GoodGym Bath

BathCommunity mission
Meyrick WilliamsRuthEmily KitsonAaron CarringtonKam

Ready sheddy go! GoodGym deals with an eyesore at a Bath school

Saturday 16th November

Written by Ruth

How did you spend your Saturday morning? Catching up on chores? Doing the shopping? Having a lie-in? Well GoodGym Bath destroyed a shed that was blighting a local school and it felt good.

This was our second visit to Newbridge Primary School - last time we filled a skip with a shed and a load of concrete blocks that were part of the old playground. This time we did the same - without the blocks.

The grounds are huge - no wonder the caretaker needed some GoodGym assistance in keeping it safe and tidy.

It also meant we got our steps in - we walked one and a half miles pushing wheelbarrows loaded with wood and stuff between the shed and the skip.

Did I mention it felt good? Turns out smashing up a shed is extremely therapeutic. That, coupled with a trip to a nearby café, made for shedloads of fun.

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Jer BoonJane FlynnVicky Messer

An apple a day keeps the chatbot away

Saturday 19th October

Written by Jer Boon

When these run reports are late appearing it's almost always because I'm suffering from pun paralysis! That is to say we're supposed to add a pithy headline, preferably involving a clever pun of some sort. Or at the very least add a headline of any kind at all.

And some days they just won't pop in to your head. GoodGym writers' block is a real thing, you know!

Embarrassingly, this time I went to an AI chatbot for help. "Give me an apple themed pun", I lamely asked of it.

"What do you call an apple that's been bitten? A half baked idea" it came up with. Half-baked indeed!

I pointed out that this was a joke, not a pun, and learning from its mistake the chatbot did indeed offer a (terrible) pun this time.

Encouraged by this I asked "give me a few puns to pick from" and, noticing my accidental punnage in this, added "do you see what I did there?"

Chatbot did indeed pick (sorry!) up on this and offered a few lame picking-related puns this time. But the work was done by now. My own creative juices (sorry!) were once more flowing. This was my story. My scoop. Chatbots have their place, they're out of the box now and they won't be going back ... but we must use them wisely - not as creators to do the creative work for us, but as a sounding board to help spark our own imaginations.

Back to the task. Grow For Life have an orchard next to the Walled Garden we all know and love. Being an orchard of course, it's rather low maintenance. So I never even knew it was there.

But today they've invited their fans and friends - and there were indeed dozens of people in attendance - to come along and help in picking some of the apples, and also joining in the full end-to-end process of washing and sorting, mashing, and pressing juice.

A proper old-fashioned community of real humans getting together to help each other do something good and get something dome. Chatbots will never be able to do that (he writes...)

A pressing task indeed...

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BathCommunity mission
Emily KitsonAaron CarringtonRuthCosmo BornMeyrick WilliamsJer Boon

Heavy lifting made easy.

Saturday 12th October

Written by Cosmo Born (Man/Male. )

Six good gymers, including myself helped improve a derelict and unkept place. Strength, was shown through heavy lifting of heavy stone. A shed was dismantled and a brilliantly full skip was the after effect of our hard work. Many, pleasantries were exchanged and it was a rewarding enhancement of the area worked in. Good work everyone.

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KateRichardTanya LockRuthJane Flynn

Five Go To Play

Tuesday 24th September

Written by Kate

Five Good Gymers, not Famous, braved an early autumnal evening to My First Steps Nursery, seeking adventure.

On arrival we were greeted by Cathy and given a very quick briefing of tonight’s task: tidy the outside area and possibly weed. Left to our own devices we used our imagination and set to. Kate and Jane started picking up all the larger items casually strewn across the green, however there was treasure to be had! Silver spoons and plastic spades were our bounty which we passed to our team members to assist them with their weeding. I said we had to be imaginative, and in lieu of any adult tools, we had to make do. Ruth did a fabulous job in the baby garden, though the weeds were unfortunately a match for the plastic spade/spoon by the end of the session, it didn’t make it. Meanwhile Richard and Tanya were messing around in the mud kitchen, though not making mud pies for us to enjoy after the task, just a general tidy and weed where silver spoons were also going for the price of gold!

We managed to remove two tubs worth of weeds, and the general area looked a lot tidier, therefore I’d say mission accomplished

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Vicky MesserRuth

Going the extra mile to help homeless and vulnerable people

Sunday 22nd September

Written by Ruth

To be honest there wasn’t much walking for us GoodGymers at today’s task but there was a heck of a lot of it going on. Around 500 walkers took part in a 22 mile trek around Bath to raise money for Julian House - a charity working with homeless and vulnerable people and women facing domestic abuse.

It was our job to man the checkpoints - checking participants in, stamping their maps, cheering them on and presenting their well-earned medals at the finish. We also took photos and supplied dog biscuits as required.

Vicky earned a particular hurrah for getting up at the crack of dawn to do her stint.

But most of the praise should go to the fundraisers who had to tackle a punishing route in what must have been the worst weather since the event began 23 years ago. I imagine they went home wet, tired and sore but proud of their achievement.

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Melanie YoungCosmo BornFelicia Britton-ReadEvie Britton

Two tonne sand fun

Sunday 22nd September

Written by Melanie Young (she/her)

It may have been (very) soggy but that wasn't going to stop four hardy GoodGymmers from helping out at Sydney Gardens.

Two big dumpy sacks of play sand had been delivered to nearby* the children's water and sand playground which was strangely devoid of actual children. Which gave GoodGym a perfect opportunity to be big kids!

The luxury of three wheelbarrows meant we quickly split i to roles of loaders (Felicia and Melanie), barrower (Cosmo) and raker (Evie) all trying to keep up with everyone else. At times the rain eased off but kept coming back with a vengeance.

We managed to shift close to the whole two bags but prioritised channel clearing at the end of our session to try to free some of the water that should cascade down through the playground rather than just making a series if huge puddles, so shovelling and trowelling wet sand was our toddler-like finale - great work!

Now to dry out...

*not quite near enough

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