We love junior parkrun, and today was especially lovely as we had lots of juniors getting involved in volunteering - the adult volunteers and GoodGymmers Karen, Maurice, Claire and Nigel were just there in support roles!

Juniors carried out the following roles for us today: pre-event setup, announcing milestones, Run Director, giving out the wristbands, leading the warm-up, helping with the warm-up, timekeeping, barcode scanning, giving out finish tokens, tailwalking and sorting the finish tokens! Its great to be able to support all the juniors taking part and the volunteers of the future.

That had to be a record litter-picking haul this week! Five super GoodGymmers spent a chilly Wednesday evening covering a very small area but making an enormous impact - ten huge bags of rubbish collected in 80 minutes! Takeaway wrappers and cups definitely topped the list, followed by bottles and hairnets from a local food factory. The award for strangest item found goes to Mark, we're all still puzzled by the large jar's contents - possibly pickled foods, although it bore a strong resemblance to brains!

Well done to Maurice, Marjo, Mark, Nigel and Karen - a very rewarding evening's work where we could really see the results. An enjoyable evening too in lovely company, and its fair to say that Marjo really enjoyed the evening and will be back!

Yes, you read that right ... the sun put in an appearance at junior parkrun this week! Hooray!

83 juniors crossed the finish line, supported by lots of parents either running with them or cheering them on - what a fantastic atmosphere! We even welcomed an international visitor from Finland too!

Nigel and Mark were both marshals on the finishing straight, cheering the juniors on to the end, while Maurice and Claire were marshals around the course with the juniors passing them twice on their 2km run, walk or skip, and Karen was waiting for them at the finish line as a timekeeper. junior parkrun is such a lovely event for all the family, and just as rewarding for the volunteers too. Well done everyone!

There was a fair bit of nervousness about whether junior parkrun would have to be cancelled yet again due to weather - just how many storms have we had this winter?! - but when the forecasted strong winds stayed as a strong breeze, we were good to go!

It was lovely to have Mark join us on a Sunday morning, and between the GoodGym team we undertook the folloing roles: volunteer coordinator ~ run director ~ barcode scanning ~ 4 marshall points ~ post event close down ~ results processing ~ photographer ~ social media. A great morning's work helping young people to be active!

A great turnout at Crewe parkrun by the GoodGym gang!

Karen and Nicola teamed up as timekeepers, Karen also "meeted and greeted" the volunteers and made sure everyone know what to do; Nigel was on course set-up; Mark welcomed first timers with a description of the course and how parkrun works; Marjo was our star baker; and Marjo, Nigel, Emily, Maurice and Kat all did the "gym" bit of GoodGym by completing their favourite 5k of the week.

Well done everyone!

The temperature might have been cold but a spell of junior parkrun volunteering was certainly heartwarming! And we got to celebrate a birthday with obligatory cake!

Karen, Maurice and Nigel all volunteered this week - Karen meeting and greeting volunteers before being a marshal on the course, Nigel meeting and greeting first timers before also being a marshal on the course, and Maurice being the all-important timekeeper. Then everyone pitched in to help pit everything away and leaving the park as we found it, before retreating to the cafe to warm up and eat cake :)

It was great to be back with the gang last night supporting Motherwell with their amazing charity. It felt like a long time since we’d last been together so it was nice to catch up with everyone again.

We were delighted to see you back for a second installment of Goodgym Rachel and really glad that the litter pick last time didn't put you off completely!!

Tonight‘s task was sorting out school uniform! Always a challenge, as there’s so much of it! It’s great to see so many people donating to such a great cause and it’s a great resource which serves the community so so well. Helps the environment too! Win win!!

Great to be back with you all, and looking forward to the next task!

Have a great weekend and see you all soon.

Lots of love Nicola xxx

PS - huge apologies to you Nigel for forgetting to give you your cream egg!! And I still can’t get over the fact that the rest of you don’t like them!!! What?!!!