Last night we channelled our original GoodGym roots by combining a group run and a good deed – something that we don’t always get to do in Nottingham.

Bozena, Peter, Rosemarie and Rachel met at the Bridgeway Hall Methodist Centre to head out on a jog around the local area. It was one of those evenings when half of us were running late due to traffic and general life/work chaos, so we set off a little later than planned, but we still managed a gentle 1.15 miler led by Peter.

On return to the Bridgeway Hall, we met with Leah and first time GoodGymer Faizah and the six of us enjoyed a few stretches while we waited to start the task. At 7pm we were joined by Tom and we all headed in to meet Mark from the Meadows Foodbank who, as always, greeted us with open arms and a list of tasks that he had lined up for us.

We spent the next hour hard at work around the foodbank. Peter and Tom took on the task of sweeping and mopping all the floors in the main store area and kitchen. Rosemarie and Faizah tackled a huge pile of carrier bags, dividing them into piles based on their durability (‘bag for life’, ‘bag for a few years but not life’ (?), ‘slightly less sturdy bag’, ‘paper bag’ etc etc…).

Aided by Mark’s son, Leah squashed down a pile of cardboard to leave outside for recycling. They then moved onto packing six 2-person boxes and two children’s boxes with food and supplies. Rachel cleaned the fridges and freezers and gave the pantry area a sweep and mop.

Meanwhile, Bozena had the unique task of sorting through a pile of donated books to see which were to go on the shelf in the foodbank and which would be better donated to charity. She had a great time checking out a range of ‘classics’, including a magic book where the contents disappeared and reappeared again before our eyes!

Of course we had a group photo before we left and it was great to see so many GoodGym t-shirts on show (not always possible at this time of year when we’re all covered up). Don’t we look lovely!

Well done to Faizah for completing her first GoodGym task. It was lovely to meet you!

Thanks to Mark for hosting us once again at the Meadows Foodbank. We will make a date to come back very soon.

What a successful evening for our very first Starter Session! We're setting up a few of these at some of the places we've visited most over our first year, and they're designed to be extra specially friendly for people who've never come to a session before.

The weather didn't seem to know if it was coming or going, which made our run (led by Peter) particularly fun. He'd prepared lots of funky drills to get us warmed up (and garner a few odd looks from passers-by) before we split into runners and run/walkers so that everyone had a pace to suit them. Only the walkers stopped for a pic with the massive rainbow though!

After we reconvened, slightly soggy, slightly sweaty, we met up with some more GoodGymers and headed inside to find out what Mark had in store for us.

As usual, he was super- organised and had plenty of jobs to keep us busy. Peter started out breaking down cardboard, then joined Bozena and Leah sorting out donations of sheets and bedding to make them more easily identifiable and accessible on the shelves. Bozena and Leah also helped bag up the Winter Kits of socks, gloves, hats, blankets and Cup-A-Soups for the Food Bank to give out later in the year.

Meanwhile, Hannah and Jules were tasked with bagging up food parcels ready for the service users to take home – a bit like Supermarket Sweep but for a much better cause – and Rachel, Tom, Rosemarie and Vytautas were on dating donations and getting them onto the right shelves.

We had to cut off a little early as Mark needed to lock up, but we still got a huge amount done – many hands make light work, after all!

9 GoodGymers headed back to the Meadows Foodbank in Nottingham last night to help with a variety of tasks. It’s always a pleasure to visit this project and, as usual, we were warmly welcomed by Mark who set us to work with a shopping list of food to bring down from the upstairs storeroom to the shelves downstairs.

Meanwhile, some of us swept and mopped the floors and helped crush some cardboard for recycling.

After an hour’s work we stopped to enjoy a little cake courtesy of Leah whose birthday it was – what better way to celebrate that with a GoodGym community mission (and sorry we forgot to sing Happy Birthday at the end!!).

We were joined by Harriet, Alex and Juan on their first GoodGym session – we hope you enjoyed it and we will see you again soon!

GoodGym Nottingham pooled its resources and turned up on cue to deal with an issue that had The Meadows Food Bank snookered (shoutout to Peter and Nigel for those epic puns).

Mark at the Food Bank had more heavy lifting for us to do, this time a giant, solid slate pool table that needed to be moved outside. It was no mean feat, but with Rachel's expertise from the theatre, we managed to get it from the main café out to the car park without so much as a scratch.

Next up was moving some pallets from one side of the car park to the other and getting them piled up neatly, and bringing a fridge out that had been taking up precious storage space.

Finally, it was time to restock the warehouse area. The Food Bank had recently been given a large grant it has used to buy a lot of food in bulk, so we followed Mark's list to bring the items most needed down from upstairs.

While all this was going on, we also had Amelia from NottsTV following us with a camera and interviewing us about GoodGym and the January Challenge (Nottingham hit its targets, amazing work!). Her piece should be on some time between 5:30 and 7:30 tomorrow, I'll post a link in the Facebook group and WhatsApp once it's up!

Thank you so much to everyone who showed up, looking forward to seeing you again soon!

Last night we returned to The Meadows Foodbank where we had visited previously as one of GoodGym Nottingham’s very first sessions. We met Mark on arrival who talked us through some recent developments at the foodbank, including the introduction of a pantry where members can purchase a weekly food shop including fresh fruit and vegetables and family favourites all for £5.

Our task was to give the foodbank a good old spring (winter) clean to bring a bit of GoodGym sparkle back into the place (using some of the best smelling cleaning products we had ever encountered!). Ellie, Fina and Nigel took on the floors, sweeping under all the shelves which had not been done for a while and finishing with an all-over mop.

Rachel cleaned all the large fridges at the back of the warehouse, while Leah and Rachel cleaned the fridge and floor in the pantry area.

With a bit of time left at the end, we also we managed to crush and remove some cardboard boxes and start sorting through some clothing donations before it was time to head home.

We welcomed Ellie, Serafina and Nigel to their first GoodGym session and we hope to see you all again at some of our future tasks.

Don’t forget we have our Christmas social next Wednesday 20th December to celebrate the end of what had been a fab first six months for GoodGym Nottingham – all welcome!!

Nottingham's third session saw a fab 14 of us head to The Meadows Foodbank based at Bridgeway Hall Methodist Centre.

Abigail lead a jog around the area for some of the group who arrived early, supported by Peter, while the rest of us ran, cycled and walked there independently.

On arrival, we were greeted by Mark from the foodbank who gave us an insight into how it operates and the important role it plays in the local community. We then divided up into smaller teams to tackle various tasks that needed doing - scrubbing some metal shelves, moving crates of food from upstairs to the main store downstairs, packing bags of food and moving some freezers and other furniture around the building.

It felt like we managed to get a lot done in an hour and we all felt like we’d had a good workout! We hope to revisit The Meadows Foodbank again in future when they need our help again.

We welcomed several first timers to this session and we look forward to seeing everyone again as GoodGym Nottingham continues to grow.