The nights are really drawing in now, and feeling decidedly chilly too. Good thing that the task tonight was of the indoor variety then. As ever we set off from Glasshouse at 6.45pm prompt. Before running to the task we did some warm up exercises. We started with some barn door openers walking through the courtyard area, much to the delight of all the people sat drinking in the nearby bar. Just to draw even more attention (and warm up the arms) we did some windmill arms whilst skipping too. What a sight to behold! Not satisfied with this alone, we finished the warm up by doing some squat jumps out of the Glasshouse compound. Following the warm-up it wasn’t much of a run down to the charity shop. It took all of about 2 minutes. At the shop we had a good ol tidy up and left it looking looking sharp.

The run back was a simple and short affair, finishing, as ever, with stretches back at Glasshouse.

Tonight was a task of a different sort to usual. We were helping Small Peter with drafting work experience advertisements for business studies students. This involved a lot of creative thinking and gave the old brain muscles a good work out... It was nice to have something very different to do at the shop from the usual fare of sorting clothes and moving stuff.

Snakes and ad(min)ers

After spending an hour doing lots of admin based tasks to help out the staff of the charity shop we said our goodbyes and trotted off to stretch back at Glasshouse.

We were tonight visiting the HOPE charity shop and community hub. We were met by Peter, Pete and Tina. The first job on the cards was to relocate a load of unneeded furniture from the shop floor. It needed to be transported into the room above for storage out of the way. This would have been easier had the staircase not been removed!! In it's place there was now a ladder leading up through a small hatch, which led immediately onto to a steep boarded floor that you had to crawl up. As a team, the four of us somehow managed to manoeuvre up a bed, a dressing table, solid metal table supports (which I think were made from lead), display racks, boxes full of bits and a few chairs.

With the unwanted items removed from downstairs we could then get to some sorting. There are clusters of clothes crammed on the display rails. These often get knocked off, aren't in size order, aren't facing 'uniform' directions and the hangers are oft the wrong way around. All of these errors needed rectifying, and rectify we did! All the while there was banter flying all over the place with the two Peter's firing broadsides at each other which the rest of us were dodging by hiding behind the tonnes of secondhand clothes.

Our last task was rearranging some larger items so that wheelchairs could navigate the shop with impunity.

By the time we had finished all the work the shop was looking at least twice as good as it did when we first arrived.

Peter also informed us of some more volunteering opportunities coming up later in the year, so watch out for some new tasks being listed soon!

This evening we met three Peter's to help out in the Hope in Community charity shop. Tall Peter and Small Peter were tonight joined by Big Peter, making up a terrific trio of Peters. We had our own topnotch trio though, made up of Cracking Kirsty , Jolly James and Daring Daniel.

Our task for the night was to move goods from the lock-up premises, near the old BCDP location, down the road to the Hope in Community charity shop. We only had one set of keys for the storage location so there had to be someone minding the building at all times, and we rotated who held this role. There were lots of bags of donated clothes in bin bags to be ferried down, large boxes full of disposable cups and many, many boxes full of Old Spice shower gel!. Most of the clothes were in very thin and weak bin bags, which Kirsty found out first hand when crossing a road with some full bags; the bags split half-way across said road and the clothes within spilled out onto the asphalt below. Thankfully there were no cars coming and James was nearby carrying a box of cups, able to offer assistance. Some of the fallen clothes were placed on top of James' box and the rest were safely carried by clothes horse Kirsty! Meanwhile Daniel was busy lugging crates of shower gel down the hill, and James was transporting boxes of cups with bags of clothes hung beneath. It was hard to see where to walk whilst carrying a huge box of cups so it was best practice to walk with someone else, especially because their were scaffolding poles to navigate, a busy road to cross, and quite a few slightly tipsy Irish people in skirmishes around the pub we had to walk past, still on the go from St Patrick's day it seemed. Some of them even tried to force their way into the charity shop, hence the need to keep doors locked and a Peter inside. Undeterred however we carried on carrying, even running back up the hill after delivering goods down it, eager to save time and get some hill reps in too!

The Spice Routes were perilous, but we ran through ramshackle ramparts and past treacherous taverns safely with our trolleys of exotic Old Spice!

It was such a big job tonight that we stayed slightly later than usual (with everyone's agreement) and it was decided to forgo the exercise session that I had planned for afterwards as we were doing a lot already- the heavy lifting, trolley pulling, trolley pushing, trolley steering, bin bag dropping, car avoiding, bin bag carrying, crate filling, crate carrying, hill running and box unpacking being more than enough exertion for the night.

We had managed to get a whole side of the shop cleared and moved in the extended time that we had been there. I'm always amazed by how much GoodGym Barnsley can get done in a relatively short space of time! The 'after' photo doesn't quite show all we did, as we decided to shift the last few crates too; never leave a job half finished... apart from sometimes!

With the job well done, we said our goodbyes to the now two Peter's (we had mislaid one of them during the course of the evening) and headed back to Glasshouse for a debrief and a stretch off.

Great job GoodGymers and the three Peters!

Six South-Yorkshirian GoodGymmers ran gentley down the hill and across the roundabout to help H.O.P.E in the community with an almighty clean-up task.

It was such a lovely evening and most GGers came just in their red tshirts! It's been a while since we could do that! After a quick catch up about the long weekend, we trotted off outside to warm up ready for the run...!

