For some of us, the day started with an early morning train journey, short cycle and traditional breakfast, to set us up for the task ahead.

By 9:30, three GoodGymers had made their way to the Waterloo Community Centre, ready to tackle the huge painting job that awaited.

Matthew had arrived at 9am and we spent the morning scraping, rolling and brushing up. The walls were high, so Mat's height was definitely an advantage. Sally had also joined us and together we made short work of one end of the main hall.

Members of the Waterloo cycle group, Tour de Friends, volunteers from the centre's warm hub, and a group from Santander Bank completed the team.

It was a long day, broken by regular cups of tea, coffee, juice and biscuits, to keep us going. For lunch, an array of delicious sandwiches, crisps, fruit, biscuits and other fare was provided, to keep the troops fortified.

By the end of the day, we had managed to cover the two halls, toilet areas and entrances.

The centre team were amazed by how much had been achieved.

Another fantastic effort by a band of enthusiastic volunteers.

Well done all!

Liverpool Street Scene Services and Liverpool City Council met us this week to provide 20 kits containing set of gloves, plastic bags, bag hoops and also the creme de la creme of litter pickers which has gel padded handles! Lorna and Laura of Liverpool Street Scene Services and Liverpool City Council took some photographs of us all together with our new equipment and we bid them farewell before doing a quick warm up. With a spring in our step, feeling very prepared, we made our way to the Princes Park of Princes Boulevard. Working our way towards town, Sallyann roamed to the side streets in search of extra litter and came back with crates and blinds. Leaving the central cycling and running areas immaculate as they went Ema, Romano and Beckah worked meticulously. John strayed to the far path to get the pavement litter too. The bags got fuller the closer we got to got to town but with hoops to grip them we didn’t mind. In total we filled 5 bags and left them for council collection alongside the blind and crate. It was a good improvement that animals and people alike will reap the benefits of. Well done all for your efforts tonight, you played a blinder!

Earlier this year, a group of Bootle residents transformed the alley between their terraces from a forlorn dumping ground to an alley garden, with a little help from Sefton Council to clear away dumped rubbish and support from the Taking Root network. Now they are up for the 'Bootle in Bloom' award and, with a couple of the original 'Fab Four' gardeners being out of action (one with a broken leg!), called on GoodGym to lend a hand. So a warm Monday evening found a different Fab Four - Pauline, Jo, Steph and Roz - donning the gardening gloves and sweeping, weeding and generally tidying to get the space ready for inspection later this week. Liz, the ringleader of the project, her husband, and others welcomed us and were justifiably proud to show us round. The garden has a Beatles theme and the group have imaginatively repurposed and upcycled all sorts of materials to create it - it was a lovely space to spend time in and to contribute to. A special welcome to Steph on attending your first GoodGym task - it was great to meet you and hope to see you again soon. After about 90 minutes of work to give a final tidy to this Long and (not) Winding Road, we had a very welcome snack and cold drink and went on our way, with fingers crossed for the competition. So much hard work and creativity has gone into this space and we wish them all the best.

On a lovely warm evening Helena and Matthew from GoodGym joined three others, Chantelle from a local charity and the ever amazing James and Jimmy from Alley Angels, in order to pick in an area of Anfield, nicknamed "The Square" by James because of the amount of litter that is dumped here.

Massive shout out to Helena for coming along, and for running to and from the pick as it is quite a distance from where she lives.

With 5 enthusiastic pickers we managed to clear something like 8 bags in just under an hour and a half and spoke with lots of locals about what we are trying to do. It was great to meet old friends and new ones and to know we are making a small but visible difference in the battle against this horrible blight.

If anyone has a place in Liverpool they would like to have picked and they are reading this, or indeed anywhere that GoodGym has a group, then please contact us and we will surely be able to come and help out at some point.

On a sunny a day, which warmed up nicely 5 intrepid Goodgymers went litter picking in Anfield. We were doing it in conjunction with James Coates from Alley Angels who kindly provided the rubbish bags. I’m not sure the pictures really convey how bad the areas were but you see from the litter picture just how much rubbish there was. Multiply this by every area in the UK and you’ll see how bad this litter problem really is.

Two spots were tackled and 10 bags of litter collected. Both sights are blighted and so for us to be able to clear them in an hour and a half was amazing. But that’s the power of what Good Gym does. It was a mixture of experience and nee members. A huge thanks to Jess, Daniel and Sallyann who are all starting to rack up their Good Gym tasks and it was lovely to see you and chat as well as seeing Pauline, who makes the trip over from south of the river every time to do tasks in Liverpool.

We have to break this cycle of people dropping litter but at least for a day two areas of Anfield are going to be litter free.

On Christmas Eve Eve, 5 Golden GoodGymers braved a soggy evening to bring spread some festive cheer in Liverpool.

Only the bravest and most Christmassy-minded turned up for one of our final Community Missions of the year. Following an afternoon of rain, an evening of drizzy accompanied our run. But we were warmed by Christmas spirit and splish splashed our way through the city.

We started the night with an annual GG Lpool tradition; the 12 Days of Christmas warm-up. This involves performing a different move to each line of the song and singing loudly, as bemused onlookers walked by on Hope Street. Not only is it a lot of fun, it really does get you warm and a little out of breath!

I'd asked for nominations of places we could go Carolling within 1.5km of Hope Street. With none forthcoming, we started the run with a bit of vocal practice, signing to the few souls on the wet streets. Our tunes included Rudolf The Red Nose Reindeer, We Wish You A Merry Christmas and Jingle Bells.

Our first stop was a city centre apartment block, where my friend Mel - and her upstairs neighbour! - stood on their balconies while we seranaded them! There was a long run to our next stop in Toxteth, wishing Merry Chirstmas to neighbours from my estate in three different households. Everyone really enjoyed the surprise.

A massive thank you for joining me and well done to Ben the elf, sparkly Jo, jazzy Ruth and Father Christmas Emma. Sorry for the delay in getting this run report written :(

Happy Holidays one and all!

Make sure you're well rested because you know what comes next.... the January Challenge!!!