Just as Spring had sprung, five GoodGym movers and shakers sprung into action, uniting to lift and shift tables, chairs and sofas to help with Cambridge Festival's Family Weekend pack-down.

Within 50 minutes we had moved an array of furniture over two floors, clearing three rooms of trestle tables used for activities, and a room full of sofas and coffee tables used for a pop-up cafe. Caroline and Daiana were sofa queens, Andrew and Sadiya put in no-table efforts with the trestles, and I had a very up-lifting time supporting movement between floors.

It turns out many hands really do make light work and once the tables were turned we sat for a moment to admire our work and chairish our time together.

Until next year!

Cambridge Half 2026

We had a blast supporting the Cambridge Half on Sunday!

Welcome to Tatiana who joined for her first GoodGym task 💪

It is our first year with GoodGym representation both on the course and behind the scenes. Kate, Sadiya and Catherine were in the bag storage tent, helping manage runner's bags and Tatiana was managing runners in the starting pens before switching to handing out medals and tote bags at the finish line. From start to finish, we had logistics covered.

It's hard to describe exactly what 15,000 bags in a marquee looks like, but the picture gives a good idea. We played a game of Where's Wally (Catherine) in amongst the sea of backpacks. It was an early start and surprisingly stressful at times, requiring military precision to stack bags and eagle eyes to spot race numbers at a distance. Teamwork really was key and the highlight of the morning was meeting like-minded volunteers and sharing tales of races gone by (followed closely by the free gelato 🍦) .

As always with Cambridge Half, the atmosphere was amazing and it was a privilege to hear runners motivations for taking part and their experiences of the race. Despite having only 50m of elevation overall, there were a lot of comments about the incline out to Granchester; a hill by Cambridge standards.

All in all, a great day and here's to 2027!

A warm welcome to Sadiya for her first GoogGym session, given both by the volunteers and the lovely sunshine which soon warmed us up. A significant area of weeds was cleared, ready to put the Community farm to bed for the winter. (Their final session is next Saturday, with mince pies for volunteers and sprouts to crop and take for Christmas!) Ann was filling crates with freshly dug leeks - topping and tailing them ready for the local food bank. Many thanks to Sadiya who joined us for the first time today. Her enthusiasm and hard work were fantastic and her fresh energy will be such an asset.