We all did some exaggerated skipping across the plaza, warming up the hips nicely! It wasn't a long run tonight, virtually spitting distance from our meeting point, so we took a steady trot down the steps, across the many prongs of the round-i-bout and up to St George's church. As James had earlier pointed out, today was St George's day and we were heading to St George's church, what are the chances! To add a little excitement to our run, we did some 'Indian Running' - the group running steadily in a line and the back person running to the front in a continuous motion. We also added exaggerated skipping whilst crossing the roads on the green man. Sharon's excitement got the better of her, when she excitedly slammed her flailing arm/hand into the pedestrian crossing button as she skipped past! Hopefully won't bruise to much Sharon, fingers (except the bad one) crossed!

When we arrived, Peter was ready for us, having been at the church since midday, trying to sort everything out ready for us to help! Peter voluntarily runs the community group H.O.P.E in the community whilst also being a full time carer to his daughter. He works tirelessly to make group as accessible and welcoming to all in the community and puts lots of time and effort into the project around his busy day to day life. Peter needed our help to finish off a sorting and cleaning project we had started back in February half term see report here - this time helping to clean the soft play, aprons and foam mats!

We split into two groups, mat cleaners and soft play cleaners. As the mat cleaners kicked out the clean foam squares, I set about drying them in a huge house of cards formation - see pics for finished result! Rachael joined us this evening as thankfully no cat's needed an emergency x-ray this week, phew! It was a nice chilled task for everyone to start the week with, James claiming it was a real workout!

Once we'd finished we got a quick photo of us and the letters (see pics) and headed outside for a spot of yoga. Tonight I showed the group some yoga stretches that specifically help runners, these included:

• Downward Dog - great hamstring, calf and foot arch stretch
• Low Lunge - stretches hamstrings and strengthens glutes and quads
• Toes Pose - helps prevent plantar fasciitis by stretching the shins and arches of the feet
• Pigeon pose - releases tension and tightness in the hips
• Reclining spinal twist - relaxes the lower back and stretches the glutes

Here's a handy link to some of the exercises: https://www.runnersworld.co.za/training/8-yoga-poses-for-runners/

We finished with a gentle jog back and said our goodbyes! Thanks to everyone that came tonight!

Tonight was Clair's 10th good deed so let give her lots of cheers here!

Sign up here for next week's task at Lavender Court sheltered housing!

Six speedy runners from Barnsley and Sheffield ran the 2km across town to help the charity H.O.P.E in the community with the epic task of sorting a huge cupboard full of donated toys!

Tonight we were heading to St George's Church to help the charity H.O.P.E sort out their storage cupboard. The charity was established last September by a local guy called Peter, who wanted to provide a space for all members of the community to come together and learn. The charity is still in the early stages and have received most of the equipment they use through donations. They needed our help to sort out their huge storage cupboard and clean the childrens toys that are used at the free play-group.

We welcomed a newbie to Barnsley tonight, one of the Sheffield GG runnersSarahjoined us, let's give her a cheer!. After a relatively short run there on one of my many detours through town, we arrived and Peter and his helper showed us what there was to do and crikey there was a lot - which was good news for us as we love a challenge!

First things first, we set to work cleaning all the large toys that were a bit sticky and grubby. Using soapy water, anti-bac spray and cloths, we cleaned tractors, trains, see-saws, soft play, prams, trolleys, toolbenches and baby baths! Pretty much every type of toy you could think of! In total we cleaned 21 pieces of soft play and about 30 large toys!

Team work makes a dream work!

After cleaning all the large toys, we split off to sort out the large boxes of toys and crafty items, making a list of everything that was inside each one and checking for faulty/broken items. James assumed the chief elf position of toy tester and set to work testing all of the musical and mechanical toys, winding them up, pressing the buttons and making sure they sound worked on them all!

Crafty Clair set about sorting the boxes of arts & crafts materials, carefully sorting through the contents and recording what there was and figuring out what some of the more obscure looking items were! Luckily Jason was familiar with Play-Doh and could identify the use of little plastic sticks!

Sarah seemed to be throughly enjoying herself over the other side of the room, tasked with the job of sorting through the huge box of semi-clothed plastic dolls. With her quality control hat firmly on, she checked all limbs and faces were intact and safe for children to play with! Thankfully there was a huge box of dolls clothes for the naked dolls, which Sarah then carefully sorted through.

Jason focussed on the duplex toys, that were very grubby! After preparing a large tub of water for them, he left them to soak, noting they would probably need to stay in there for some time to get them clean!

Clothes-minded Sharon worked with me to sort out the huge box of kids fancy dress, writing down exactly what there was and throwing away anything that had seen better days! We had lots of fun figuring out what outfits there were an even trying a few on (see pics!).

After spending SO long toying with the idea of whether or not to stop the task and starting the fitness part of the evening, we toytally ran out of time! I had planned a lovely relaxing bit of yoga for runners, so to give the group a taster, we all assumed a downward dog, giving our hamstrings a nice stretch!

We said our goodbyes and headed back the quick way, finishing with 4 lovely flights of stairs to get the heartrate pumping to finish the night!

Another great session, see you all next week for our intergenerational activity evening at Lavender Court! Sign up here.