It was a good long run out along the River Lea to Cowslip Meadow nature reserve, home to one of the springs that feeds the river.

There waiting for us was Konni from the Wildlife Trust, she had been helping a nature conservation task here last week and noticed some litter and dumped items that needed removing. One of the items was a chair in the river but leaving that until last we set to work with Sam and Omar clearing out the dumped mattress and other items.

Meanwhile David and Gill went to the opposite end of the reserve to tackle an unwanted non-native shrub going a bit wild, it was a very dense bush and it took quite a bit of pruning to even see the core of it, but get there we did. Eventually we found it was actually several different shrubs and defeated them all.

With a nice neat pile of cuttings made the two teams reunited for a final ten minutes of litter picking and commenced a search for the reported river chair! Searching along the dark riverbank by torchlight, hooked pole in hand, surrounded by tall riverside plants, it was difficult to find anything that looked like a chair. We searched and searched all the accessible bits of squishy riverbank until socks got wet and we had to declare the chair missing in action, its powers of camouflage clearly outsmarting us!

That just left the return run back into town to finish off the evening.

Well it wasn't one and it wasn't a million but it certainly felt like it.

There were actually 4 GoodGymers who attended the January Jobs Fair in the Mall, and little did we know as we helped with the set up just how popular the event would be. Staged in the centre of Luton Point, Omar, Gill and Ali helped the employers to set up their stalls with tables, chairs and banners. And then were were stationed by the entrance to the cordoned off area to support people registering their details and completing the online attendance form. Before we knew it there was a huge crowd of job seekers all keen to talk with the representatives from various NHS and care sector departments. We were expecting to see about 100 to 200 hundred people, but the queues kept on growing and it felt like there were a million. It was just over a thousand in fact (but always room for poetic license). Derya had to finish the task early and handed the iPad back to Omar who did a stirling job of gate keeping. Ali was as enthusiastic as ever as he supported Matt with all sorts of tasks and helped to managed the registrations. Gill helped people with their enquiries and was also on hand with a QR code supporting people to fill out registrations on their smart phones. Its was a long morning, and definitely a physical task as we were on our feet constantly. Matt form LBC was effusive with his praise for GoodGym as he said he didn't know how they would have managed without us. "You're all one in a million!" were his parting words.

There were two GoodGymers in the kitchen at FoodCycle this evening, both in need of some mental maths as Martin and Gill tried to work out how many packets of mince pies made 100. When they get hot and bothered in the kitchen the old grey cells don't work as quickly as normal. Martin was also using his maths brain to treble up quantities for a vat of his special custard, while Gill was working out how many litres of cream were required for 60 portions of potato dauphinoise. The Goodgymers, OMar, Moamal amnd Dee on the hosting team had less maths to do out front, as there was plenty of food to go round, so it was an easy job to ensure all the guests got a portion of the three course tonight - a vegetable frittata for starters, potato dauphinoise and veg for main, and delightful mince pies and custard for pudding. They were also able to enusre all guests got a generous goody bag as Gill had done a great job with her hubby in collecting a large quantity of surplus form the supermarket yesterday.

Tonight, 3 Goodgymers from Luton helped a local community group from the Shri Guru Ravidass Sangat temple celebrate the New Year and reflect on all their achievements from the last 12 months. This task involved setting up tables, clearing down and packing away tables and chairs and ticking off names on the door as people entered. There was music, food and drink and we were also invited to present 2 of the 4 awards that were given to some of the volunteers that work so hard to support the group with all they do in the community. Whilst Duncan and I were doing our best Max and Paddy impression, Omar was helping out in the kitchen. I think we had a positive impact on the evening and we look forward to helping them out again soon. Great work guys. We'll done

Six members ran across town to the 61 Football Club where the clubhouse needed a good dusting, scrub down and polishing.

Grateful for an indoor task on a clear and frosty evening we set straight to work and got everything shiny and spotless before celebrating Gill reaching 400 good deeds with fun size chocolates to refuel before heading back out into the cold to run into town and complete our session for the evening.