Another busy evening at FoodCycle and well done to the team from GoodGym who helped make it happen.

Gill had been on food collection and between her and hubby Tim they collected an amazing array of food, and with what the church had left us there was too much to choose from.

Martin and Gill joined the cooking team and were soon steaming up the kitchen as pans of soup, a vat of chilli, and fruit compôte were bubbling away on the stove. The meal was also complimented with a fresh salad, and baked potato and finished off with a bread and butter pudding.

Once again Omar, Shady and Moamal were on hand to set up the room and serve the guests. Shady and Gill got an upper body work out in as they loaded Gill's car with crates for her to return to the supermarket while Omar got stuck into a sink full of soapy. water to clean the dishes.

There were lots of happy guests, and many complimented the volunteers on such a nice meal and pleasant venue. mAnd they all got to take home two bags of produce from the food left over.

Well done Team.

And especially well done toMoamal who has helped at FoodCycle a few times now, but has never signed up as a GoodGymer.

Come rain or shine, the cafe will always be opened for all age groups.

Oranges weren't the only fruit we unpacked at St Luke's Church today, but that's only if you count the mini boxes of raisins as fruit. This was all part of the packs were putting together ready for the forthcoming Christingle celebration. Martin and Gill were keen to make a good impression as this was the first task we have done with St Luke's, so they both arrived nice and early and were soon unpacking Linda's boot and laying out the items to create a Christingle production line. Efficient as ever, it didn't take them long to walk up and sown the lune and get 100 bags packed, crated and stored ready for the event. In fact their super efficiency meant that the task had been competed before Omar arrived to help. Linda at St Luke's was amazed at how quickly we had competed the task and we hope that this will be a start of a new GoodGym partnership.

A snap of cold weather brought snow to Luton this week and caused our group run to be a frosty one.

The hardiest runners came out for this weeks group run to Penrose roots, where Pete had a bramble and weed clearing task for us. We ran hard and fast to keep warm and then worked hard chopping away at the weeds and raking the cuttings up into a big pile.

Breath making large clouds in the icy air we kept on going until the area was clear and then quickly took some photos and ran on into the cold night. It was not one for hanging around outside!

Pressing hard on the return journey too, we managed to keep the cold at bay long enough to make it back into town and bid each other goodnight, with very welcome hot showers waiting for us!

It was a chilly night, but this didn't deter three of our GoodGym regulars, who were on hand to support at FoodCycle.

Gill did a. double wammy as she was asked to help with the surplus collection at Sainsbury's as the volunteer on collection duty hadn't anticipated the crates and crates of bananas and other produce they had for us.

Back at the church, having unpacked the produced she was joined by Martin and the others in the kitchen team and were soon chopping mixing and cooking up a storm. Gill was on pudding duty and with some help from Martin soon whipped up 4 delicious banana upside down cakes.

Martin was also helping with chopping the peppers and other veg for the baked rice main course and helping with the soup. He always cuts a dash, but in his super stylised blue hair net, who could fail to admire his style and flair. :-)

Omar was soon in the hall and started setting up and was great at serving guests and washing and clearing up.

We think we served over 50 guests and no one went home empty handed or with an empty tummy.

Another great meal served, and GoodGym's help is always much appreciated.

Foodcycle were in need of a volunteer to do the laundry again this week. There was a large load of aprons and tee towels that needed collecting. Unfortunately the weather has been grim today so I had to hang them inside to dry before ironing them and packing them up ready to deliver to FoodCycle tomorrow.