James and Linda found themselves unexpectedly free on a Monday evening, Storm Bert had done its thing swirling up litter and the weather was now calm and unusually mild so we decided to get out there and clear some of it up. A short while later we had two bags of rubbish, a dodgy gas canister and a possible new GG recruit. Half an hour well spent.

We arrived got our bibs and picked up our spade and looked for people to put us to work. They told us the correct way to plant a tree:
- find a suitable space and get rid of the grass.
- dig a hole and put in the tree.
- compact the soil but make sure there is no dip, to prevent rot from water logging.
- then put mulch around the tree, 3/4 of a wheelbarrow into a flat donut shape.

It turned out spading mulch into a wheelbarrow was a slow process, too many people needing mulch, I took over, got a good workout from it.

Lunch was provided as a chickpea curry with rice and salad, and refreshments as well. Work continued afterwards and we finished around 3pm

This was GGs third visit to the Frenford Food Bank this week.

Lack of sign ups meant a shout went out to the group chat and thankfully, some members had been available during the day for a separate session and James was able to attend this one after work. His arrival coupled with some unsuspecting Frenford parents (diverted by the task owner to "volunteer" ) brought fresh energy to the session leaving Linda free to deal with the drivers and stock up on short items.

James and Linda stayed on to make sure the advent calendars were allocated to the families with children.

As always the job gets done with profound thanks being passed on from the task owner.

Not sure how or why but we went from 5 GoodGym volunteers for the evening session at Frenford Foodbank to 1 😳. A little shout out for help revealed a couple of members (retired and but not keen on going out at night) were available during the day so an extra daytime session was born. Along with them and another non-member we managed to get most of the supermarket delivery shelved up and 20 packages parceled ahead of time. This eased up the pressure on the evening session. The task owner has thanks us for our efforts. Never underestimate Grey Power 💪🏻.

The little problem of the supermarket cancelling Frenford FoodBank’s order didn’t stop us doing good things today.

While the task owner shot off to sort it out we off-loaded the Scouts donations, un-bagged a couple of non-collections, tidied up the odds and ends shelf and re-stacked biscuit mountain before it avalanched.

We couldn’t help but dance along to catchy music coming from the dance studio definitely ‘doing good while keeping fit’ going on at this session.

Whilst waiting for the task owner to report back we had a cheeky little break with a chatty catch-up, cup of tea and usual stale biscuit in honour of our AJ’s Birthday today.

Sadly it wasn't possible to get the supermarket delivery in before the end of the session but we still got quite a bit done.

After a few hiccups & delays it was finally coming together - Adams back has healed up enough to restart some sorting sessions!

So 6 Goodgymmers made their way to the Cornerstone Church, to find Adam sensibly employed a few helpers to get things ready for us, with the kids staying behind livening up the place with their energy.

As if there was no gap, the crew smoothly resumed the routine with James kindly explaining the details to Sabinah for whom it was the first time at the babybank.

Conversation flowed throughout so once again all bags got sorted before we even really noticed. Packing up didn't take too long either, leaving time for some more stories before saying our goodbyes to Adam and went out into the night.