One year ago GoodGym Huddersfield launched in glorious autumnal sunshine, unfortunately such conditions were not to be repeated for our first anniversary run. The plan was to run, paint fences and playground furniture at Greenfields Children and Family Centre, eat cake, run back and celebrate with a visit to Pizza Hut. As it was things turned out slightly differently……

Heavy rain throughout the day put pay to any painting, the paint would simply be washing off quicker than we could put it on, so Plan B was swiftly enacted and seven GoodGymmers set off from the Stadium for a little impromptu litter picking along the Birkby Bradley Greenway. It was good to see Chris Green back on board after an absence of several months, along with regulars Kati Law, Louise Galvin, Ben Godfrey, Wendy Redmile, Jo Talbot and myself.

To be fair there wasn’t a huge amount of litter to be found, but 45 minutes later we had three black bags worth that would have otherwise been detracting from the pleasantness of the greenway. Then seven slightly soggy GoodGYmmers headed back to the Stadium, for the second change of the night. It turns out that Pizza Hut were having some emergency building work done and were closing early, so we end up in the pub next door. One thing that didn’t change though was cake, so with plenty of laughing and recounting highlights of GoodGym Huddersfield’s first year of doing good we did at least manage to tuck into the impressive celebration “T-shirt” cake as planned.

Thanks to everyone who braved the wet and was flexible last night, and to everyone who has supported Goodgym Huddersfield during Year 1. We look forward to much more running and doing good in Year 2.

Thanks also to Jo Talbot for the photos Kati Law for organising (and then re-organising the venue for food venue at short notice.