive table arrangements and wreaths.

By the time our work (alongside other volunteers) was ended the hall looked fabulous with a great variety of different stalls and games, and there was a real buzz about the place. The head teacher was so thankful for all our help, and we slipped away leaving the parents and children to enjoy the Christmas Market (also abandoning Benjamin, who hadn't realised that we had gone - apologies, especially as this was only your second task).

We are hopeful that this might be the start of a new GoodGYm parttnership with the school and look forward to getting involved in other events in the coming year.