I like meeting at The Forum even more this time of year with all of the Xmas lights and the tunnel of love (light) nearby.

We had 3 new runners this week so a big welcome to Laura, Helen and Jane.

Thank you to Amy for being back runner this week.

Alice was completing her 10th good deed and Sophie her 25th good deed! Well done to both of you.

Katy, Bill and Jasmine walked to the task.

We were visiting the Hamlet Charity's Adult's Centre to play some games with their members. These games included limbo (which I'm pretty poor at!) a bell obstacle course and then we finished up with a game of just dance (which I'm also pretty poor at!).

It was great for their members to have us join them.

There were some pretty good limbo skills in the GG crew, notably Hannah, Elliot and Emily!

Next week we're doing some pruning at Norwich Train Station.

A visit to Norwich Foodbank is always a very rewarding task and for this we had a whopping 36 GoodGymers come out to attend... in the rain yet again!

A big welcome to 3 new runners in Esther, Jess and Andrew, I hope you all enjoyed your 1st GoodGym experience :-)

A thank you to Bill and Elizabeth for being back runners.

After a warm-up that included (everyone's favourite) Bear Crawls, we set out on the soggy 3km outward journey. As there were so many of us (and you all know how much I love Health & Safety...) I put everyone in pairs so that one person can be in the warehouse while the other does a running loop, then they swap over. So as well as doing good, everyone got to run a little further than they expected to ;-)

Keith, the warehouse manager, had a mixture of things for us to do, which included: date sorting tins of beans, sorting out 2020 food items, weighing crates of new items, sorting Xmas items, sorting nappies, preparing Xmas boxes, sorting coffee/tea/hot chocolate items as well as some other jobs.

After 40 minutes of doing these tasks and running in between, we set off on our way back.

Helping with Norwich Foodbank for Christmas hampers

If you'd like to help the foodbank with their donations for the Xmas boxes, they're in need of the following items:

• Tins/cartons of tomatoes
• Tinned vegetables
• Long-life fruit juice
• UHT Milk
• Pasta sauce
• Rice pudding/custard
• Instant mash
• Tinned fruit
• Tea
• Tinned meat
• Tinned fish
• Christmas treats - chocolate/sweets/crisps etc

If you bring them along to Goodgym on a Monday night, we'll collate any items together and make sure they get to the foodbank. If you can do this by the end of November this will help with distribution in time for Christmas!

Reminder of the following:

Parkour Social Jump is this Wednesday.

GoodGym Norwich Xmas Meal is on Wednesday 11th December.

If you want to join the Secret Santa you need to sign up by lunchtime today!

Next week's Group Run is a Games Night @ The Hamlet Adult's Centre.

It was nice to finally have a Monday evening where it didn't rain at all!

Sean was taking part in his 1st GoodGym encounter so a big welcome!

Bill and Elizabeth were backrunners.

This evening we were doing our quarterly visit to Eaton Park, a nice little 3km each-way route. This was after we did a little warm-up in The Forum, which consisted of relay runs, lunges and frog jumps (part of the pun!).

The tasks this week were to clean all of the benches around the band stand ahead of a carol concert and to clear the leaves (another part of the pun!) around the lilly pond.

It was a fairly quick task so after 30 minutes we set off back and it still left me with 5 minutes for a fitness session, which included a pairs workout consisting of squats and sit-ups ;-)

This was followed up with a deserved trip to the pub.

**Next week we're visiting Norwich Food Bank.

As it was a very short task tonight, we all walked as a group as me and Katy are still recovering from injuries. There would still be time for some running later on though.

We welcomed 3 new GoodGymers this week so a shout out to Marcus, Bryony and Elizabeth!

The main task tonight was to do some cutting back of the overgrown hedges and weeding at The Hamlet Adults Centre. There was also a smaller task opposite at Your Own Place CIC where 3 people were painting, we were sure to do a rendition of Adeles's Hello through out the evening.

Hello from the other side

On arrival, Stephen, Elizabeth H and Bryony went with Rebecca at YOPC to do the painting while the rest of us met Jayne to assemble the team with tools to cut back the overgrown bushes ;-) hedges and do some weeding.

As usual, before the blink of an eye, the team of GoodGymers had organised themselves into the different jobs and the demolition job began. So much so that we ran out of bin bags... twice! Luckily Jayne had a good stock and kept bringing us more out.

You'll have to look at the photos to appreciate the sheer amount of foliage. The place was transformed!

Once the painters had finished they came and joined us to finish off the task.

On the way back we stopped in Chapelfield Gardens for a sprint session before finishing with some stretches at The Forum.

Thank you to Mel for helping with taking photos.

You're probably still wondering what the pun is referring to... could it be related to the giant, albeit intimidating marrow I'm holding during the stretches? Or the size of the space the foliage bags have taken up? Or just the size of the GoodGym Norwich group? You'll never know (but can probably guess) what it refers to.

Next week we're on a much longer run (6km each-way!) as we visit Barley Court Care Home, which will celebrate 10 years of GoodGym!

An absolute scorching bank holiday didn't stop 25 GoodGymers coming out to play. It felt good to be back after a couple of weeks off.

Kate was on her 1st GoodGym encounter so a big welcome!

We even had some GoodGym tourism with Catriona visiting us from London.

Both Emily and Danie were completing their 10th good deeds :-)

The main task tonight was to visit Grapes Hill Community Garden to do some trimming back, weeding, watering, pruning and sweeping up.

6 people also went over to Somerleyton Gardens to clear out a shrub bed so that local residents can make better use of it. Darren, Janice, Kevin, Stephen and the two Dave T's went to do this one.

Both tasks were quite different but required lots of hard work and as always, GoodGym did not disappoint.

I was feeling generous tonight so we avoided a fitness session in the heat so after the task we headed back The Forum where Katy and Bill had brought in some fresh raspberries and damsons from their allotment. Damson gin here we go ;-)

A few then headed to the pub to celebrate Elliot's 22nd birthday.

Next week we're visiting Silver Road Community Centre.