I signed up as a volunteer for Age UK in Durham and only a couple of hours after the DBS went though, I had a mission! Age UK got in touch saying there was someone in my area needing their prescription picked up. So I donned my trainers and GoodGym T-shirt...it was so nice to have a little chat with the client, even from 2 metres away! She couldn't stop saying thank you!

Requested by the Durham Covid-19 mutual aid group, we went to go and pick up a foodbank parcel from Durham central foodbank and delivered it to someone local. Lovely sunny walk into Durham and along the river, and she was so grateful! Carrying the bags was good weight training too...

Alas the weather continued its trend of being a bit difficult and persistent gale force winds means West Bank Park cleanup will have to wait another day.

Luckily at short notice Park Grove Academy were able to magic lots more paintbrushes and pain into existence to accomodate our full group.

An advance squad led by Paul, dashed over to the school and set upon our primary objective a fence at the front of the school that needed a fresh coat of paint.

The secondary (perhaps more gullible) squad were led by myself on an adventurous 5k that involved some relatively random back roads, dodging a road sweeper on a cycle path and nearly having to swim through a puddle. Well done to Richard for being the brave soul to navigate the puddle first!

Arriving we found the advance crew deep in concentration. And were set upon sanding the fences and rather glorious pencil posts so that we could paint.

"No Goodgym mission is ever pointless" Katie applying the finer points to the pencil posts.

Aidan was apparently keen to sand the pencils to a point. To be fair they were all a bit blunt.

We were eventually spread all over the school grounds painting all sorts of little houses, fences and i don't even know whats. The hardest part proved to be matching the reds, oranges and pinks to the right bits of fence! In the end they had found us so much to do, we might have to revisit them to polish off the job.

Finally with some panicked running about with different colours of paint. The house crew got the whole front coated in green, with seconds to spare! Whilst all the kit was collected back at the shed we did some animal walks to keep warm before heading home.

Cheers everyone for another epic Monday group run!

Four runners completed another successful community mission for Urban Green in Newcastle parks. Especially well done to Andrew and Amy who both completed a double in the parks this weekend!

We were hacking back the bushes away from the path to make the path less overgrown and so it won’t need cutting again for a couple of years. Emily started litter picking rubbish which was now accessible with some of the scrubs removed.

As usual, we had a tea and coffee break half away through, which was a good opportunity for everyone to warm up with a hot drink. We couldn’t stand around for too long without getting cold though, so we were right back to it.

When cutting down one tree we found a perfectly formed old birds’ nest but with plastic woven into it, which was quite said but highlighted the importance of our litter picking that we often do with goodgym. Park ranger and legend Mike mentioned an interesting study he read about birds using cigarette butts in their nest as the chemical act as an insect repellent to ward off parasites. So maybe its not all bad news.

After a job well done we decided to get some well deserved doughnuts from a local doughnut shop, on the way I realised that my ear was bleeding, I can only assume I was spiked by a thorn as I chopped down a thorny tree, but I was so focused on chopping the tree down I didn’t even notice at the time.

If you not put off by the risk of injury and want to come help us in Newcastle parks we are back in the parks three weeks’ time at Iris brick fields on the Saturday and city Stadium on the Sunday for more gardening!

On the final Monday of the January Challenge, our 3rd birthday group run and my last ever night leading GoodGym York, an amazing group of 75 pitched up to do a stonking amount of good!

In that enormous group we had:

• THREE brand new runners - big cheers for Charlee, Thomas and Francisco.
• TEN GoodGym tourists from Newcastle, Ealing, Leeds, Bath and Portsmouth!
• TWO people celebrating their 50th good deed and donning the Cape of Good Deeds Give some hearty Yorkie cheers to Emma (who has been running with us for almost the three whole years but just likes to spread out all her good!), Rich and also to Louise who couldn't make it tonight but also did her 50th last week.
• TWO people celebrating their 100th good deed and swishing the Centurion Cape! (massive cheers please for Debs and Al who got their wings over the last few days.

We split into three running groups and a walking group, on a collective mission to transform the Nunnery Lane residential area.. with this list of mini and not-so-mini tasks to tackle:

1. Digging up topsoil, laying a weed membrane and covering a large border with pea shingle
2. The lamppost task (we'll come back to this)
3. Digging up deep set rubble from a community garden (saving the one young tree), taking all the rubble to a skip and laying a new layer of three tonnes of topsoil
4. Locating all the broken and rusty road signs within the area which need replacing
5. Building three raised beds and filling with 5 tonnes of topsoil
6. Edging the path in Scarcroft Green
7. Digging and raking up weeds and ivy roots from the Scarcroft Green border
8. Litter picking every street and snicket
9. Locate and mark on a map the locations of all graffiti on the estate
10. Levelling the area where we dug up elders last year ready for a spring seed sowing session!

The walking group were split into three sub groups to tackle tasks 2, 4 and 9. It took a while to figure out who was going to go with who due to lack of reading glasses. The lamppost task was absolutely the most complicated as appropriate lampposts needed to be identified according to a strict set of criteria, and marked as to whether or not they'd be suitable to display a neighbourhood watch sign.

So we're looking for dark lampposts that are approximately 2.2m tall?? - Paul

Leanne's group arrived at the Task 1 location (actually Task 5: raised beds) and Max was delighted to be able to use the IMPACT DRIVER, imagine a nail gun but for giant bolts and you won't be far off.

Then Mitch's team arrived and were split up to litter picking, community garden rubble clearing and adding extra people power for the raised beds.

Jenny, one of the three task owners, did more running than most of the GoodGymers as she went back and forth between the zones retreiving various tools from the van.

I need a boltcutter! Jenny

Then pea shingle team finished and moved onto Scarcroft Green, they were shortly joined by the litter picking squad and eventually the community garden team (though a few of those went up to help the raised bed team too).

We had a crazy ten minutes of raking, edging, digging, standing around having a chat, and frantically attempting to put all the tools back into the van. Then we only had five minutes remaining for the biggest, fastest game of Cones of Joy, ever.

It's a two lane motorway of circular running!!! Katie

There was just enough time for a gigantic group photo before the short run back to base. That truly was an enormous amount we achieved in about an hour.

Massive thanks to everyone who showed up tonight, or has showed up any time over the last three years. It really has been eggcellent and I think you're all the best.

Don't forget to do your lunges.