This week it was a return to the Brown Books shop for another session pushing this community bookshop one step closer to re-opening.

On the way there, David and Chrisshane worked together on Chrisshanes week 4 of Couch to 5k, doing a loop with four 5 minute runs with walking rests in between. Chrisshane is doing fantastically at building her running stamina!

Completing the run on arrival at the shop the rest of the gang were hard at work sorting the space out. All the books and other stuff had arrived from storage and needed putting out on shelves. Masking tape needed peeling, paint splashes on the floor needed scrubbing up and the whole floor mopped clean of all the building grime from the last week.

We soon transformed the shop from what looked like a junk shop of piles of boxes and bits, into a clean, spacious area ready to be arranged to entice readers in to browse the books.

Four Goodgymers made their way to the Level Trust Uniform Exchange to help sort through a mountain of recent donations.

We were greeted by Kim and Elaine from Level Trust and they explained what each piece of donated clothing should be checked for. Usable clothes were sorted into crates and unusable donations sorted into bags (one for clothes with logos, one for clothes without).

We got into a steady rhythm and quickly worked through tens of bags, with calls of ‘No go logo’ and ‘no go no logo’ as we went. Happily, lots of the donations were in good condition, so once they’re washed and dried they can be added to stock and hopefully used again.

Lots still to do, so we’ll be back!

Stormy weather prompted a change of task this week as we were scheduled to paint dugouts at the 61 Football Club, but instead we went for indoor painting as the refurbishment of the Brown Books community bookshop nears completion.

On arrival, we swept up after the carpenters and had a quick workout using paint cans and sharing physio exercise tips for building knee strength.

We had yellow and green paint to apply to different parts of the walls so we got the rollers going and began the transformation from stark white.

We didn't quite get it all finished but made a good dent in it, ready to finish off next time around!