We started our Wednesday evening with our first group attempt at Beat the Street - it started out with military precision, but it all slowed down a bit whilst we tried to get the app to work. David definitely had the right idea with the card to tap instead, and Rich somehow ended up as IT support.

After our convoluted journey to fit in four Beat the Street boxes, we made it to the task and met our host and Sallyann who had been on her own Beat the Street journey en route to the task.

We were shown the white Community Wall to paint, and the blue paint to use. In less than 20 minutes, the wall was done! David, Erin, Jenny, Richard and Sallyann turned the wall blue in no time, whilst Andy and Jess (in her own painting shirt) reached the tough spots at the top.

With no washing up to be done, we had time for the second part of the task, which was edging another wall in blue. Rich and Angela set up and project managed, until Russell painted the wrong side of the tape, requiring a hasty wipe with a tea towel (which went better than we all expected). Richard and Leanne got to those hard to reach corners, getting this part of the task done in no time at all! Joe got some great action shots, showing the whole group hard at work and the wall in various stages of blue.

After showing how much we can do in a short space of time with a bit less chatting, we headed back for another round of Beat the Street, and then most of us got changed and went to enjoy our curry. I think we'll all be back to Balti King again with our 50% off vouchers!

See some of you on Sunday for the run!

Laurie

After being dazzled by Andy's festive t-shirt and Russell's festive Lidl hat, we did a squat-free warm up (especially for Martin) and made our way to Meadgate.

We found Fay and Sallyann waiting with the Grinch on the corner of Meadgate, and made a start on leafletting. Whilst leafletting, we found out that it was Russell's 50th good deed, and that he recently got engaged, so double congratulations to Russell, and a black tshirt will be in the post soon.

Everyone was so dazzled by the various Christmas lights on houses that we got separated into two groups for most of the run, only meeting back up at the end for our farewells! David's photo to the group unsurprisingly didn't help the other group to locate us.

Tonight was Martin's 25th good deed, and Jess's 8th, so we're hoping to see a couple more 50th's next year from at least these two new members!

Great effort everyone for our last good deed of 2023, with 8.5-ish km for the runners, and a huge amount of leaflets delivered for Farleigh, The Art Place, and the YMCA.

Thanks everyone for a great year, and we look forward to seeing you all in 2024. We've got the January challenge coming up, so please remember to make sure your Strava is linked to your GoodGym account.

See you all soon

Laurie

First of all thank you to Fay for the run pun :-))

5 of us managed to get out on a Wednesday evening to help post leaflet bundles around the mean streets of Chelmsford.

With Jess "running" late (get it) and Fay meeting us with the leaflets Joel, Andy and myself decided to keep warm while we waited and do some squats. We must have done at least 287,726 by the time Jess arrived ( I promise (( wink emoji)) ).

Then we set off into the night with head torches blazing the way until we arrived in the Westlands estate and met Fay with some excellently bundled leaflets ready for us to post.

And so we did, and actually managed to post all the bundles we had and even went to our extra individual leaflets until we arrived back where we started.

With a quick goodbye to Fay we set back off to warm up and get back to HQ ASAP.

Some of us will be partaking in a 12km run this weekend, wish us luck and then it will be out for our annual Xmas meal and to celebrate the year past ( there maybe some awards)

Next week we will be posting more leaflets in the Meadgate area

Thanks all for coming

Run Happy

Rich

We were pleased to meet up on a dry evening, to see Charlie and Iris for the second time in one week, and to see Doug for the first time in a while.

Charlie and Fay set off on their walk to our leafletting destination, so Joel led us on a slightly longer route with the aim of us all arriving at a similar time. We reconvened and also met Angela, and proceeded to do a much more rushed and inferior job of folding the leaflets than we've become accustomed to.

Thankfully we didn't lose Jess down one of the long dark driveways, we got an accidental selfie fromDavid, and we completed just over 7km by the time we got back from our deviated route.

Whilst run/walking and leafletting, we discussed our disappointing effort at the quiz on Sunday, Jenny's inadvertent following of her neighbour, GoodGym's new night awareness training for all men who attend GoodGym sessions, and our upcoming events, which you can find here.

The Christmas social venue will be Taste of Italy. The breakfast venue after our volunteering at parkrun on the 25th of November is still undecided, and we'll be going to Andy's old favourite Wetherspoons if we don't choose something else.

See you all soon,

Laurie

A month of tasks at Ideas Hub has absolutely flown by!

Great to see Roxy at her first GoodGym run following on from her first session at the pub quiz on Sunday! We jogged down to Ideas Hub (i stopped for a glass of wine on the way) and all got stuck in. Second coats on the stairs, fresh coats on the opposite wall, and checking we hadn't missed any spots.

The space looks totally transformed thanks to our hard work and Edith loved how quickly we can all get it done together! We've even been invited back for a photoshoot! Great work everyone. A mammoth task completed over a month. Now to work on the float!

We ran back as it rained and Andy compared me to Slyvester Stallone for my shredded physique and the fact neither of us have oscars. Great run leading by Laurie as always :)

Rich is leading the task next week so bring your fitness shoes!

Six of us met at the uni while the other four undertook a community mission!

We got to the uni and had a nice chat - shame not to see new sign up and a return from last week but we caught up on all the latest news: Richard doing his 100th parkrun and getting new trainers, Andy winning a bronze award at the Hospital Radio awards, and Joel had tried out the new brewhouse. So everyone had a big week.

We sped off to the Ideas Hub and chatted about how it was a bit warm out and shouldn't have worn so many layers....more on that later. We met the community mission goodgymers - great work team - and began moving chairs from downstairs to up and polystyrene around. Rich got his hands on his own piece of bronze hardwear, via a suggestive robot. Best wishes from everyone at GoodGym for your wedding tomorrow!

We then bashed through getting the stairway painted! Marie made excellent use of a tea towel, and I did my usual phenomenal job. We christened the area we have painted which will be used for photoshoots and we absolutely nailed it.

We went to return to the uni and the weather was....not ideal. We all bemoaned our lack of strong waterproofs and parted ways like drowned rats.

Next week Laurie has guaranteed better weather.

Don't forget this Sunday is the Ale House pub quiz - getting there from 6:30 with the quiz starting at 7:00.