This week our group run was in partnership with This Girl Can's #LetsLiftTheCurfew campaign.

Now the clocks have changed the evenings are darker and this puts many women off exercising outside in the evenings as it can feel unsafe to do so.

GoodGym is a safe space to exercise outside in a friendly group throughout the winter months and so to spread the word, and encourage more women to join forces reclaim the streets at night, we decorated ourselves with bright lights ready for a colourful run around town on the way to our task.

We welcomed Arthur to his very first session with GoodGym and Luqman who had done a couple of community missions but hadn't attended a group run before. It was lovely to meet them both and have two new faces on the Wednesday night team! They both looked great with their lights on and did a great job running around town with us.

Our colourful lights were doubly appropriate for the occasion because it is Diwali and our task for the evening was helping the Sikh temple prepare for Diwali celebrations at the end of the week. We arrived ready to help give the kitchen a deep clean, mop the floors. vacuum the carpets and generally give the whole temple an autumn clean.

With nine of us working away we did a really thorough job and were rewarded with hot cups of chai before we departed to illuminate the dark streets once again to finish off our evening.

Tonight, 5 Goodgymers turned out to support Foodcycle. I helped in the Kitchen and Sheikh and Darshini got stuck in with the hosting team and were joined by Luqman and Chanel who were attending their first Goodgym task this evening. In the kitchen this evening we cooked a delicious 3 course meal for the guests, with a Lettuce soup (yes, you read that correctly) for starter and a banana 🍌 bread based pudding with custard for dessert. This was either side of a take and fry up, although there was actually very minimal frying going on at all. The main was made up of quorn sausages, scrambled eggs, toast, hash brown, mushrooms, tomatoes and baked beans (loads of baked beans - 12 tins). Plating up the main was an all hands to the pump affair as there were so many elements to get on the plate, but the hosting team were amazing and helped us manage the service impeccably. By the end of service, a couple of our hosts from the Goodgym team were getting stuck into the washing up, whilst the others were tidying away the tables and chairs in the hall. A fantastic session tonight and it was great to welcome our new members. We'll done team