Five GoodGymers headed out from Stepney Bank Stables to the Byker area of Newcastle to pick up as much litter as possible. It was new territory for most of our student GoodGymers, none of whom had heard of the Byker Wall. We got a good close up view of it as we collected litter between Stepney Bank Stables and Shields Road in Byker.

We filled around 13 bin liners between us, leaving the area looking much tidier by the end of the evening.

Borderline Books is an amazing charity, so much so that I'm not sure how we haven't come across them before. They take books that are no longer required by publishers, shops, libraries and the general public, and donate them to organisations working with people who, for whatever reason, are unable to buy books for themselves. They find creative ways of using books that others may consider outdated or a bit shabby and also do their best to promote literacy, recognising the long term benefits to society and individuals. Would you believe they have given away 41,000 books so far in 2026. I'm a sucker for books and reading so this was right up my street!

Today's task however, was a long way from sitting down in a cosy chair with a good book, although we did marvel at the number of books in the store room as we walked through to the site of our task. Behind the book store room was a storage area full (and I mean full!) of very old and dusty boxes. These needed to be flattened so that they can be taken away to a skip to allow the store room to be used more productively. Richard, Aimee and I were joined by regular Borderline Books volunteer Hannah, and although we didn't finish the task, we did make a lot of progress, flattening around 75% of the boxes and creating semi-neat piles of flattened cardboard. Aimee noted that banana boxes are particularly robust! It was useful to chat about other local charities that we might be able to help and other ways that we might be able to help Borderline Books in future. I admit to feeling some trepidation over what once-living creatures we might find in the boxes. Thankfully there was nothing more than a few moths!

Huge kudos to Richard who immediately went off to lead this week's group run! There's a task this Saturday - check out the website - and look out for future visits to Borderline books!

A useful three hours was spent at Gateshead Recruitment Fair, at Gateshead Leisure Centre.

It was nice to talk to people from Connected Voice and One Strawberry Lane, as well as bumping into Hannah from Host Nation for the second time in three weeks.

Another worthwhile evening was spent at Stepney Bank Stables painting the fence at the arena. This was the third and final time doing this and we managed to finish the job (and all of the paint).

We welcomed Leo, Ruby, Kanishk and Selim for their first GoodGym good deeds. Hopefully the first of many! We also look forward to seeing you all in the GoodGym red t-shirts soon.

As was the case last week, the darkness rapidly crept in once we got started painting. This time we were better prepared, with spotlights, a head torch, a chest torch and a hand held torch. We managed to illuminate the fence pretty well (unlike some of the photographs) as we applied the paint. A good level of effort was put in by everyone! We ran out of paint marginally before we ran out of time, but the fence was looking much better at the end of the session.