Another prepared more than 140 meals, 140 desserts, and drinks today for a Christmas lunch. The atmosphere was full of love, joy, and happiness as we spent this special time with the elderly residents at Futures House 🎄❤️.

It was a beautiful day, and we enjoyed it very much. Abdulrahman

The team assembled early to decorate the hall, lay the tables and help cook Christmas Dinner. When the guests arrived they were then even busier making sure people had drinks and serving the food for the three course meal. As the entertainment started they made sure the tables were cleared and and the washing up was done. And finally, as the last guest left, they packed up the hall, took down the decorations and took all the rubbish out to the dust bins. it was a long day day and our hard work was really appreciated by the guests and organisers. Well done team.

We had a large team of GoodGymers out on Friday evening for a mammoth vegetable pealing task. When we arrived at Hockwell Community Centre there were sacks of potatoes, large next of sprouts, huge bags of parsnips, carrots and a lot of leeks. And so our task began. We donned our festive hats, and Gill soon had some festive tunes playing through her speaker.

Lots of us got stuck into the carrots and parsnips, while Danny and Mohammed were tasked with a large bag of sprouts. But these were the tiniest of sprouts and they soon tired of this fiddly task, and joined the rest of the team, rooting out the root vegetables. Gill provided some well desrved chocolates and it was great to wish Zainab a happy birthday - what a way to spend your birthday prepping veg for 120 people!

It didn't take us too long, but Vera, the task owner was clearly worried that the sprouts wouldn't get done, and Gill suddenly burst into song to get Danny back on the task, "Oh Danny boy, the sprouts, the sprouts are calling, From over there, please do them and don't hide!". Danny thought this was very amusing to have a song named after him, as he hadn't heard this classic before. And fortunately it was enough to get him re-started on the sprout marathon, and we all joined in to ensure we got them all "crossed off" the list.

Tonight's task was obviously very appealing as we had a great team at the Chaul End Community Centre, all set to do battle with 4 sacks of potatoes, 10 bags of carrots, 5 bags of parsnips, and a mountain of sprouts. With vegetable peelers and paring knives in hand, we set about peeling just about everything i sight, and with such a big team it didn't take us too long before everything was peeled, carrots were chopped, potatoes cut up for roasting and the parsnips and sprouts put ready for cooking. Tomorrow the veg will be cooked up for a Christmas meal for around 100 senior citizens. We really hope they enjoy their meal, they certainly won't be going hungry.

The destination for this week's group run was the Shri Guru Ravidass Gurdwara, only a few hundred metres from our start point, so we took the runners on a small loop out to Brantwood park for a quick lap of the park to add some distance before returning to the Gurdwara.

On arrival, we split up to tackle a deep clean of the common areas of the temple and the kitchen. With about 40 minutes of scrubbing, mopping, wiping and vaccuming we put the freshness back to the prayer room, the dining hall and the kitchen.

Heading back out into the night after a task well done, we squeezed in another short run through the town centre to enjoy the Christmas lights and festive atmosphere before heading home.