Despite the overnight snow, 3 hardy Goodgymers braved the plummeting temperatures to help in the fight against plastic.

With minimal fuss, we coolly ran the 3-ish km to Merseyway Workshop and Plastic Shed. Caitlin, despite a sniffly cold and a wild swim in the morning, was overjoyed by our arrival to finish off the mountain of bags. Numb with excitement (or cold) we crisply sorted the bags by colour, managing to get through the remaining bag collection. The background of music and pottery was an ideal backdrop to the busy sorting.

Plastic waste is snow joke and we were happy to help, open to a future invitation to help out the community group.

Yesterday saw the return of the annual Manchester 24 Hour Run Against Homelessness. 🏃‍♀️

Between us, we completed a total of 17 laps and 85 km (not including run commutes!). 🎉

Hannah and Simone kicked things off with a walking lap to check out the route. 😍

Over the course of the evening, Hannah, Ben, Laura and Mai then volunteered as run leaders for specific laps – some of us taking on speedy 27.5 minute pacing and others demonstrating the important role of tail runner! 😊

A big shout out to Simone who stayed for the entire evening and cheered us on whilst soaking up the atmosphere! ❤️

It was great to bump into long-lost Goodgymer Pete and have a catch-up! 🏃

8pm was our scheduled GoodGym slot and we chatted our way round the course, completing the second and third laps for some and drawing our evening to a close. 🏃‍♂️

Ben continued with a couple of volunteer run leader slots before returning with Juno 🐶 in the morning to complete a further 3 laps – taking his total to 7! 🙌

Big Goodgym Stockport welcome to Natalie and Fred!

On a banger of an evening, 6 Goodgym firecrackers met at Life Leisure to run the ~3 km to Merseyway shopping centre, and specifically to Plastic Shed.

After the uphill run through Edgeley, on yet another home Stockport County FC game night, we were sparkling with perspiration and eager to put the Catherine Wheels in motion to sort through some plastic bottle tops... little did we know that we were needed for a much more en-lightening task.

Hidden away in yet another hidy hole, where nearly 1 million sorted lids are also stored, was a mountain of plastic bags 5 feet high with other soft plastic that had been donated over the years. Our task was to separate them into colours and remove any unwanted plastic that their equipment would struggle with.

Over an hour and 10 min later, we broke the back of the pile of plastic, leaving only embers of shredded plastic at the end. The task really ignited our desire to reduce plastic use and we have a good idea of the most popular bread brands in the area - Warburton's Danish White coming in top place.

We may be back soon! Keep an eye on their Instagram too for more pics of the task.

As part of the ThisGirlCan #LetsLifeTheCurfew, we got together for a social run to highlight the importance of safety during running in the darker evenings 🌃

We met at Life Leisure Avondale and ran a 5km loop round Edgeley and Shaw Health whilst dodging Stockport County fans on their way to a home match ⚽️

Tonight we welcomed Victoria to GoodGym Stockport - it was great to meet you and we hope you can persuade your colleague to join us soon!

St Gabriel's Mission Church in Adswood have been having a tidy up around their grounds. With the hedges encroaching onto the pavement, they had a cut chopping session during the day time but nobody to clear up afterwards.

So who might they ask?

Goodgym Stockport of course! Hannah, Meera and Ben ran the 3 km from Life Leisure Avondale, fully lit up with bike lights and flashy armbands following a convoluted route to Adswood. We met Heather upon arrival who had already started clearing some of the branches and leaves so we donned gloves and got stuck in.

Using the old adage of "many hands make light work" we quickly removed all of the prickly branches, leaves, and other shrubbery into 2-3 large rubble bags, to leave the path accessible to passers by. We loaded up the van with settled bags of branches and tree stumps that would be unloaded at the tip the following day.

We got a quick pic at the end before making our way back, using Heather's local knowledge to take a slightly less convoluted route.

Good task and good group to get the job done. We even got the chance to snap a lit up Halloween decorated house on the way.

First Goodgym Manchester group run task!

Once Northmoor Community Association managed to get hold of some paint last week, we were good to go! With it being half term locally, the volunteer hub was closed giving us the best opportunity to get a first coat of paint onto the walls, and despite only being listed last minute, we had eight fantastic Goodgymers come out on a Monday night.

After several of us arrived after the 3.5 km run from central Manchester to Longsight, we knocked on the window of the Hub to the surprised face of Cathy (I think she only expected a few people...) who showed us the walls, the paint, the paintbrushes, and the all important tea/coffee & biscuit supplies to fuel us for the task.

Seamlessly, we split into two groups of four to cover the major walls, protecting as much of the floor and furniture as possible with sheets and flattened cardboard boxes. With Issy on roller duty and Peter on his hands and knees to paint around the radiators, we managed to cover all of the walls needed with minimal paint splash on the floor and ceiling.

With decent numbers and a perfect painter:paintbrush ratio (1:1), we managed to patch up other parts of the room, with Hannah painting some shelving, Jordan filling in some parts near the kitchen hatch, and Megan and Jack putting in a shift on the additional wall by the front door. The height of Jack and Eoin came in very handy to reach the high up spots!

After washing out the paint containers, washing the brushes and rollers, and wiping up any rogue splashes of paint, we left after a job well done with a group photo and a few more paint stains added to Goodgym t-shirts.

Thank you for all coming out and particularly welcome to the first timers Jordan, Megan, Issy, and Jack! Hope to see many of you soon for Goodgym Manchester tasks!