It was awesome to welcome along a team in sky blue from the fabulous Claremont Road Runners tonight as they popped along to GoodGym Newcastle in place of their usual Monday night club run to see what we are all about. It was so great to see how quickly you all "got it" and got involved and we'd love to have you back any time! Thanks Nina for organising this mini mash-up. Click on the link to find out more about this fab local running club.

While we were famously getting our mugs on telly after ITV filmed us last week, GoodGym life went on and we did what we do every Monday, meeting up at Hotel Indigo, with a quick catch up, warming up with a silly game and heading off into the night to do good deeds. It was an extra-special night as everyone's favourite Route Master and all-round top husband of mine Paul was celebrating his birthday. For those who didn't come tonight, you missed CAKE. And there was loads of it.

For my 50th Good Deed tonight we had a brilliant new task at Byker Community Association organised by ace task forcer Dan. We had one big job to do: sort out THE ROOM OF DOOM by helping to clear out a cupboard, forming a human chain to transport piles of random stuff to a waiting skip. The human chain is always a firm favourite of ours as we passed down everything from a spirit level, a mannequin, loads of out of date drinks and in Paul's words, "something rank, I don't even know how to describe the smell". Task owner Rowena was delighted with our help, as the cupboard was cleared in under 20 minutes.

YOU ARE ALL AMAZING!

Rowena gave us a fabulous background history of the centre and told us all about the brilliant activities that bring the community together in Byker in the famous wall. The clear out that is currently taking place will allow the team there to create a reading room where they will host beam-back bedtime story readings for children in refugee camps. How life-changing is that? It was great that we were able to make such an impact and I know we will be back.

I changed my original plan for the fitness session tonight when I saw the tables and chairs set up in the main hall that were begging for some fit competitive people to play a game of musical chairs on them (with a fitness twist, obviously). All manner of competitive game play ensued with moments including Emma grabbing a chair from under Sarah (literally), Nick jumping into chairs in absolute ninja fashion, and an edge to Charlotte storming into winning seats we have never seen before! The fitness forfeits were also creative and fun, my favourite being Dave's step ups on the chair while he waited his turn to come back in.

In the end, it was Emma who was victorious, declaring "I HAVE NEVER WON AT MUSICAL CHAIRS IN MY LIFE!" leaving me a little sad I didn't have a lolly or something for her.

Three top elements achieved: heart rate up, out of breath and laughing our heads off.

I've shared a great live video on our Facebook page that was posted on Byker Community Association's FB of everyone during the task that I hope you all enjoy.

It's another new task next week as we trot off to help out with a huge kitchen clear-up at Newcastle Cricket Club. Get involved and you might even get to play childrens' party games by way of exercising. Sign up Here

Have a great week,

Anji x

A warm welcome awaited us tonight for a brand new smashing task!

It was a super task to welcome new runner Brooklyn tonight as it contained a trio of excellent GoodGym elements:

• Warm indoor task

• Team work to create a human chain

• Toys to play with

But as we celebrated Brooklyn joining the #GGNCL family, we had another big milestone to celebrate: EMILY'S 50th GOOD DEED and therefore the second outing for the Geordie cloak of Good Deeds. Emily has split her time between Newcastle and York GoodGym, spreading sunshine and smiles wherever she goes. Emily cited her favourite task as the regular mission to Nunsmoor Park where they have the best biscuits. We look forward to seeing Emily in the amazing black tshirt of Goodness soon! It was FREEZING for the warm up tonight which we blasted through while Charlotte led the walking group ahead to meet us at the task. A mixture of mobility exercises got us started then we were off and ready to go!

Our task at Nunsmoor Centre was a new Group Run, but it was somewhere we have visited for Community Missions in the past. Alyson at Nunsmoor Centre asked us for help tonight to sort out a few cupboards that needed emptying, cleaning and rearranging. The Nunsmoor Centre is a hub for activities in the Fenham area for families to access that relies massively on volunteers, and it was a wonderful space for us to complete both our task and fitness session.

