7 GoodGymers joined the small army of volunteers for Day 2 of the Christmas tree collection to help raise money for Myton Hospice and Pass the smile for Ben. What a morning to be out, the weather was beautiful!

Jackie, Vickie and Laura arrived at 9 ready for a briefing and to be directed to our station where our role was to unload the vans. Graeme, James, Katherine and Nigel were out in the vans collecting the discarded Christmas trees covering Leamington, Rugby, long Lawton and Binley Woods.

The vans arrived steadily where they were emptied by the main organiser's of the event. Jackie, Vickie and Laura then dragged the Christmas trees to the pile, ready for their impending doom. There were lots of trips backwards and forwards and some of those trees were heavy so a real all over body work out.

Jackie and Laura left at lunch time so we didn't manage to catch Katherine and Nigel, their van was so big to fill they didn't manage to get back to base until after lunchtime. They did amazing and managed to collect 51 trees in total!

James and Greame managed a fairly incident free trip apart from the van door jamming and they couldnt open it! Graeme sorted it - phew - and the van had to be repacked, strapping the trees to the roof in the dark.

After completing a wholes days shift, Vickie managed to rack up just over 7.5 miles - wowzers!

Give yourselves a pat on the back, you all did amazing! It was a great day, we had a laugh and met some lovely people and in total the team collected a whopping 1250 trees - woo hoo!

Good luck tomorrow Vickie and Graeme on round 2! They have also sent the sign up form for next year already, who is in?!

Thanks to everyone that made it to the last session of 2023 for our final leafleting drop!

As it was a little to far for a run from town, we met at the task this eve and took a casual stroll around a new(ish) estate in Westwood Heath. It was great to have Vic and Deb join us and to see Lil on the mend.

We split into 2 teams again to try and cover more ground and seemed to get around the area super quick. It was nice to check out people's Christmas lights and posh abodes! Taking it a bit slower meant we got to have a nice chat too, all in all a lovely evening.

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas, enjoy the break and get ready for some more GoodGym action in 2024!

p.s. Graeme hope you feel better soon!

9 Goodgymers out spreading the word about the Christmas Tree collection covering approximately 4 miles.

7 of us ran from town to Cheylesmore to meet Graeme and Maddie who were meeting us on route. We split into 2 teams to try and cover more ground and get to the streets we missed on the last leaflet drop. Another 500 leaflets delivered - high fives all round!

Thanks to Laura for leading during the task to accommodate walkers and runners and cheers for the pun Maddie! Graeme has also taken the taken the left over leaflets to deliver, as his street happens to be a road we didn't get round to, so thanks in advance Graeme!

Whoops! I didn't get a group shot so apologies for that folks, will do better next time!

Last group run of the year next Tuesday so get your running shoes on for our last sesh! Join us for another leaflet delivery to help Pass the Smile and Myton raise as much money as possible - who is in?! https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/leaflet-delivering-for-myton-and-pass-the-smile-5932433f-436a-45fa-8afb-f28bceb05670

Laura x

The weather was not exactly festive this evening, as 3 GoodGymers met up with representatives from The Round Table and Pass The Smile to accompany Santa on his rounds around Kenilworth to collect money for the Pass The Smile charity and help the local children to meet Santa.

Following a quick safety brief and the distribution of hi-viz and collecting buckets, Santa pulled up in his sleigh along with... another Santa! Typical! You wait all year for Christmas, then 2 Santas turn up at once! Having established that our second Santa was one of Santa's representatives (who was covering another engagement) we accompanied the real Santa and began knocking on doors.

Having walked roughly 4.5 miles and filled our collecting buckets it was time for Santa to depart for his next engagement. He's got a fair bit to do over the next few days...

With Santa whizzing back to the North Pole, we turned our attention to drying out, warming up and replacing lost fluids in one of Kenilworth's many hostelries. Merry Christmas!

A squad of 9 enthusiastic GoodGymers ventured out tonight distributing leaflets for the christmas tree-cycling collection service. We welcomed back Rob - great to see you and catch up :)

We made our way over to the Cheylesmore area, meeting up with Chris and Claire along the way, navigating the streets using google maps and Dale - thank you! Together, in 50 minutes we covered 10 roads, delivering 504 leaflets with a distance of around 3 miles.

Well done everyone and great team effort from taskforce with leading a second team and guiding.

Shout out to Graeme who intended to come tonight but couldn't make it but is gonna deliver some leaflets tomorrow - nice one Graeme!

4 Coventry GoodGymers and 2 Goodgymers from W&L joined a group of other volunteers to help Myton Hospices and Pass the Smile for Ben with collecting real Christmas trees.

Laura made her way over to Russells Garden centre ready for the morning shift. She was greeted by one of the task owners and the volunteers on the refreshment station. PPE was issued and she joined a group of other volunteers to make up the morning unloading team. They were lead to the drop off station where the vans were to be unloaded and the trees to be put through the very noisy chipper. Everyone was in good spirits, laughing and joking and waving to the vans as they approached the drop of station. With each van, a human chain was formed passing the trees from the back of the van to the guys operating the chipper. After a few vans the team soon found a good rhythm and it all went seamlessly. The time flew and before Laura knew it Lil, Laura and Vickie had arrived for the afternoon session. All the people involved worked so hard, it really was an upper body workout!

Such good fun, looking forward to helping out after Christmas 2023 already. Well done for all your efforts everyone, and great to see you Vickie