I have been walking past the local SuDS (Sustainable Drainage System) on recent walks to get to my 10,000 steps a day it and realised they were covered in rubbish and would be a great place for a litter pick. The area is at the end of a road in the windy weather household bins have been knocked over and rubbish/recycling blown down into and around the SuDS.

So I set off down the wagon way on my lunch break and quickly managed to fill a bag with bulky rubbish like cans, plastic and cardboard. It was frustrating that I only managed to do litter pick at most a quarter of the area before the bag was over flowing and heavy. But it was nice to see the dent I had made and I will be back to continue.

While precariously carrying the stuffed bag back along the wagon way to put in my bin a guy from the local council who was cutting an tree said I could put the rubbish bag on his flatbed van and even offered me another bin big for next time!

I will be back!

Met up with Pippa and David for an impromptu litter pick on the beach in South Shields. I cycled over to North Shields and might have slipped over slightly on ice on the last half a mile! We got the ferry across the Tyne and timed in perfectly to get right on the ferry despite worrying we were going to have to rush and slip over.

We managed to collect a large amount of little peices of plastic from the beach and a surprising number of tampon applicators!

Finished of the trip with a nice blood orange cider by a roaring fire in pub. A good deed and a great day!

Week one completely of the GoodGym Newcastle litter pick relay. It was also my 350th good deed.

Due to the recent bad weather many wheeley bins had been blown over in the last few weeks so there was loads of rubbish by the wagons ways near my house. It didn't take me long to fill a black bag.

It was mostly cans and crisp packets which sparkled the in the light of my head torch. The most interesting thing was the interesting shaped ice which had formed in crisp packets.

It has been a will they / won’t they sort of day as the weather has bounced between a little bit sunny (for approx 5 mins) to heavy hail, gale force winds and the ever present rain. I thought about cancelling the session about 20 times but knowing the hardy duo of Aimee and Lucy would be coming along I kept calm and carried on.

Tonight was our first group session of 2025 and finally my 300th good deed. Yippee! Fond of the fuss, I was delighted when Lucy arrived with a special banner for me to celebrate the occasion that seems to have been a very long time coming.. almost seven years in fact! Thanks Lucy.

To keep things simple and to keep the thread going of our January litter pick relay, we were heading out into freezing cold Newcastle to do battle with some rubbish around Leazes Park. It was lovely to catch up after our Christmas break and talk about what everyone has been up to, as well as plans for the year ahead. A very simple task made slightly challenging by the wind but before long we’d collected two bags of rubbish and we could definitely have carried on. Sadly the perimeter of Leazes Park is a bit of a litter trap so we will definitely be back.

A brisk walk back to base was the best I could offer for a fitness session tonight but as ever we headed home with a warm glow at staring our week so positively.

We’ve got a bonus group session this Saturday at Stepney Bank Stables. This is the perfect session for beginners so please share with anyone you think would be up for giving us a go in 2025. All the info is here.

Three GoodGymers braved freezing weather to leaflet for FoodCycle. Unfortunately when we shared out the leaflets it transpired that only the top five were the general volenteering leaflets and the rest were London specific. Not wanting to confuse the general public by posting the London centric ones we decided to ask the Staiths Cafe to put a leaflet in their window and then litter pick instead as Paula had a litter picker and hoop with her (also thanks to Paula for the pun).

We had a nice walk along the river by the Dunston staiths picking up mostly bottles and food containers. We also made a cute dog friend and a couple of children saw we were litter picking and brought over some litter they had found. Then we get to under the staiths itself where I jumped down and passed litter up to the others. We also found down there a very dirty boxers and some filthy graffiti!

We might not have succeeded in the leafleting but we felt like we made a difference with the litter pick. Look out for a future community mission once we hopefully acquire the correct leaflets!

Day 2 of the GoodGym Newcastle litter pick relay and I took from the baton from Paula.

I set off toward the wagon ways near my house but never actually made it as a near by patch of grass had more than enough rubbish to fill a bag. The only problem was pulling myself way once my bag was over flowing!

It was great to have a reason to get outside in the winter sun (although the ground and litter was frozen) and help out my in my local area!

Handing over to Angela tomorrow.

It was two days in a row of GoodGym tasks for Aimee, Richard and me, as we joined our friends at the East End Women’s food bank for the second Tuesday in a row.

Once again, our task was to check the contents of the food parcels that had been made up, add in any missing items and stack the crates ready for the drivers to collect and deliver. We quickly developed a system with someone reading the list, someone checking the parcels and the other person running to collect any missing items from the stock. We quickly discovered that Richard was by far the best driver of the loaded trolley as we moved the packed and checked crates from the store room into the hallway!

It’s tragic that there are so many people who can’t afford to feed themselves and their families at Christmas, but it’s good to know that we were helping just a tiny bit, so that people in our community can eat this Christmas, and even have a little treat of a mince pie and Christmas pudding. It’s not a lot to ask for.

This was GoodGym Newcastle's last task of 2024! We wish everyone a peaceful holiday period, and health and happiness for 2025!