For our group run this week, we headed across town to drop some food and household items at a Cambridge City Foodbank donation point.🥫

With one of us pushing through a cold and the other recovering from food poisoning, we took a steady jog along Mill Road from Parkside pools to Sainsbury's. Caroline carried her donations, so had an extra weighted workout 💪

Between us we donated at least one of nearly all the most needed items on the list, which will be distributed to those who need it in our community.

This morning we were out once again with Abbey People. Our task was to maintain the banks along Coldham's Brook, which will help encourage wildlife and a range of habitats. We cleared away trees and shrubs which Cambridge City Council had already cut down and we used the branches to build up a bank alongside the brook. There was a lot of sawing and lopping as we cut branches down to more manageable sizes to carry over to the brook. We also cleared away overgrowth to allow more light on to the stream and also to make a more walkable path. It was quite a muddy task but it was great to see the difference we could make in one morning.

GoodGymers were running around courses and earthworks at parkruns this week.

Welcome to Josie who joined for her first GoodGym task. She ran and then helped sort tokens at Coldham's parkrun, fuelled by brownies that had been baked for the volunteers! The run was muddy (although no where near as bad as Milton has been recently) but luckily the rain held off until the end.

Harriet was volunteer coordinator at Fulbourn Hospital parkrun and had an eventful start to the morning having to create course diversions around building works that had sprung up. With a solid team effort the amended course was signed off and all went smoothly.

Caroline and Catherine were off representing GoodGym and running parkruns in Europe. Catherine getting a 'Z' for her parkrun alphabet in The Netherlands, and Caroline braving the -8 conditions and running in the snow in Oslo! ❄️

For this morning's task we spent our time helping Abbey People at the Margaret Community Orchard. Our aim was to clear a path to find a hidden pond. Nick and Harriet donned their gloves and picked up shears and loppers to take on the thorny task of cutting down a forest of brambles. We managed to clear a path to a rather malodorous pond. Nick valiantly endeavoured to clear debris from the pond. The sun came out to reward us and we were serenaded with some lovely birdsong.

Squeezing in one last good deed and a few kms before the end of January, GoodGymers were out and about at parkrun this morning.

I was marshalling at Brook Leys parkrun, cheering 643 runners and walkers ( a course record!) as they took on the tight corners of the course. A beautiful morning in the sunshine ☀️

Across the other side of Cambridge, Harriet was running her 100th parkrun! An amazing achievement, congratulations 🎉

Further afield, there was a bit of parkrun tourism with Caroline in St Albans, showcasing her 25 milestone t-shirt and Alexandra completing a rather extreme parkrun in Lithuania, complete with snow! Well done 🙌

Alongside our weekly community missions, GoodGymers in Cambridge have been out doing good across the city, helping the local community and pushing us closer to our January Challenge target!

Nick cleared litter from some of the worst hit areas. Not only did he clear it, he sorted the recyclables to ensure they were disposed of responsibly and reported fly-tipping to the council.

Michele did an extra leaflet drop for Cambridge City Foodbank covering another two streets on a daily walk.

Catherine took a plastic tub to a Greene King pub in support of Macmillan Cancer Support.

Great work team 🙌