We split into a few small teams to empty the main cupboard, pass items along a human chain, check them over while the cupboard was cleaned out, before passing them back along the chain to restock. The smaller team worked on two other cupboards to give them a good tidy and sort out as well as a deep-clean. These are the types of jobs that are easy for us to do in such a large group, but would take a long time for someone to complete alone. There were some weird and wonderful (mainly wonderful) toys for us to - ahem - check over including an array of musical instruments. If I had known that, the fitness session would have been putting a band together!

Speaking of fitness sessions, it was brilliant to have the hall to use for it tonight...

I've heard of this GoodGym! It's fabulous to see it in action!

There was a circuit of fun for the session: 2 minute stints at 4 stations: frog walks (yes they ARE a thing, ribbit) shuttle runs, rock, paper, scissors with squats as a forfeit, and the all-important planks. Twice round the circuit then a 4-set finisher. Faye said she was so warm it was nice to actually step back out into the winter air! Everyone worked super-hard on this and it was an amazing effort by everyone, although I do think there will be some sore quads in toon tomorrow.

Don't forget there are TWO chances to do good things this weekend with a community mission on both Saturday and Sunday so get involved if you can! We are back at Newcastle Uni for the Group Run next Monday where we are also being joined by ITV news so get along and grab your 5 minutes of fame!

Happy running!

Anji

Like stats? Love GoodGym? You've come to the right place!

Tonight we started our Group Run with a bunch of amazing stats courtesy of our resident statistician Andrew to motivate us on a cold and windy night in the Toon. Hold on to your hats, these are some great numbers! As we approach our 6 month anniversary and before we ran tonight, we had racked up:

• 641 Good Deeds
• 33 good deeds JUST by Carol Anne, meaning as a solo GoodGym runner she accounts for 5% of Good Deeds at GoodGym Newcastle!
• Total Group Run distance: 2644.5km
• In just six months, in distance we have travelled all the way to Istanbul in relay (swim and run) or 1/4 way around the moon.

It was also our 11th Changing Lives task and a new project for us at Gifford House. Is that enough numbers for now?

It was the first time we've run over the High Level Bridge and as if by magic the police had closed it off for us (nothing to do with the broken down bus, honest) and what a lovely trot across it was! Up the hill, via the high street in Gateshead we managed to stay together, shaking off the Monday blues after a paired game in the warm up to welcome three new runners to the family. Massive welcome Hannah, Chloe and Ellen!

Our destination was another Changing Lives project, Gifford House. Gifford House provides accommodation with 24/7 support for males ages 18+. There are 11 bedrooms and they can live for up to 2 years at Gifford during which time they are encouraged to get involved with training and preparation to employment. Our tasks tonight were:

• Kitchen deep clean including the oven
• Vacuum the stairs, living room and corridors
• Plant bulbs and tidy/weed the garden
• Living room clean up including skirting boards, furniture and shelving.

With 25 of us getting stuck in the task seemed to fly by, one of the residents commenting,

"There are more than 3 times the usual amount of people in this house! It's unreal!"

I have to give a special mention to Liz tonight for commitment to her task as after cleaning the kitchen floor, she realised she had forgotten her jacket, and after tip toeing back through the kitchen, returned to clean it again. Top marks for effort Liz!

We are always spoiled with drinks and snacks from Changing Lives and after dragging Michael away from the custard creams we were thanked by Changing Lives staff who told us the difference we made was huge.

"I just have to say, I think what you all do is amazing"

It was a lovely easy run back down the hill via more emergency services (fire engines this time if anyone's playing 999 bingo!) before we found a spot to complete everybody's (nobody's) favourite fitness session THE DREADED HILL REPEATS SESSION Hills are great. They make you work hard, elevate your heart rate, build endurance and stamina and make you feel epic. It just always takes a little convincing! Group hills were completed first followed by an epic Kenyan Hill Sprint which was won by our self-named Broken Man, now named King of the Hills Nick What a way to celebrate your tenth good deed and return from injury. Bravo, King Nick.

So that's all for another week of Group Run GoodGymness. There's a community mission this Saturday at Nunsmoor Park which you can sign up for here and then we have our first school task next Monday for the group run where we will be doing a spot of painting, so don't wear your best gear for that one!

Have a great week, Anji x