With the festive season wrapped up, our GoodGym team braved the freezing temperatures for a special mission to help a supported living home return to its usual safe and comfortable environment after the holidays.

After a brisk 3.7km run, we arrived at the home, where we were warmly welcomed and got straight to work. Our mission: clear away all traces of Christmas cheer (until next Christmas of course!).

We divided into task teams and got stuck in. Anna, Emily, Raquel, Claire, Jade, Emma, Maliyana and Hazel took down the window decorations, with Christmas shapes carefully removed, packed away, and saved for next Christmas’ celebrations. Once the windows were decoration-free, we gave them a good clean to let the winter light back in. And Luke gave the window sills a good clean too.

Next up was the Christmas tree, which was carefully taken down, by Jana, Anna and Ken, with all baubles, tinsel, and lights stored away safely, ready for another magical display next time. Outside, Martel, Luke and Ken tackled the outdoor Christmas lights, ensuring they were taken down safely and stored properly.

With everything packed away and the home back to its regular setup, the residents can now continue life safely following the festive period. And what better way to celebrate a job well done than with some well-deserved Haribo sweets all around?

It was hard to go back out into the cold and run back but we were energised by the community spirit aspect to the task. We promised we’d be back in December to put them all back up again!

Tonight we had our annual visit to SeeAbility to help bring some Christmas cheer to this supported living home. After a slightly longer run from the Quaker Centre, we arrived to a welcome from Martel who introduced everyone to the residents. With our Santa hats on we were ready to get started.

Luke, Marcos, Sabir and Petra headed outside to carefully put up the fairy lights around the house. Claire and Julie got started with the Christmas tree. It was a bit tricky to find the right parts in the right order, but we had some great help from the residents putting on the baubles and tinsel. Anna, Jana, Ben, Jane and Rachel got their creative juices flowing and put up the window stickers showing some beautiful festive scenes.

Fuelled by some tasty mince pies (thank you Martel), we soon had the house decorated and full of festive cheer, with a few minutes left for a quick dance around the newly decorated Christmas tree. Then it was off to The Antelope to enjoy some Christmas food and drinks.

Wizzard wished it could be Christmas every day but unfortunately for frontman Roy Wood, it hasn’t happened just yet.

What went up had to come down at SeeAbility’s assisted living centre in Surbiton. Unfortunately, gale force winds left a few intended GG members stranded at Waterloo but after a punchy-length run for a January pipe-opener, we had a team good to go.

Dave and Tom were relieved the storm had calmed down so they could get up the ladder and remove the Christmas lights from the outside of the building. Meanwhile, Rachel, Jade, Julie, Petra, Claire, Ally and GG legend Martel got to work taking down decorations and cleaning the windows.

SeeAbility is a rewarding place to visit. Its young residents are dealing with difficulties but both they, and the charming staff, were delighted to see us.

We brought some colour to the bright room at the back by making several displays with stickers of birds and butterflies on the windows, restoring some cheer without Christmas.

Welcome to Ally on her first GoodGym task! Lovely to meet you and hope to see you again soon.

As ‘tis the season of traditions, we relished the opportunity to uphold one of ours with one of the Kingston Goodgym group’s favourite festive group run task! Tuesday evening’s good deed done was in support of our local SeeAbility residential home for adults with disabilities. The task was a fabulously festive one as we were called upon to spruce things up, ‘dec their halls’, (and dining room) and string outdoor lights to add some Christmas cheer to the home.

Three eager volunteers braved the elements outside to take on the hanging of the Christmas lights along the eaves of the home. Some reached new heights while others held the ladder. No need for Sabir to hold on for deer life as he was supported by both Dave and Rob providing safety and moral support at the bottom of the ladder. There were Christmas tunes being played as Rob took on the role of Rudolf to light the way with his large torch to guide them.

Meanwhile the rest of the team had snow easy task of displaying the large window decals - a beautiful winter scene with reindeer, baubles and snowflakes. They got their nails into it which were needed to remove the birds and butterflies to replace them by peeling and sticking the snowflakes and winter wonderland elements.

The tree was then assembled and decorated just in time for the team to reunite in the lounge to admire our handy work and celebrate with a bit of dancing to ‘Rocking Around the Christmas Tree’.

It was so lovely to return to support this fabulous home with Goodgym Kingston members young, old and new! Juniper was a very popular Goodgym baby on this task and her supervision of the activities was very helpful too!

We celebrated our task by heading to the Albion for a Christmas celebration with a not so savage gift exchange of secret Santa! It is now beginning to look a lot more like Christmas for the residents of the SeeAbility home and it’s feeling more and more Christmassy for Goodgym Kingston with every Christmas task we do! We hope to see you joining us on the next one!

The start of the New Year means that all things festive have to be packed up and put away so it was time for us to revisit Seeability to remove the decorations that we had put up a few weeks before. The residents had a lovely time admiring the lights and it was sad to put them away but it had to be done.

Claire, Jade and I were put to task in the kitchen removing all the window decals. Sadly, I had just clipped my nails so it wasn't as easy as it should be but that didn't stop us determined deers. Jorge, Dave and Rob were tasked to take down the lights and they set out the front with the ladder. It rained pretty consistently but that didn't stop their enthusiasm for the task.

It didn't take long and within 40 minutes we were pretty much finished. The last job was to remove the Oh, oh, oh's from the glass door (or should that be the Ho, ho, ho's?!)

See you soon, Seeability! We'll be back to help when the nights get lighter.

Our Group Run this week took us to Seeability, a residential home supporting people with learning disabilities and autism, to put up their Christmas decorations. We always have a lovely time here and this year was no different. We had a great time - it was tree-mendous! Rob encouraged us all to don our Christmas attire, and no wonder... he had the best costume - a Christmas tree with matching hat. It survived the 3 km run there and was a handy layer for Rob as he was outside with Jorge and Dave putting up the lights round the windows.

Jo, Claire, Jassy and Petra tackled the large window decals - a beautiful winter scene with reindeer, baubles and snowflakes. The creative talent was on point and the stickers were arranged with precision. The hardest part was working out the several sections of the reindeer and figuring out whether his head was section F or N... Fortunately our brightest minds were on the case.

Samantha and Jane, and later Rob, built the tree in the lounge where the residents were watching Wednesday on the telly and giving us moral support. Rachel spent a good few minutes unravelling two sets of window lights before working with Martel to fix them up with copious amounts of sellotape.

Upstairs Sevan and Sabir were tasked with making a desk and all was going well but Sevan ran out of time and went on his way. Samantha, Dave and Jorge stepped up to help Sabir and crack on with the desks in the short amount of time we had left to complete the task. The drawers were all made and the main section of the desk so that saved the Seeabilty staff many man hours. Well done team! Job at Ikea, surely?!

Great fun and a task that really benefitted the residents, staff and visitors of Seeability. So Christmassy that Santa will surely find his way there with all the lights to guide him.

We celebrated our task by heading to the Albion for a Christmas celebration. Kate joined us for a Christmas pint and a plate of nachos. Merry Christmas, everyone!