A new era begins at GoodGym Newcastle

With huge thanks to Stepney Bank Stables, we now have a new base and a regular starting point to our Monday night group sessions. New and OG GoodGymers met on a chilly but still night in toon and there was a real buzz about our new meeting space which allows us to get back to how it was pre-pandemic times with somewhere to meet, change, catch up and get ready to do good things. From tonight, group sessions will always meet at 6, every Monday but our community missions will continue to pop up on weeknights and weekends so keep an eye on the listings for info.

After a great catch up and warm up we split into two groups: Paul's group of runners going to litter pick on the Quayside and my walking group focusing on Ouseburn. We had a great half hour of collecting six big bags of rubbish between them and it was soon time to meet back up for the fitness session.

Tonight was a Stepney Circuit, making use of the street furniture and the hills for an epic ten minute workout. On to The Ship Inn for a well earned drink where we discussed ideas for upcoming socials - stay tuned for plans including axe throwing, rage rooms, surfing and having our heads measured.

It's a GoodGym thing, and it's nice to get back to making Mondays amazing.

Another exciting task for GoodGym Newcastle as we supported Tiny Lives and Grace House in a world-record-breaking event!

An amazing team of people are working to beat several tire-flipping world records across the course of this weekend, all in aid of two brilliant charities.

Tanya, Jenny and Katy were there to support the start of the events, with the first one kicking off at 10:00am. On the claxon, a team of 6 began flipping a 110kg tire up and down Blackett Street and they'd be aiming to complete 10km or more in distance over the course of the next 12 hours.

Seriously impressive!

Jenny and Katy were called in to officially adjudicate the weighing of the tire, then Tanya, Jenny and Katy, along with other Tiny Lives volunteers, were tallying each round of 50m and checking meticulously that the tire was flipped over the line each time. After only 43 minutes, the team had flipped the tire 1km, and then completed 2.6km by the time the first 2 hours was up. AMAZING!

Also on this weekend are tire flipping relays, 1hour sessions and speed sessions for 20m flipping, where the public were invited to give it a go for a small donation, in the hopes they could find their name in the Guinness Book of Records very soon! Tiny Lives and Grace House are truly inspiring local charities. Tiny Lives supports premature babies in need of special care at the RVI, while Grace House supports the lives of disabled children and their families in Sunderland.

We're looking forward to working with these charities again and also with the world-record breakers luck!

I think this was definitely one of my favourite GoodGym good deeds tonight as we helped out at The Comfrey Project in Gateshead.

"The Comfrey Project provides refugees and people seeking asylum across Tyneside with a safe, welcoming environment, which promotes personal well-being through a sense of place and belonging. This is achieved by various shared creative crafts including allotment gardening, cooking and crafts"

I was joined by Jenny, Melvyn, Rachel, Michael, Jack and Aimee. Go and give Jack a cheer as he completed his very first GoodGym good deed tonight.

We were warmly welcomed by Katherine and Hussein. They gave us an introduction/background to the project. Hussein was particularly inspiring as he told us his story of how the project helped him and now he is employed and helps to run the service.

They were brilliant throughout and so organised with stations laid out for us and eveeything regularly sanitised. They even made us cups of tea which we were very grateful for.

We helped tonight to pack wellbeing parcels which they provide on a monthly basis (which is incredible) The parcels included a range of items including learning and activity packs (which we helped to put together) games and toys for Children, toiletries, mince pies/Christmas puddings and Christmas Crackers.

We will be returning on Saturday for part 2 so make sure you get involved!

It was lovely to squeeze a last minute non-essential (although always entirely essential) community mission in last night, just a few hours before the second lockdown came in.

We returned to do some jobs at the fab Recyke Y Bike where we have been helping to transform their office spaces- now home to other charities using them as their base.

We welcomed lovely new runner Rachel along and got to work. Charlotte and Rachel were sorting out a maze of bike bits (check out the before and after pics!!), I was on workshop sweeping duty and everyone else got stuck into some staircase painting.

Another great transformation complete before we say bye (for now).