What a great night we had last night for the GoodGym Leeds Christmas party. We had a whooping 22 people come to celebrate Christmas & it was really wonderful to see such a lovely group of people come together.

Firstly, we met at Heart to do a quick clean of the nursery space & then everyone settled down in the nursery and I ran a sound bath for the group. I've never seen the GoodGym Leeds gang so quiet!!! Everyone relaxed to some gentle sound meditation & I really appreciated so many people coming to let me practice on them. We'll do another one in the new year :)

We then headed to the Heart bar for food, drinks & a Christmas quiz. We were also very lucky to have a group of musicians come along to entertain us all! Well done to Katie, Katie, Rachel & Kat's team who won the quiz with a fabulous 10/10 (I'll need to make it harder next year)!

It was also an opportunity to thank our wonderful task force, Helen, Jubz, Katie, Kat & Bryony (in her absence). We really appreciate everything you do for GoodGym Leeds, so thank you for everything you have done for the group this year.

Welcome to newcomer Finn & welcome back to Pik & Sudharsan who joined us for the second time. We hope to see you again soon.

Thanks all for a wonderful evening & Merry Christmas!

What great team work tonight! The group ran down to Quarry Place to meet Beth who's working on her street becoming the first Community Street project in Leeds. There's all sorts planned to get the whole street involved in horticulture and community activities.

We had 3 jobs:

Faye put flyers through the letterboxes on the street.

The outside team were building a work bench. This team had a production line going on to mark the wood, drill the holes, put screws in, hold it steady and screw it in! Good team work all & apparently Jason tossed his bits everywhere...I think that the least we know about that the better!

The inside team lined 3 planters which was actually harder than it sounds! We took 40 minutes figuring out the first one and then 12 minutes on the second & third! We got there in the end.

Thanks to Beth for allowing us in her home & welcome back to Lydia for her second session.

Sorry Jason, you need to shrink for the next team photo!

Great work all!

But all they found to eat was a cheesy sock!

Jason was the hero this week, agreeing to step in & lead the session for us. Thank you so much Jason, you can come again :)

The team did a clean of the nursery space at HEART, finding a cheesy sock along the way. They then had a run to Burley Park Station & back on a very cold evening. Well done all!

Welcome to Lydia who joined us on her first task, we hope to see you again soon. Lydia lives in Barnsley; that's a long way home for your tea :)

HEART is the flagship project of Headingley Development Trust (HDT) and represents the culmination of a five-year dream to keep a much loved old primary school building in community use. Opening its doors in January 2011, HEART occupies the former Headingley Primary School, which was refurbished and extended to provide the community facilities which exist today.

HEART was conceived and developed by local residents, who wanted to keep the old school buildings in community use as a hub where local residents could meet and participate in a range of activities, even start up a business.

It is a genuine community business which operates without any grant support for its running costs, so GoodGym Leeds are always happy to support them where we can.

Festive jokes & crafts were enough to get us into the (very early) Christmas spirit tonight!! The group met at Heart & our resident run leader, Helen took the group on a 4.5K run. We then headed back to the cafe at Heart, got a drink & got to work for a CAMHS Christmas craft project. We were cutting up Christmas wrapping paper & writing Christmas jokes on the back, so that the children and young people in the CAMHS units can make them into paper chains. This was a lovely task & we managed to make a respectable 200 of the strips, which will all be heading to Bath where they will distribute them across the country.

Jason helpfully came up with the pun tonight, although we amended it slightly :) :)

Welcome to Emily on her first session with GoodGym Leeds. We hope to see you again soon.

Tonight 12 GoodGymers ran from Heart down to Left Bank to finish what we started in summer with painting the picnic benches. It was a little darker than last time we did it, but we managed with the help of a portable light supplied by Left Bank.

Adam thought his team had finished but the perfectionist in me thought otherwise, so they went back & finished the job...sorry Adam!

After painting, we finished off with a beer at the bar. Left Bank always look after us :)

Thanks so much to Helen for another great run. I know we moan about the hills, but we appreciate your effort!

Welcome to Guy who joined us tonight for his first session. We hope to see you again soon!