On a very pleasant Monday evening, we arrived at Newcastle University Students' Union to be met by Natalia. She was there to help us write letters, cards and postcards to unwell children, a quite unusual task for GoodGym Newcastle.

We were joined for the first time by Yining, from Shanghai, by Juan, from Málaga and by Lide, from Northern Spain. Thank you very much for coming along!

Best wishes to Joanna after the loss of her cat and good luck to Scott for this week's house move.

We used lots of craft materials, cards, postcards and a wide array of pens and pencils to send some positive messages to children not in the best of health. We hope our cards and letters cheer them up!

Please join us next week at Stepney Bank Stables!

I've attended a number of these volunteer fairs on behalf of GoodGym but this one was the best yet. The engagement and sheer number of people that came to talk about GoodGym far exceeded any of the other ones. This was helped by being registered for the medical school's citizenship volunteering, which let to dozens of medical students coming to ask about GoodGym. If you are one of them, or any of the other students that heard about GoodGym today, please get registered and comment below!

I was so busy that I didn't have time to get someone to take a photograph of me stood at the table. Six and a half hours is a long GoodGym session, but the time seemed to fly by due to the many conversations I had!

The organisations were positioned in alphabetical order. My neighbours were The History Society and, the rather more surprising that they exist, Gilbert and Sullivan Society. They both bribed people to stop by offering sweets and chocolates. Maybe that is something for us to try next year as it seemed to work pretty well!

One GoodGym Newcastle Area Activator went along to Newcastle University Medical School's Creative Enquiry, where the students had displays documenting their volunteering and several service providers, charities and community groups had been invited along.

I spoke to as many students as possible, handed out some GoodGym flyers and made connections with a few charities and community groups seeking volunteers.

Thank you very much to Ella from Newcastle University Students' Union for welcoming us to our latest crafting session at the university tonight. The task was to make snuffle mats to be donated to dog charities.

It was a little out of the ordinary for most of us, but strangely satisfying. Many conversations were had during the session on subjects ranging from running, musical instruments and travelling to the Far East and much more besides.

A warm welcome to Lloyd, attending his first (hopefully of many) GoodGym Newcastle session after his recent move from Leeds.

It was a busy evening for GoodGym Newcastle at Newcastle University Students’ Union.

After running from Stepney Bank Stables and being quite relieved not to get wet, Jen met us outside and took us upstairs to get started. The group split into two, with some of us packing boxes for Stu Brew, which is Europe’s first student-run microbrewery based at Newcastle University. They are a sustainable microbrewery, managed by students through Newcastle University Students’ Union.

Lucy and Muhannad had got started with the crafting task straight away, the rest of us joining after the box packing. Jen patiently explained what we were supposed to be doing, with some of us being very much out of our comfort zones.

Everyone from GoodGym said they enjoyed the evening. I'm sure that the cakes, doughnuts and hot drinks helped, but it was a genuinely delightful evening. Thank you to everyone who came along tonight for an extended session, excellent commitment from everyone!

We were at Newcastle University Students Union for their volunteering week, unfortunately we didn't have any student volunteers but we still had a good time. We were helping with some admin tasks for North East Solidarity and Teaching (N.E.S.T) a student led project at Newcastle University Students Union, which the refugee and asylum-seeking community in the region through a variety of formats one of which is going into school and helping with English.

The weather outside was miserable and cold so it was nice to have an indoor task! I started off folding some leaflets, while Lucy stables out other leaflets and Scottgot stuck in with using the guillotine cutter to cut words which had been printed out to be used within schools. Once we had finished our tasks me and Lucy also joined in with cutting and putting the word cards in the laminator pouches which were then feed through the laminator.

While we worked we had some nice conversations about the difficulties of the English language, spelling, proof reading and how hard it is to remember the correct time to use affect or effect!