Oh great, it's my turn to feel silly running through the centre of town in angel wings!

You read it here first, I have finally gained my wings and achieved my 100th good deed with GoodGym Newcastle! Phew. #GGNCL has changed my life in so many ways and brought so many great people into my life, that it feels impossible to choose a favourite task amongst that 100, but at a push I'd say the massive one we did at Newcastle University or that first visit to Recyke Y Bike with the amazing sunset on the way back. They have all been so brilliant, and if you haven't done so in a while, spend some time this week looking back on the run reports and reflect on all the great things we do Thanks to everyone who has made GoodGym Newcastle what it is today, you've made it amazing.

It was another big turnout for our first visit of the year to Newcastle University students union. We love working together with Newcastle Uni as they give us such a great variety of tasks and work hard on integrating students with GoodGym Newcastle to provide them with great ways to get fit and do good things during their time at University. Tonight we were heading there to support NEST, a student-run volunteer project which offers amongst other things free English lessons to the refugee community in the region. Through the delivery of these lessons, refugees improve their written and verbal communication skills enabling them to gain necessary language qualifications required to gain employment in the UK. Boosting their confidence empowers them to integrate themselves into the local community, reducing the stigma and prejudice from existing residents.

We think what NEST do is nothing short of amazing.

We had a catch up on some great things that happened over the weekend including Tom's 50th good deed- yay! and heard about the last few community missions planned for January. Our partner- balance warm up game was as popular as ever with some weird and wonderful contributions from all! This was a great exercise in welcoming new runner Elliot along who happily got stuck in without questioning why we would start our evening with a Primary PE game in a car park.

It's a short jog to Newcastle Uni which was lucky as Paul casually ran another marathon yesterday and didn't have too long to grumble about his legs! Task owner Bridget along with another few volunteers from NEST met us there and ushered us into a toasty warm classroom for tonight's Good Things. There were two tasks waiting for us: sorting through and organising learner pack book bags, and creating number and letter display posters for the families who access NEST. Rachael took charge of the poster organisation while her crew showed off their artistic flair/failing while Debbie took charge of the laminator. Meanwhile out in the corridor the bag packers loved the chance to relax while they organised the book bags. This was a perfect example of the impact such a large group can have on completing tasks that would usually take charities much, much longer.

We used the courtyard area for the fitness session tonight which was a pulse-raising, competitive super fast game of chain tag in which Darren showed the best way to win is basically to spend half of the game hiding. This was definitely a fun way to get some interval training done and there were some red faces by the end of it!

I'm not sure where Tom is, but I think he's cheating

Thankfully the short jog back to base gave everyone the chance to make friends again.

Once again there are two chances to do good things this Saturday as we rumble on through the January challenge doing as many great things as we can. First up is your chance to help out at Newcastle parkrun where we are hoping for a big red tshirted takeover. If you want to get involved in this one, it's really important you follow the instructions in the listing and contact Newcastle parkrun to get yourself added to their volunteer roster. Even if the roster looks full, there will be the chance to double up at marshal points and wave the flag (literally!) for GoodGym Newcastle. If you're coming along to run, let's see you in your red and black tshirts: I will look for you to grab a big group photo near the start at 8:45am. Straight after that, I am leading our monthly visit to Nunsmoor Park where we will be helping out with jobs in the park right up to lunchtime. Stay as long as you like for that one!

There are more great things coming up to the end of the month and onwards, just keep checking the listings for more updates from the terrific task force.

See you next Monday for more running, walking, goodness, games and occasional fancy dress.

Anji x

There's a storm coming and it's not going to be safe

We were subject to a late change and I was subject to that phone call that no Trainer wants in the two hours before the Group Run! Due to a visit from Storm Brendan, high winds and pretty horrific rain late this afternoon, our planned visit to Newcastle Eagles was cancelled for our safety. We are always super grateful to our task owners for looking out for us like this and as Nick pointed out later, the Eagles Community Arena is indeed "The windiest place on Earth at the best of times" we knew it was right to reschedule our visit this time around. The other good bit is that we were in turn gifted this glorious Geordie pun that I'm pretty confident many of our southern fans won't really understand. (Top punning, Paul!)

