On a dark, damp night it was good to be inside the Sherwood Community Centre.

Laid out before us were a plethora of brushes, rollers, trays and paint and we rolled up our sleeves in true GoodGym fashion.

We split in to two teams with Matt, Charlie, Dayna and Peter on one side and Walter, Khiltee, Florence and first timer Martin on the other.

We were so efficient that there was even time for Charlie and Matt to vacuum, sweep and mop some floors and for Peter to make a start on cleaning the brushes, trays and rollers.

Welcome aboard Martin, we hope you enjoyed your first task with and hopefully see you again soon.

Last night, GoodGym Nottingham headed to Sherwood Community Centre for one of our first properly dark tasks of the year.

Our mission was to clear a seriously overgrown patch of ground so a skip can be brought in, while also cutting back enough brambles to expose a gate which was totally unusable.

Meanwhile, Nigel took on a spot of mowing on the lawn next to the car park. However, this was abruptly curtailed when a yoga class began inside the community centre and it was decided that Nigel’s mower may disrupt the peace in the yoga room.

About 15-minutes into the task, the daylight started disappearing, so out came the head torches and a few portable spotlights and on we went.

As the brambles were gradually defeated, we made an important archaeological discovery – several large stone 'megaliths'. In true GoodGym fashion, we immediately began speculating whether we had stumbled across some kind of ancient Roman settlement or one of Nottingham’s greatest undiscovered historical sites.

By the end of the evening, we had cleared a substantial area, freed the pedestrian gate from its brambly captivity and made good progress towards getting the space ready for the skip, and, quite possibly, uncovered a piece of Nottingham’s Roman past.

Well done to Walter, Giovanna, Matt, Nigel, Leah, Peter and Rachel.

Sherwood Community Centre invited us back for another evening of fun and varied tasks.

First up was some sweeping and leaf gathering. The Centre's café can't have dogs inside, but being on a popular dog-walking route, this is losing possible customers. However, there's a bit of space between the building and the car park that could be kitted out with some patio furniture for those who need or prefer to sit outside. We cleared a load of weeds that were growing through the gravel and swept up as many of the leaves as we could to make the space more welcoming.

Next, it was all hands on deck for the ol' lift and shift. There was a bike rack/planter out the front of the building that Louise wanted to use to create a barrier between the car park and the patio area. It took all of us and a moving dolly, but we managed it. Then realised we'd landed it backwards and had to turn it around.

Moving into the café, we switched some of the book storage around to make better use of the space.

Finally, we wheeled a massive planter in from the garden to the dance studio to protect it over the Bank Holiday weekend.

Ever had one of those tasks? It was a return to the Sherwood Community Centre for five Nottingham Goodgymers. Louise from the centre showed us to a different part of the site and, wow, definitely overgrown! Apparently, there used to be a path leading to a gate. The big question was, where was the gate! A lady called Carol waved a broom in the air to give us clue and so, armed with loppers, cutters and skip bags Chris (attending his first task - welcome aboard!), Peter, Nigel and Natalie set to work whilst Matt went round to the gate to set to from there. Eventually in Channel Tunnel style we met in the middle and there is now a path! Plenty more still to do to clear what is potentially a fantastic community space but if anyone can......

GoodGym Nottingham returned to the Sherwood Community Centre this week to assist with various tasks. We LOVE coming to this place for our sessions as our host, Louise, always has some interesting and varied jobs for us (as well as our on-going painting project in the basement which we’ve been enjoying over the past few months).

On this occasion, Dayna, Hollie and Paulina took on the painting, continuing to paint over the old yellow colour in the toilet and corridor downstairs.

Khiltee, Leah and Rachel washed down the walls in the main hall with sugar water to prepare them to be repainted. The room is used for various activities including a children’s playgroup, and the walls have seen many-a sticky finger, painty brush and rogue felt tip pen over the years!

Meanwhile, Nigel and Will had the fun job of remounting some of the borders around the display boards in the hall. The existing paper borders had become too tempting for little fingers to pull off and so were looking a bit worse for wear. After measuring up and trimming bits of hessian, Nigel and Will enjoyed using the staple gun to secure this on the boards and make them look neat and tidy once again.

Before tidying up and taking a few groups photos, Khiltee and Will also helped Louise reattach the welcome sign in the foyer of the centre which had fallen down. The team also hung up a few lines of bunting in preparation for Sherwood Art Week (there will be more bunting-hanging at our next task on Friday 5 June – see details and sign up here).

Another great evening’s work in the bag, and a big welcome to first-timers Hollie, Paulina and Will. We hope to see you again soon!

For this week’s task we returned to the Sherwood Community Centre where our host, Louise, always has a range of fun jobs for us. However, before we started work, we had another important job to do…have a photoshoot!

We were joined by two photography students, Damon and Deanna, from Nottingham College who are working on a project about sustainability. They wanted to take a few snaps of us before the task, so the Nottingham Taskforce - Leah, Peter and Rachel - pulled out their best litter picking poses in the woods to get the shots that were needed.

Once everyone else arrived, we set to work in and around the centre. Peter, Shauna, Annie and Jo were out in the grounds weeding some of the beds and clearing leaves. Jo was joining us from Exeter where she is a GoodGym regular, so it was lovely to have a tourist in our midst.

Inside, Charlie, Matt and Nat did a bit of moving and shifting, and also built a shelf/trolley contraption for extra storage in one of the cupboards. After this, Matt had the important job of mopping all the signs in and around the carpark to remove all the dirt, bird mess and general muck that was covering them.

Finally, Khiltee, Leah and Rachel returned to the basement to carry on with some of the painting that we had been working on over recent weeks and months.

After an hour, we had a photo with one of Matt’s freshly mopped signs and went on our way.

Damon and Deanna's photography project will be on show at the Surface Gallery in Nottingham very soon, and we hope to go along to check out our photos and learn more about sustainability projects in the city.