This evening we completed a Community Mission in Exhibition Park. The weather wasn't the best for July but this didn't matter!

I was joined by Lucy and it was her first Community Mission. It was great to have a catch up as the last time we saw each other at GoodGym, was August 2019 and I was on crutches!

We were then joined by Louise and Dan, closely followed by Maneva and Bassam.

Please go and give Bassam a cheer, it was his first GoodGym good deed and his first visit to Newcastle! He was visiting from Jordan, preparing for University. Bassam told me that currently in Jordan, it would be very hot and about 40 degrees!

We all had a great time chatting whilst picking up litter in the park. Louise randomly found half a skateboard, Dan found another half (but didn't match) and I found someone's passport!

On a very warm night at Newcastle Eagles, six of us spent a stress-busting hour pulling up some very prickly weeds.

We were helping out at the arena where this weekend they are preparing to have their first event with fans in over a year. The car park gardens are maintained by the community foundation and its a long-time regular task of ours that we love to do.

This week's focus was an area of wild flowers that needed lots of attention and we loved catching up while pulling up lots of prickly things. It is the best squat workout you can imagine and we could really see the difference. We are back next week for one last visit before the return of group runs.

"That was a proper full-body workout!" ~ Tanya

We certainly put the "gym" into GoodGym at our visit to Ouseburn Trust today where despite the wet and cold conditions, six of us wrapped up (except Tom) and showed up to get the weekend off to a good start.

Brilliantly organised as always, task leader Dave met us with some clear tasks and tools at the ready.

Path clearing was on the agenda today and hopefully you can see from the photos what an amazing job we did in under an hour. This is an area that quickly becomes overgrown and it was definitely a battle against weeds, won!

Go and give Hazel a big cheer for her first ever GoodGym experience on such a terrible day, and to Manevasoa for her first Community Mission.

Join in with (hopefully drier) litter picking tomorrow if you can.

We met up for a beautiful evening walk last night and it was so brilliant to see real people in a group in real life after way too long.

As well as being our first fitness session since the last lockdown, it was our donation session and generous GG members brought along a stack of Easter eggs which we are donating to East End Women. These eggs will go to families who might not otherwise receive an egg.

It was brilliant to welcome two new GoodGymers: Olivia and Manevasoa as well as Katy's baby bump!

During our 3k walk we caught up on everyone's news and discussed the new changes that are coming to GoodGym Newcastle in the coming months. There is an air of optimism and it feels great. Hope to see you soon!