It was another rainy day in Reading, so thankfully our task was indoors! Three GoodGymers helped at Reading Repair Cafe; booking in clients, allocating repairs to the experts and learning along the way!

Zelie quickly became a pro at getting clients booked in and making sure they understood the repair cafe rules.

During the session, 18 items were brought in, including a couple of vacuums, a sewing machine from Reading's Library of Things, a bag for mending, a pan, a couple of broken toasters and kettles and a few tables too!

Sevan, joining us from GoodGym Ealing, even got stuck in with trying to install Linux on a laptop, however the laptop wasn't up to the job today.

While not everything could be fixed this afternoon, 59kg of waste was prevented and we saved the CO2 equivalent of growing 6 trees, for 10 years!

Four GoodGymers met, just as the rain started, to litter pick along Oxford Road. After running there earlier in the day, it was clear it could do with picking!

Jeni joined us for her first Monday task, and got stuck straight in! We wandered and collected all sorts of stuff; crisps packets, cans, chocolate bar wrappers, but we decided that the TV we found was just too big to bag!

Monday was 'world pizza day' - thankfully no pizza boxes were found, but it did give us dinner inspiration! With the rain feeling icy, and 6 bags of rubbish collected, we went back to our starting point, and off in search of a tasty supper!

We were back at South Reading Community Centre for some more painting in their quest to give the center a face lift! This week we were focusing on some of the rooms used by different groups off the corridor we'd painted a little while ago.

After moving furniture, armed with polyfiller, masking tape, sanding blocks and sugar soap, we got stuck in with prepping all the rooms to get them ready to paint. Julie joined for her first task, and although she'd never decorated before, we had a polyfilling pro on the team!

Working around the first room with our rollers and brushes, we managed to get it looking much nicer, then we decided to divide and conquer on two rooms at once! Chris, Shirley and Julie got stuck in on the big room, while Jenni helped Harry from the facilities team with the small room. However, with a group due to use the big room later that afternoon, the race was on to get as much done as possible, so with a dash to the finish line, we got as much done as we could, with some edging and one wall still left to do...

... but we'll be back again to finish off the last bits and get to the other rooms soon!

We had four GoodGymers volunteering at Prospect Parkrun. Although the course was muddy in places, the skies stayed blue and spirits high. We were spread across the route marshalling, supporting the finish line, and helping with the clear-up once the last runner had crossed the line. It was great to see so many people out enjoying the run despite the muddy conditions, including one goodgymer Meg who managed the double duty of running and volunteering. Another solid team effort and thanks to Prospect Parkrun for having us.

On another parkrun tour I single-handedly sorted finish tokens from nearly 500 runners at Maidenhead parkrun. The Braywick Park course was slightly challenging, being fairly narrow in places and quite busy but the scenery was attractive. I did not do my best time as public transport made me later than planned which was a bit disorientating.

We were back at South Reading community Centre on Saturday, continuing to get some of the building painted and looking lovely and welcoming. We were able to admire the upgrade made to our white painting of the corridor last time, with the cartoons now covering the walls and bringing some more colour to the space!

Our task for this weekend was to give to entrance area a lick of paint, and it definitely needed it! With grubby walls, scrapes and some cobwebs, we had plenty to get stuck in with! Shirley got stuck in with some pro-polyfilling, Jeni (for her first GoodGym task!), Chris and Jenni got to work with masking taping around all the doors, windows and the posterboards on the walls, and Emily got to work with the magic sponge trying to get off the worst of the marks.

With all the preparation done, we were ready to get stuck in with painting! We worked from one side of the space to the other, taking it in turns with rollers and brushes, and making sure the high bits were done in between, to get everything looking much brighter, cleaner and welcoming.

As we were finishing up, the owner of the community cafe next door popped in to check our handy work... and a request for us to paint some walls for them in future, so we'll be back again at the community centre soon!