Last night we channelled our original GoodGym roots by combining a group run and a good deed – something that we don’t always get to do in Nottingham.

Bozena, Peter, Rosemarie and Rachel met at the Bridgeway Hall Methodist Centre to head out on a jog around the local area. It was one of those evenings when half of us were running late due to traffic and general life/work chaos, so we set off a little later than planned, but we still managed a gentle 1.15 miler led by Peter.

On return to the Bridgeway Hall, we met with Leah and first time GoodGymer Faizah and the six of us enjoyed a few stretches while we waited to start the task. At 7pm we were joined by Tom and we all headed in to meet Mark from the Meadows Foodbank who, as always, greeted us with open arms and a list of tasks that he had lined up for us.

We spent the next hour hard at work around the foodbank. Peter and Tom took on the task of sweeping and mopping all the floors in the main store area and kitchen. Rosemarie and Faizah tackled a huge pile of carrier bags, dividing them into piles based on their durability (‘bag for life’, ‘bag for a few years but not life’ (?), ‘slightly less sturdy bag’, ‘paper bag’ etc etc…).

Aided by Mark’s son, Leah squashed down a pile of cardboard to leave outside for recycling. They then moved onto packing six 2-person boxes and two children’s boxes with food and supplies. Rachel cleaned the fridges and freezers and gave the pantry area a sweep and mop.

Meanwhile, Bozena had the unique task of sorting through a pile of donated books to see which were to go on the shelf in the foodbank and which would be better donated to charity. She had a great time checking out a range of ‘classics’, including a magic book where the contents disappeared and reappeared again before our eyes!

Of course we had a group photo before we left and it was great to see so many GoodGym t-shirts on show (not always possible at this time of year when we’re all covered up). Don’t we look lovely!

Well done to Faizah for completing her first GoodGym task. It was lovely to meet you!

Thanks to Mark for hosting us once again at the Meadows Foodbank. We will make a date to come back very soon.

A stonking 9 GoodGymers turned up for what I think was one of our most unusual litter picks yet. At least in terms of finds!

It was great to see so many people 😍 Special shoutouts to Chris for completing his very first GoodGym task, to Soliane who'd just got back in from a run round the corner and popped over to join us with about 3 minutes' notice, and to Nigel for completing his 15th task.

After pairing up, we spread out across the park and filled a wholly satisfying heap of bags with litter. And not just bottlecaps, crisp packets and cigarette butts. Not by a long shot. "Weirdest Item Wins" doesn't always get that weird, but the litter louts of St Mary's Rest Garden gave us so much, I have no idea who to award the honour to. What do you think?

We had:

• A coconut with straw
• A fur coat
• A car bumper
• A road sign
• A parasol umbrella
• A Blue Peter badge (appropriately found by Peter)

Sound off in the comments with your vote!

On what was a wonderful Wednesday for Team GB in Paris, Team GG (Nottingham) were going for gold at Victoria Embankment at what proved to be one of our most challenging events yet – litter picking where there wasn’t much litter! After meeting Emily for a quick briefing, the pack split and headed off at pace, armed with litter picking batons and a determination to bag some rubbish.

It was a lovely warm bright evening (grateful that we don’t yet need our torches), although we were competing with a bit of wind which caused our bags to flap like flags. We were also thrown by all the feathers lying around the place which looked a lot like bits of rubbish. Thankfully, all our litter-picking training leading up to this event paid off and we all managed to rise to the challenge. By the end we were running rings around all those pesky cigarette butts and lolly sticks!

After 45-minutes or so, we met at the finish line for our usual closing ceremony – a chance to relay to each other what we had collected followed by a group podium photo. There were no stand-out items worthy of a gold medal on this occasion – a BBQ grill, a toy car, a silver key ring and a picnic blanket qualified in the ‘slightly exciting’ category.

For those of us who ventured down to the riverside itself, we were treated to the sight and sound of some dragon boat teams training out on the water, as well as the occasional group of paddle boarders and kayakers gliding by. Being so close to Trent Bridge, we also heard a lot of whooping and cheering from what sounded like an exciting cricket match. Oh, and a huge group of runners went by en mass(cot) – unfortunately we all had high-viz vests on so we don’t think they would have spotted our red t-shirts.

Thanks to everyone who attended for being such good sports - Serafina, Nigel, Bozena, Hannah and Vicky.

Come and join us at one of our next sessions – find out more here.

What a successful evening for our very first Starter Session! We're setting up a few of these at some of the places we've visited most over our first year, and they're designed to be extra specially friendly for people who've never come to a session before.

The weather didn't seem to know if it was coming or going, which made our run (led by Peter) particularly fun. He'd prepared lots of funky drills to get us warmed up (and garner a few odd looks from passers-by) before we split into runners and run/walkers so that everyone had a pace to suit them. Only the walkers stopped for a pic with the massive rainbow though!

After we reconvened, slightly soggy, slightly sweaty, we met up with some more GoodGymers and headed inside to find out what Mark had in store for us.

As usual, he was super- organised and had plenty of jobs to keep us busy. Peter started out breaking down cardboard, then joined Bozena and Leah sorting out donations of sheets and bedding to make them more easily identifiable and accessible on the shelves. Bozena and Leah also helped bag up the Winter Kits of socks, gloves, hats, blankets and Cup-A-Soups for the Food Bank to give out later in the year.

Meanwhile, Hannah and Jules were tasked with bagging up food parcels ready for the service users to take home – a bit like Supermarket Sweep but for a much better cause – and Rachel, Tom, Rosemarie and Vytautas were on dating donations and getting them onto the right shelves.

We had to cut off a little early as Mark needed to lock up, but we still got a huge amount done – many hands make light work, after all!