Two GoodGymers met at The Biscuit Factory for a calm but productive task: writing 100 gift cards for Connect Reading. Armed with pens, a cold drink, and steady handwriting, we worked through the stack one by one, adding the gift requests for the giving tree.

It was a simple session, but a meaningful one each card will help make someone’s festive season as it represents a gift they want and thanks to the giving tree will be getting this christmas .

A small team, a big stack, and a good cause!

Let’s Lift The Curfew launched in 2023 to showcase women’s stories and concerns around getting active outdoors in the darker months when the clocks go back, as well as calling on wider society to acknowledge their role in making getting active outdoors safer for women.

On Monday evening, four GoodGymers met to run 5km, including Zelia for her first GoodGym experience! Now the clocks have changed it was very dark from the start of the run, and we took a route that went through some unlit areas. None of us would have taken that route by ourselves, so it was great to run together!

There's lots that all runners can do when running in the dark - wearing light colours, wearing high vis/reflective items and most importantly, having a light! Safer for you, safer for other runners and safer for traffic to see you too!

We hope to do some more group runs in Reading soon, watch this space!

What a fulfilling mission! Sprucing up an office to ensure it was a welcoming and professional environment for families needing educational and legal support was a worthwhile cause for a Saturday morning.

We sanded the walls, taped window sills and edges and proceeded to paint the entire office, with the help of Harry and Alex from the facilities team. The community centre will now do a deep clean and refurnish the room, continuing to provide a modern and warm environment for families and professionals going forward.

Going from white walls to very light grey make not look like a big change, but it certainly felt much fresher afterwards!

We went to New Beginnings on Saturday morning, while the breakfast service was on, to help with sorting the harvest donations received from local schools and businesses.

We got to work taking crates and bags out of the pantry, and restocking some of the existing stock to make more space for the new items.

In just under two hours, including a pause for a mug of tea, we managed to get everything put away, and most of the existing stock tidied up.

We're back again the last Saturday in November, and will probably be tackling the clothing cupboard!

Across Reading and Caversham, I posted GoodGym flyers on community noticeboards in shops, resturants and on the high street and also dropped into Reading Bike Hub to drop a stack of flyers, to see how they were getting on and chat about dates for future tasks. Watch this space!

We went to Whitley Growallot on a sunny Sunday afternoon to help them with some preparations for growing food for next year!

There is so much to be done on the allotment all year round to be able to grow food for the community, so today we were tasked with clearing one of the large triangular beds to give a head start for next year's planting.

There were some onions to be harvest, and garlic to be saved for replanting, but all the weeds needed to go!

After almost two hours of work, we were able to cover the bed with cardboard and tarp to hopefully make sure the weeds stay away over the winter, so the bed will be easier to plant into in the new year.

With lots to be done, we'll be back again soon, to help at this great community asset!