Tonight a great group of GoodGymers ran to help Common Thread, a group who promote ethical fashion through clothes exchanges. They are made up of sharers and repairers who enable the swapping of clothes.

Upon arrival at their base on the corner of Union Street and Charles Street we were met by Jess and her team of other volunteers. We had a brief introduction to the project and then she outlined what tasks there were for us to get stuck into. The two main jobs for the evening were making signs and placards promoting reducing, reusing and recycling clothing, and piecing together old clothing rails, discarding the dud ones.

James and Rachel took on the job of rail assembly, delving into the depths of the building via a rickety old lift to search out hidden iron. The railing components were taking outside of the building to allow room for construction. Most of the rails were complete and functioning- each component of a full set was marked with a symbol so that if parts got muddled up in future, the correct bits could be easily located. The sets were then tied together with old bike inner tubes, a great bit of 're-cycling'!

Meanwhile, everyone else was making signs promoting the ethos of the initiative with various puns- right up our street! There was a list of phrases to be painted on to old bits of cardboard box pieces. We have some very creative, talented artists in GoodGym Sheff it seems.

After all was said and done, we said our goodbyes and headed off for some box-jumping activity in Pinball Park.

A short but sweet run for last nights task as we headed just around the corner from our home of The Showroom Cinema to Union Street which is the home of our friends Common Thread.

We met Jess & Fran on site who got us straight onto task initially sorting some clothes into bags for their next upcoming clothes swap or for the charity shop.

Whilst this was ongoing some of us prepped for the main task of the evening which was to take an audit of the clothes rails that are used regularly at the clothes exchange events. When put away the rails can loose their sets and/or become damaged which can cause issue on the event day if complete sound sets can't be found.

We got the rails up to check they were stable and added Washi tape to the pieces to ensure all of the correct bits could be easily identified. We also added the date as a mark of when they were last checked.

It was a great job, really well managed by Jess & Fran.

At the end we were even offered some food by star chef Ben, which we were very thankful for!

Until next time, happy running!

Tonight’s task was with the lovely people from Common Thread who collect clothes donations ahead of a monthly clothes swap, a very sustainable way of changing yiur wardrobe! After a cheeky short firness session in Pound park, the GoodGym crew - made up of Rachel, Yvette, Celine and Matthew - joined Sarah, Nick, Emily and Ollie from Common Thread to sort through baby, children and teens clothes by age; as a challenge, Sarah asked us to identify clothes we wish were in adult size!

We then moved on to adult clothes and well, we had to try some on! We then boxed the sorted clothes ahead of next month’s clothes swap; do attend, it will be on Saturday 12th April (1 - 3pm); full details on Common Thread Facebook page.

There will be more volunteering opportunities to set up and sort on Friday 11/4 evening & Saturday morning as well as to help pack down on Saturday 2-6pm. I’m reliably told volunteers get first choice on clothes! I even took a lovely pink top - the tiger top sadly only came in size 5 years old!

This has got to be the first, but hopefully not the last GG task where we have had pizza cooked for us on arrival!

The legend that is Jess Dawson, mastermind behind Common Thread despite having very little sleep after a missed flight connection was still flying in top form giving us the low down on clothes sorting in preparation for the next Common Thread event.

Common Thread clothes exchanges happen regularly and encourage people to avoid the fast fashion and instead swap their clothes with others to better serve each others wardrobes and wares. A fantastic idea, which should be done in more places.

There was plenty to sort, from shoes, to accessories and clothes for all occasions, shapes, sizes and colors!

We got through a lot of bags in our time at Union St which is the venue that hosts Common Thread.

We'll be back again for more next month.

Until next time, happy running! :)

It was fantastic to welcome two new goodgym runners tonight, a big welcome to:

Amy Lucy

Please do give them a follow and a cheer!

This week saw us head up to Union Street Cafe to help out the fantastic organisation that is Common Thread who do fantastic work saving clothes from landfill and encouraging sustainable fashion through clothes swaps and exchanges.

We got stuck straight in as soon as we arrived after a brief brief from Jess the boss.

The tasks tonight were to dress the mannequins with Fran and take photos to help market the clothes exchange, or help sort bags or to make signs ready for the next upcoming clothes exchange.

Everyone got stuck straight in and the results speak for themselves in the photos!

Until next week, happy running! :)

It was time to visit Jess at Common Thread again tonight to help with the fantastic clothes swap sorting for this fantastic idea for an event.

We welcomed back some faces we've not seen for a little while in Katie & Becca and even had a post rehersal future acting star Annie join us later in the task.

We got through a load of donated bags of clothes and sorted them into catagories so that when the next clothes exchange takes place in Jan there will be plenty of sorted stock to go around!

Until next year now, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and Happy Running! :)