It was a massive turnout today morning, as we all headed down to Leazes Park to help out Urban Green. Today's task was to clear the top of the bushes at the edges of the park boundary. Some of the bushes and ivy was encroaching on the adjacent pavement and we needed to clear it out. Mike was there with his hedge trimmer. With so many of us there, we got so much done! It was definitely an eventful morning!

... not a reference to the weather, (though, as the photo shows, the sun was trying very hard to come out over Byker Bridge!), but more of a reference to the little bit of sunshine spread by 6 Good Gymers in Morrisons today. Those daffodil hats are always a winner :)

Collecting on behalf of the fantastic charity "Marie Curie", we smiled, chatted, and listened to heart warming stories & expressions of thanks from people. Sad, yet very uplifting and fun and all in such a good cause.

It’s the first Monday evening session in absolutely ages where I’ve left my house in daylight.. whisper it… Spring is coming!

Six GoodGymers and only 100 leaflets - the reverse of last week’s session where we felt we had too many leaflets for people attending and we ran out of time! Confident we’d smash this task very quickly I added an extra ask to it- could we also fill two bags of litter, one before the start of flyering and one after? Spoiler alert- of course we could!

Our brilliant friends at Building Futures East which many GoodGymers will know is the home of East End Women Foodbank, had asked us to do some leaflet dropping in two areas: Heaton tonight and Byker next week. The organisation is struggling to spread the word of the amazing work they do via daily workshops at the BFE base in Newcastle. With so much on offer we want to help them to boost the numbers and we are always happy to help.

The majority of the group were running tonight, Seb leading the way and back-marked by brilliant Zoe who we were happy to see back for her second GoodGym session with us tonight. It’s all uphill to Heaton but we all arrived at exactly the same time - and yes, a bag of litter had been collected along the way.

We made very quick work of the flyer distribution, leaving time for another bag of litter to be collected and Adam to receive high praise from some passing locals. Always nice getting real- life kudos! Everyone then joined in with a cardio-blasting fitness session which combined a relay of sprints and a highly competitive pairs game of the game I call leg-tappies. This was a great, fun, high energy way to end a satisfying task and a brilliant way to start the week.

I’d love to get some more names on the register for our Tiny Forest planting session this Wednesday as we start a love story with EarthWatch this Valentine’s Day! Pop along if you can.

“You are the hardcore ones!”

Task owner Sara was mega impressed by our turnout on a deep freeze of a night in Newcastle, most impressive I felt was seeing new GoodGymers Zoe and Roisin for the very first time. I must also give a special mention to Seb for his first good deed in 15 months! The door is always open no matter how long between tasks.

Being mega-organised as ever, Sara had a list of jobs prepared for us tonight and gave a quick run down of what needed doing. Optional in addition to the list was stroking the horses, of course.

Zoe and Seb got straight on with sweeping the outdoor ramp while I took the baton in the January litter pick relay with a quick litter pick around the car park- these were the coldest jobs and we completed them as quickly as possible. Adam, Elliott, Aimee and Roisin were in the arena sweeping away massive cobwebs, cleaning the boards around the side and edging the arena floor. These are all physical tasks that needed a bit of welly and will definitely result in a few aching arms and shoulders tomorrow. As a side note I definitely think Adam has a career as a chimney sweep waiting as he was able to get even the highest cobwebs and didn’t stop until they were all done. We then had a brief visit to the horses and I showed everyone how ridiculously scared I am of them for no reason at all.

Continuing the “let’s stay warm” theme we opted for an indoor fitness session tonight to finish off and I led everyone through a stretch session to iron out arms, hamstrings and backs after a very physical task. A very good start to the week.

We’ve got a midweek task helping FoodCycle to deep clean their Westgate kitchen, and three community missions over the weekend! Get involved if you can.