Somehow, we've become the go-to team for "scrape and re-paint" tasks this year.

This time, we were back outside at The Lenton Centre (where we've previously been down in the basement sorting lost property and building shelving) to give some outside doors and railings a good going over.

As there were only four of us, we split into pairs to tackle the two sets of wooden doors first. The elements had done a fairly good job of getting rid of the bulk of the old black paint, but our scrapers definitely made a big difference.

Then we went round to the railings at the front of the building that had the added challenges of rust and more surface area. We all agreed it was extremely satisfying getting those little bits of paint to chip off, and discovered that they'd been painted blue and green once upon a time.

GoodGym Nottingham returned to the Sherwood Community Centre this week to assist with various tasks. We LOVE coming to this place for our sessions as our host, Louise, always has some interesting and varied jobs for us (as well as our on-going painting project in the basement which we’ve been enjoying over the past few months).

On this occasion, Dayna, Hollie and Paulina took on the painting, continuing to paint over the old yellow colour in the toilet and corridor downstairs.

Khiltee, Leah and Rachel washed down the walls in the main hall with sugar water to prepare them to be repainted. The room is used for various activities including a children’s playgroup, and the walls have seen many-a sticky finger, painty brush and rogue felt tip pen over the years!

Meanwhile, Nigel and Will had the fun job of remounting some of the borders around the display boards in the hall. The existing paper borders had become too tempting for little fingers to pull off and so were looking a bit worse for wear. After measuring up and trimming bits of hessian, Nigel and Will enjoyed using the staple gun to secure this on the boards and make them look neat and tidy once again.

Before tidying up and taking a few groups photos, Khiltee and Will also helped Louise reattach the welcome sign in the foyer of the centre which had fallen down. The team also hung up a few lines of bunting in preparation for Sherwood Art Week (there will be more bunting-hanging at our next task on Friday 5 June – see details and sign up here).

Another great evening’s work in the bag, and a big welcome to first-timers Hollie, Paulina and Will. We hope to see you again soon!

This week saw us return to the Meadows Food Bank. Did you know it was the venue for GoodGym Nottingham's first "proper" task nearly three years ago? Leah, Peter and Rachel were all there for it, and by the way the tasks fell, it turned out to be the venue for Leah's 100th this week. Most serendipitous!

We met up with Mark as usual on arrival who had plenty for us to get stuck into.

Leah and Peter summoned up their inner Dale Wintons for a round of Supermarket Sweep, boxing up two-person packages ready to be bagged and sent home with service users in the coming days. Meanwhile, Khiltee, Nigel and Florence were on clothes duty, hanging things up on rails and making it look a lot nicer. Matt, Sarah and Charlie were bagging up toiletry packs (somehow that stock of mini soaps is still going).

Finally, it was all hands on deck sorting out the dried pasta stocks, making sure everything went in the right date order so the older stuff gets distributed first.

We just had time to gobble a few celebratory muffins and flapjacks before heading our separate ways.

No task next week, but we're back at Sherwood Community Centre on 3 June!

For this week’s task we returned to the Sherwood Community Centre where our host, Louise, always has a range of fun jobs for us. However, before we started work, we had another important job to do…have a photoshoot!

We were joined by two photography students, Damon and Deanna, from Nottingham College who are working on a project about sustainability. They wanted to take a few snaps of us before the task, so the Nottingham Taskforce - Leah, Peter and Rachel - pulled out their best litter picking poses in the woods to get the shots that were needed.

Once everyone else arrived, we set to work in and around the centre. Peter, Shauna, Annie and Jo were out in the grounds weeding some of the beds and clearing leaves. Jo was joining us from Exeter where she is a GoodGym regular, so it was lovely to have a tourist in our midst.

Inside, Charlie, Matt and Nat did a bit of moving and shifting, and also built a shelf/trolley contraption for extra storage in one of the cupboards. After this, Matt had the important job of mopping all the signs in and around the carpark to remove all the dirt, bird mess and general muck that was covering them.

Finally, Khiltee, Leah and Rachel returned to the basement to carry on with some of the painting that we had been working on over recent weeks and months.

After an hour, we had a photo with one of Matt’s freshly mopped signs and went on our way.

Damon and Deanna's photography project will be on show at the Surface Gallery in Nottingham very soon, and we hope to go along to check out our photos and learn more about sustainability projects in the city.

We were back at the ICCA this week to carry on with our on-going project of painting the railings.

Accompanied once again by a slightly chilly wind, Charlie, Khiltee, Matt and Rachel set to work and managed to finish the last remaining section of railings on the half that we’d been working on (bar a few bits that we may have missed!!).

Our next job when we return will be to paint the large, elaborate gate. In preparation for this, the team spent the last quarter of an hour sanding off all the loose paint and moss which will hopefully make things a little smoother for us next time.

We’ll be returning to tackle said gate (and the rest of the railings) on 13th May - why not come and join us? The more hands we have the more we can paint!! Sign up here