On a very cold, wet Wednesday evening, the GoodGym crew ran from Heart up to Woodhouse Community Centre. We were tasked with dismantling some raised beds & moving soil & leaves from one bed to another. Shannen and I even managed to do a little litter picking.
It was freezing cold but we got a lot done between us all and it was nice to do something at a different location.
Well done to Helen for leading the run after doing 10 miles today plus a yoga class...you're a legend! Katie told us about her very exciting trip to the Palace last Wednesday, where she was hobnobbing with the King! How exciting! Welcome back to Elspeth who joined us for her second session, we hope to see you again soon.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone.

Tonight, 10 GoodGymers ran a 5K round trip to Hartley Park to litter pick. We'd started the job on Saturday when we filled 5 bags of rubbish & tonight we filled 13 bags. We really made a huge difference to the park & I think the residents will notice a big change tomorrow. It just shows what a difference GoodGym cam make in such a short period of time.

The highlight was meeting a ferret who was out on his nightly walk...yes, really!

Welcome to newcomers Umair & Brandon, we hope to see you again soon.

Thanks to Jason for driving the kit to the task & to Helen for another great run. I know we moan about the hills but we do appreciate them really (honest)!

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.