I joined Andrea and Maria from SIFA to help with the weekend cleaning services. As volunteers in the week are so busy serving clients, these shifts to keep everything spick and span for people who use the drop-in service are really valuable.

Today, the priorities were mopping the huge floor space in the main social area and giving the kitchen a refresh. Maria took on that mammoth mopping task while I assessed what needed doing in the kitchen.

I became slightly obsessed with the cooker, which was looking worthy of some TLC! I raided the cloth drawer and found all sorts of good scourers and sponges to tackle lots of greasy stains and splashes around the hobs, back wall and doors. It took a lot of elbow grease and sometimes it was tricky to reach the tougher grimey bits, but it looked so nice and shiny afterwards so the graft was worth it!

Many apologies for not getting any photos (I promise I did clean the cooker!) - it was a busy shift being Andrea’s last one with SIFA, so in between my scrubbing I was doing lots of farewell chatting!

Worth giving Andrea a massive shoutout - she has managed the volunteers at weekends for 7 years. Since the breakfast time client-facing volunteer shifts ended when the weekend services were sadly cut due to funding a few years ago, Andrea has been amazing at engaging a team of cleaning volunteers on fortnightly Saturdays and reminding us what an impact our work ‘backstage’ has for the homeless community in Birmingham.

Watch this space for upcoming opportunities to help at SIFA and keep the drop-in feeling really lovely for the clients who use it.

The first virtual Community Mission in Birmingham saw Ben and I supporting two of the groups we have worked with for a long time. I used the Spareable app to donate food to the Birmingham Central Foodbank. Ben used the Amazon Wishlist set up by SIFA Fireside to donate some much needed items to support their work with homeless people in Birmingham.

Hooray! It was the first dry GoodGym Brum of 2020! Yep, slightly cold, but none of the wet stuff!

Tonight we welcomed Cherry and Andy from the recently started GG Warwick. It was great to meet you both and I hope you enjoyed the run. Fiona did the back marker job and we got going armed with oranges and bananas. We also had cards detailing SIFA Fireside’s facilities to give out to the homeless. We ran around the city centre, giving out our goodies and having a chat with the homeless.

Once we were literally ‘fruitless’ we headed to St Paul’s Square for a circuit workout. The group started off with press ups on the benches, Ben doing a great job. Next was squat jumps, Cherry showed some great form. Next was high knees running, Andy putting in a great knee drive, then finally it was some heart racing tuck jumps, Rahul put in some great effort on these. Then that wasn’t quite it, the group finished off with the leg trembling wall squat, for a whole 75 seconds!

Thankfully after all that there was only a few minutes of running to do back to 1000 Trades.

Next week we will be out doing good again, it would be great if you could join us sign up here.

Tonight was the last GG Brum of 2019, welcomes Ben for the first time on an extremely cold night.

Tonight’s do good bit was giving out cereal bars, bananas and mince pies to the homeless, hence this weeks pun! We ran around the city centre, splitting into two groups. All our goods were handed out along with some information about SIFA Fireside and how they could help them.

Once our good deed was done we headed back together to 1000 Trades, before heading to the German Market for steiner’s and mulled wine. That’s it for 2019, thank you for all who got involved and I look forward to seeing you all in January :-)

Tonight we were a little thin on the ground, most likely due to train issues, but don’t worry we still had six very keen GoodGymer’s good to go! To make things even more exciting we had a journalist from the Birmingham Mail, who was ready to interview a few of our troops!

Once all the media stuff was done we headed out into the cold, most of us wearing our winter kit, apart from Liam who was just in his shorts and t-shirt and he’s not even from the north! We headed on our way with a bunch of oranges kindly donated by Chloe.

The group ran around the city with the oranges and giving out details of SIFA Fireside too the homeless. We did a nice circular route taking us back towards Colmore Row. Once done Liam took the reins taking us a slightly different route back, via the back of the Jewellery Quarter and onto 1000 Trades. That was a nice just over 5k completed for the evening.

Next week we will be out doing good again, it would be great if you could join us sign up here.

On a near on perfect night for running, we welcomed Gwen to GG for the first time, it’s great to have you with us!

Tonight’s task was running around the city centre handing out fruit and information cards for SIFA Fireside. We quickly used up our fruit, hence this weeks pun! But carried on giving out plenty of cards.

Once done, we headed to St Paul’s square for a circuit workout. It started with press ups, followed by some high knees running. Next we went onto the grass for the first time this summer and did some core stuff. Starting with superman’s, Tom showed a very stable core. Next it was the plank, Laura and Liam showing good core strength. Next it was a back extension, a fantastic exercise to improve posture. Fiona worked well on this one, it really is a tough exercise, considering you move very little. Last of all was the wall squats. Two sets of 45 seconds, with just 15 seconds recovery, a right killer! Morwenna held it in perfect position and Tatiana and Gwen, gritted their teeth together to hold it for the whole duration. Then one very last thing was added, two sets of tuck jumps! 20 seconds effort with 10 seconds recovery. Two sets was the task, but much to Rob’s disgust of course I added a 3rd ;-) And that was the end! It was tiring writing all that never mind doing it!

Oh yes of course, well we were virtually done, we still had a short run back to 1000 Trades, then that was definitely it!

Next week we will be out doing good again, it would be great if you could join us sign up here.