With very little notice and no reserve task we hastily re-planned and decided we would do a back-to-back week of plogging, this time heading in the opposite direction and down to the fabulous Quayside. I kept our intro short and sweet (and indoors!) tonight but there was plenty of time to catch up on two brilliant Community Missions that took place over the weekend, as well as two brilliant Half Marathon PBs run in York by Abi and Nick, who almost missed the start of the race. I was really pleased to see new runner Nada back tonight too, especially in such vile conditions.

Top marks, Nada, you can stay!

My brilliant chain tag warm up idea didn't really work with a smaller group and I committed it to memory to do in a massive park with a bigger group in the summer instead. Charlotte and Rachael headed off walking ahead of us and we soon trotted off on the downhill to the glorious Quayside which was, as always, full of runners. In contrast to our plogging visit to Leazes Park last week, there was quite a bit of litter to collect due to the high winds and within 20 minutes just 15 of us had filled 5 big sacks full of rubbish. There's something very satisfying about clearing an area we are so proud of on such a miserable night.

I'm so glad I came, that was such a great spot for litter picking! - Charlotte

Everyone was starting to look a bit cold so I got straight on with the fitness session which really got everyone moving- the first round being 5 lower-body exercises repeated for 1 minute as many times as possible (you should see Tom's star jumps, they are MEGA) followed by varying-effort sprints and jogging for 5 flat out minutes. Everyone committed to the fitness session so well, including Andrew with some top lamp post marshalling and high fiving.

Kudos!

The January Challenge is rumbling on and we have loads of extra chances to do good things over the next few weeks. Check out our list of Community Missions and pop along to any you fancy!

Don't forget the BONUS RUN taking place this Saturday it's a great way to spend your lunchtime, and it's the perfect run to bring someone along to for the first time. See you there!

Anji x

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A big, huge, massive WELCOME BACK to GoodGym Newcastle for 2020

Tonight a massive 24 runners and walkers assembled for their first dose of Good things in the new year and it was so great to see such a super mix of old and new faces. Welcome to our new runner Nada for getting stuck in and making us all smile!

We had loads to catch up on including a massive epic challenge that Andrew, Evan and Darren took part in yesterday: The Winter Wipeout. Not content with just doing something very hard and in very hard conditions, the three of them took part in less-than-standard running gear. Well done you three, we are really proud of you!

We warmed up with a quick recap of Best Christmas Presents which made us all smile. Choices included a Dyson hoover, a candle of Beyonce's face, a few pairs of trainers and not forgetting "This is quite lame, but, ALDI FACEWASH". We then split off into three plogging groups for the task. Heading off on three different distances were the walking group with Charlotte, the longer run group with Paul and the medium distance and chats run with me. We'd be taking part in a general tidy up on the way to, in and around Leazes Park to give us the chance to kick of 2020 with a sociable (and easy!) task for the night.

The task itself was much easier than previous visits to Leazes Park with many of the areas we usually find a lot of litter surprisingly clear- this was of course great to see! We did find enough to fill a few bags and there was also a dumped Christmas tree in the bandstand to take care of- Martin and Jon to the rescue on that one. It also gave everyone a really nice chance to catch up and ease back into GoodGym for 2020.

The fitness session was another story

A few people mentioned they were starting to feel cold so that gave me the perfect excuse to get everyone working extra hard! Two paired games to start, then into teams for a spot of file running, recovering with easy laps by the lake. Kudos to everyone for such brilliant effort in this tonight, and shout out to Paul for standing in the cold to be our human turn-back point.. we didn't almost forget you.. honest.

As part of the JANUARY CHALLENGE we are squeezing as many good deeds into one month as we possibly can, so get along to a Community Mission or two this month if you can. You'll find them all listed on the website, ranging from gardening to a takeover at Newcastle parkrun. There are a few of our old favourites in there as well as some brand new sparkling tasks for you to get involved in to start the year off with a bang. As well as this, don't miss out on a bonus Group Run on Saturday 18th January which is the ideal run to bring someone along to who wants to give us a try as part of a New Year's Resolution!

Hope to see you back with the same brilliant energy for our monthly visit to Newcastle Eagles next week.

Welcome back!

Anji x