Festival of Hobbies - GoodGym
Have you heard of GoodGym? They are a national organisation but they have a very active group in Sheffield. I’ve recently joined them to go for a run on Monday evenings from the Showroom Cinema to a local ‘task’ - I’ve done bulb planting with Gareth at Regather and path clearing with Sustrans on Archer Road so far. It’s been a lovely experience, and I asked if someone (who’s been doing it more regularly!) might tell share a bit about their GoodGym hobby in our Festival of Hobbies. Linda Cairns generously agreed.
Hi Linda, please tell us a little about you and what you do outside of your hobby.
Sum up: I’m a slow runner, prolific organiser and volunteer champion!
I recently retired from my full-time role as Event Lead for Active Surrey and my husband and I moved to be near to the Peak District. I love the big outdoors. I’m a keen mountain biker and I ride with the Café Adventure women’s group and I compete in mountain bike orienteering. Although I’ve stopped my full-time job, I haven’t stopped organising sports events: I write funding bids for the Triathlon Trust charity which “changes children’s lives through Triathlon”; I’m setting up a junior parkrun in Hillsborough and I’m the volunteer manager for the Keswick Mountain Festival.
I know you have agreed to tell us a bit about GoodGym - please can you say a bit about it and how you got into it?
GoodGym is a national organisation with running groups in different cities for people who want to run with a purpose. I’d been aware of GoodGym but I didn’t really imagine it was for me. When I moved north, I decided to try out new things as a way of integrating and making friends. I described my first experience in my blog post here
What do you love about your hobby?
I’ve improved my running fitness; I’m getting to know what goes on in Sheffield and I’ve made lots of new, and really interesting friends; and together we’ve done some good stuff to support local community organisations. The stuff we’ve done are pretty easy tasks like tree planting and marshalling, but these things are fun when you do them as a team.
For example last week we were helping at the Heeley People’s Park. They had hired in a professional wood-chipping service for the day and needed muscle power to drag all the felled and pruned wood from around the park. After a good workout in the sunshine we had cleared the site and left behind a huge pile of woodchip and we felt good about doing something to help this wonderful community park.
Here is the GoodGym run report
What does your GoodGym hobby mean to you, why is it important?
It’s introduced me to positive, friendly people and we have interesting conversations and a laugh while doing stuff that benefits our community. It keeps me fit by pushing my limits and encouraging me to squeeze in extra training runs in the week.
Do you think it’s important for people to have hobbies?
I’ve never really labelled things as hobbies; I’ve just done what I enjoy. It’s interesting that you define GoodGym as a hobby as I have always thought of hobbies as solitary, quiet pastimes. This has widened my outlook.
Do you think there's a link between people's mental wellbeing and having hobbies? What sort of link and how does it work do you think?
Yes. I think doing something that is completely absorbing is relaxing even if it is physically or mentally hard. Doing something outside is important to me as I know that being outdoors, especially in green spaces, makes me feel good. And there is evidence that there is a link between having an active hobby and mental wellbeing. I know that I feel those endorphins after a I’ve been for a run or mountain bike ride.
What advice would you give to someone who is looking to pick up a new hobby? This can be both specific to your hobby, or just a hobby in general!
Have an open mind. Try something - you might be pleasantly surprised.
How can people get involved with GoodGym if they are interested in finding out more?
https://www.goodgym.org/areas/sheffield – for Sheffield readers Further afield, go to https://www.goodgym.org/ and see if there in one near you. Just register and turn up. Goodyym does running and walking activities and they always have a tail-runner, so no-one gets left behind.
What’s next for you and your hobby?
Keeping enjoying being part of Sheffield GoodGym.
And, finally, if you could try a hobby you’ve always wanted to, but never had the chance, what would you try?
No specific ambitions to try anything. My life is pretty full at the moment - but then I wasn’t looking for a new hobby when I discovered GoodGym, so who knows?!