On Sunday, four GoodGymers made their way to the newly reopened Surplus To Purpose warehouse. A combination of viral social media posts highlighting what the business/charity does as well as a buy one get one free offer resulted in huge queues of customers entering the warehouse. Sadly the warehouse was closed on Saturday due a security issue so Sunday was the first day people could attend that weekend.

The GoodGymers responsibility that day was quality controlling thousands pieces of fruit and veg and keeping the shop floor well stocked. It was hard work getting around but the gang was on it. Alice and Christian returned for their second visit whilst this was Alina's first visit. Alina focused most of her time on QC-ing fruit and veg, Christian did cardboard baling, frozen food stocking, Alice mainly spent her time admiring the stacks of mushrooms - didn't really do much else (she did push the cardboard baling button, stock the drinks fridge as well as all the above). I spent my time doing some cardboard baling, QC-ing, manning the new till, and keeping the shop floor looking tidy.

The gang all had full baskets paid for by using their volunteering credits - big shout to Christian who cycled home with a 6KG box of washing powder.

On Sunday, three GoodGymers made their way down to Surplus2Purpose. A very productive session for everyone with Christian putting many kilos of sugar and beans into small pots for customers. Alice seemed to run the show for us being Adam's trusted volunteer of the day, helping to arrange the shop floor, stocking and tidying the drinks fridge, as well as quality controlling hundreds of fruit and vegetables. As a now regular volunteer, I helped Adam by manning the till and helping out customers.

The GoodGymers today were the sole volunteers in the afternoon so the help was very much a help as the organisation had a record Sunday, probably spurred by the 5KG of bacon for £4.50!

We ended our day by trading in our volunteer credits for some already highly discounted goodies. On the way out, Alice spotted some Blueberry Bagels, that are part of the community bakery section which is completely free, that she managed to take home as a little treat - is it a stretch to name this report after that? Probably

Four GoodGymers headed down to Surplus2Purpose on a lovely warm Saturday morning to help combat waste and make the world a better place by preventing fermentation in the freezer and enabling acess to some lovely fermentated kombucha in the warehouse. It was a very quite weekend at the usual very busy organisation but I think Adam's request for the public to come help and clear THREE PALLETS of frozen goods on Thursday led to the public sating their appetite for the week.

We first started by quality assuring the baked goods section, which is completely FREE to the public, which included a variety of breads; white, brown, tiger, seeded and so on (i am not on expert on bread).

Helen and I tackled the defrosted bits left at the bottom of the freezers which were emptied on Thursday, cleaning the freezer and then a physical lowering of our bodies in to get little defrosted bits left such as small peas.

We were later joined by Leah and Christian who took the time to reorganise the produce on display, making them look neater and therefore more palatable to the public! The last bit of order to the day was restocking and correctly bunching the kombucha together in their respective brands and flavours.

Wednesday's Summer Social, if I don't eat them by then, you may be witness to some of the goodies nabbed from the warehouse.

One Goodgym-er headed down to Surplus To Purpose to help restructure the warehouse in anticipation of their reopening on the 1st July.

The first port of call was unloading a pallet of probably around a thousand cups and lids out of a pallet that was left outside a little too long and got a bit wet. The pallet was looking a bit soggy and sorry but fortunately the cups inside were perfectly fine as they were wrapped in plastic sheeting. These cups will later on be used to package up dried beans and be put on the shelf for the general public.

The next thing to do was to organise the new drinks fridge which was primarily loaded with similar types of drinks but some sections had different types of flavours and brands so it was important to fix this so customers didn't have to rummage around the fridge trying to find. This was probably the most satisfactory thing I had done for some time 10/10 therapeutic, would do again.

Last time I came down, I was only able to clean half the community fridge that had been donated, I was determined to also clean the freezer this time too before I had to leave and I just finished cleaning off the bottom tray when it was time to get some goodies before I left for the day.

Four hours of volunteering (it's entirely up to the volunteers how long they want to stay - as little as an hour is fine!) for some wings, potatoes and a cake. I also found out that Surplus to Purpose only has two permanent workers, meaning everyone I've met their other than Adam (the founder) is a volunteer - just shows how lovely and important this place is.