It may not be quite December, but Christmas began for GoodGym Nottingham as we headed back to the Brendon Lawrence Sports Centre. We met Eugene on arrival who explained that he had an important task for us to do indoors rather than tidying the outdoor space as we had originally planned (given the freezing temperature outside, we were not too disappointed by this!).

The Renewal Trust are holding a series of family events leading up to Christmas where they will be giving away goody bags containing various items, including some free tea bags. Our job was to stick labels on these advertising the Renewal Trust and their QR code. We did about 1000 packs all together, all while listening to a soundtrack of Christmas and disco classics! We even finished with a cup of tea using some of the tea bags that had become detached.

We welcomed two new GoodGymers, Jessica and Jane – it was lovely to meet you and we hope to see you at another task soon!

The rain held off for Sunday’s task which saw two of us head to Sneinton Primary School’s Community Allotment. We met Kathryn on arrival and helped her move some tools and equipment from the road up to the allotment. We then set to work clearing an area at the back of the garden, removing brambles and ivy. The idea is that this area will eventually be a bug house where the children can view creepy crawlies.

After an hour we downed tools and were treated to a bit of chocolate cake curtesy of Kathryn!

The allotment is a lovely peaceful space and we had a view of the Greens Windmill and Science Centre which is right next door. Kathryn and some of the other parents have big plans to develop the allotment further and we hope to visit again to help out in the near future.

Rachel and Rachel headed to the Brendon Lawrence Sports Centre where we met Eugene for our latest task. We were expecting to be doing some weeding outside, but some kind soul had beat us to it. Instead, Eugene had a perfect indoor task for us (which we were quite pleased about as it was a chilly evening!).

Our task was to help rearrange two of the centre’s store cupboards so that the most used equipment was more accessible. This included moving a retro ‘ice hockey Subbuteo’ machine from the back of one cupboard to another, swapping it with a large pile of soft play mats. After an hour of moving various tables, chairs, mats, goal posts and the Subbuteo machine, we definitely felt like we’d had an all over workout, making this a perfect example of what a GoodGym task is all about!

The Brendon Lawrence Sports Centre, part of the Renewal Trust, is a fantastic local space which includes a sports hall, a dance studio and a meeting space. It runs a range of sports and play sessions for local children and adults and was buzzing whilst we were there with a yoga class and children’s football going on. We plan to be back there in a few weeks’ time to help with their outdoor space.