Another enjoyable lunchtime at the Elizabeth House Food Hub, helping customers select food, and clearing up afterwards. There is always a friendly buzz about the place.

By the time the session ends, some of the fruit and vegetables is looking a little past its prime. So it is sent off to be composted by and for local growers - and the food cycle starts again.

Whilst last week, the Food Hub team was already clearing up when I arrived, this week the hall was still busy with customers. So that gave me the chance to walk round with a lovely lady, collecting all the food items she wanted, before packing them carefully in her trolley. Then table wiping and floor sweeping, to help leave the hall tidy for the next users.

With increasing numbers of people needing to use the food hub, there is always plenty of clear-up work afterwards to leave the hall ready for the day’s next activity. Putting crates back in the store; cleaning tables; stacking chairs; sweeping the floor (my recommendation – find the wide broom!). The friendly team and leadership make this task a pleasure. The only challenge is timing – as the team never knows when the final client will come through the door. So I usually turn up a little early – sometimes I need to wait; sometimes I’m right into the action!

A light and easy, feel-good lunch time task, helping to clean up after the weekly foodbank collection session - stacking shelves, sweeping floors, and folding tables. There were lots of volunteers on hand, including three from GoodGym - many hands made lite work. And we all got to go home with some surplus mangos and fresh bread - bonus! (the photo is from a previous session, I failed to get any pics!)

Last night's session saw 9 GoodGymers roll up at Elizabeth House Community Centre, helping to stack chairs, clean tables, and sweep the floor after their foodbank in record time. Although I'm not sure we managed to rid the floor of every sparkle of glitter!

As is often the case with this task - we were rewarded with surplus bread and veg to take home (has anyone tasted those mustard seeds?! They're fiery!!)

5 GoodGymers took a gentle 2.5 km run to get there too - although we all bailed out of the run back, opting instead to head directly home to cook up our leeks and munch on our bread, much to the disappointment of Luke who really wanted to witness me running laps of the stadium with 2 leeks and a baguette in tow... next time!

For one last time as a Goodgym Area Activator, Simon met at the Arsenal Community Hub on Benwell Road to meet a huge group of keen runners, ready to help at Caledonian Park this evening. It was truly a joy to see familiar faces from years gone by (including awesome folks who attended Simon's first session 6.5 years ago at Mildmay Community Centre - I'll find the link!). Also thank you to Astra for attending your first Goodgym session- I heartly recommend attending more sessions soon- we have wonderful people in this community!

After a short (but necessary) warm up, we ran together up McKenzie Road and the Market Road slopes to the wonderful Caledonian Park Clocktower, to meet up with Miriam and Gail, our local task coordinators.

Our objective for the night (with our 26 volunteers on hand!!!), was to shovel piles of crushed rock fines into wheelbarrows, and then transport the loads over to the forest pathways on the West side of the park. This is a lovely wooded walk, that is often frequented by children, families and wheelchair users, and we want to keep this area as accessible as possible during the Springtime months.

We separated into multiple groups to cover the whole area. Team 1 shoveled the ground fines, Team 2 pushed the barrows across the park and Team 3 raked and flattened the ground around the amphitheatre (carefully avoiding the grassed surfaces and paved sections). We also had a 4th team on hand to transfer soil from builder's merchant bags, ready for Spring planting later this month.

This is a massive task, and our crew did an smashing job over the 45 minutes we had available. 26 hands, all working in tandem, really makes a huge difference. Well done!

As we closed up our evening, Area Activator Simon lead a running group back to the Emirates Stadium, while Emily and Louise lead a walking group to The Tollington Arms on Sobell Road- a great local pub that serves incredible Thai food. Together, we celebrated Area Activator Simon's final fixture as a leader, but not his final Goodgym adventure for sure!