On a cold November night 13 intrepid GoodGym-ers made the short run over to the Brighton Community Kitchen to give it a good clean and a freshen up. We were joined on the task by first-timers Steve and Nicole!

Upon arrival, Jo from the kitchen explained to us the mission of the kitchen (part of the Brighton & Hove Food Partnership) to offer practical cookery skills and nutrition education to people facing food insecurity with their community cooking classes. The classes also help foster a community spirit, tackle social isolation and promote mental health.

With the help of one of Jo's famous checklists we split into groups to tackle sorting out the plastic bowls (Russian Doll-style), ordering plates, chopping boards and cutlery, giving all the stools and chairs a thorough clean, giving the ovens a deep clean and squeegeeing the outside windowsills.

Although ostensibly an altruistic mission, some GoodGym-ers got immense satisfaction from ensuring that everything was in its proper, ordered, place in the kitchen (cough, cough, Jane).

Once we'd got through all of that Jo thanked us and said that although it seems like a small thing to do these tasks, it makes a huge difference to the her as they are things that she just doesn't find time to do.

We said goodbye to Jo with a promise to return early next year and headed-off to the nearby Basketmakers Arms for a pie-and-pint social which was expertly organised by an absent Frannie!

See WHAT's ON NEXT at GoodGym Brighton!

Five of us met at the Queen Victoria's statue and headed to the Brighton & Hove Food Partnership Community Kitchen, where we joined the rest of the GoodGymers. Jo, our task owner, told us about the family community cooking classes they’ve been running all summer to support Brighton & Hove's funded Holidays Activities and Food programmes to beneficiary children and young people who learned how to make simple, healthy and delicious homemade dishes.

Our job tonight was to clean up the kitchen and make it extra welcoming for the final class on the day after.

We were joined by Tabitha, who’s soon moving to Amsterdam, and Carla, who’s also leaving Brighton soon. It was great to have them with us, and they worked hard to make the kitchen shine. If this was our last time seeing Tabitha, we wish her all the best and thank her for everything she’s done with GoodGym ❤️. We look forward to seeing Carla again before she goes 😉.

After a good scrub, the kitchen was spotless and ready for the coming up grand finale of the family cookery class, happening the day after! We got to tick those tasks off the to-do list—a job well done! 🎂

Brighton GoodGym,Bravo!

Do you know that....

As GoodGym volunteer you can participate to cookery classes with a GoodGym discount code. Furthermore, we could attend a 6-week cookery course at the B&H Community Kitchen by accompanying people they support, as referred by TogetherCo. This is an exemplar GoodGym’s mission that could help isolated people to build up routine and feelings of confidence.

For more information, ask our GoodGym Area Lead, Stefania and email hello@togetherco.org.uk

Tonight twelve runners took the short run to one of our favourite local tasks. Why our favourite? Well it definitely has nothing to do with the free cakes on offer! We've been going to the Community Kitchen run by the Brighton and Hove Food Partnership since the kitchen began and they are always ready with some great cleaning tasks to get the kitchen ready for classes.

Amaryllis and Rosie set to the tough but rewarding job of bringing the ovens back to life, it was a grease ridden nightmare but they made them look fantastic by the end.

Jane started the evening in horror at the scale of mis matched utensils in cupboards, after calming down she soon made light work of the mess!

Fresh from their Worthing half-marathon heroics Angela and Ben polished up the dining table and chairs.

The rest of us busied ourselves with general cleaning around the kitchen until the whole place was sparkling! For all our hard work we were rewarded with some amazing cakes.

It was lovely to see some old faces tonight and big thank you to Frances for sharing the tasks around us all.

Ten Good gymers donned layers and braved the cold to run to the Brighton and Hove Food Partnership Community kitchen. We welcomed Georgia's return and Amaryllis at her first GoodGym session!

We were greeted by our host Jo who had a colour coded list of tasks for us to tick off. She told us of the Brighton and Hove Food Partnership's work in reducing food waste and running cooking courses, and much more!

We soon warmed up as we speedily started cleaning chairs and cupboards. Being great multi taskers we all had a good catchup while cleaning!

Rebecca and Ben took one for the team and braved the cold by cleaning outside. While other organised GoodGym-ers sorted pans back into their families!

It was lovely to see the GoodGym gang and a good start to the year!

Do you know that....

As GoodGym volunteer we could attend a 6-week cookery course at the B&H Community Kitchen by accompanying people they support, as referred by TogetherCo. This is an exemplar GoodGym’s mission that could help isolated people to build up routine and feelings of confidence.

For more information, email hello@togetherco.org.uk and ask our GoodGym Area Lead, Stefania.

… the todo list.

Our task owners, Jo and Calum, were waiting for us at the Community Kitchen ready to give us our jobs for the evening to help keep the kitchen looking clean and tidy for their summer classes. As was the case during my previous visits, a colorful to-do list adorned the wall, eagerly waiting for our attention. However, since we were only a team of four, Jo and Calum prioritized our tasks in case we couldn’t complete them all.

2nd tasker Michael (nice to meet you), Philippa and I took charge of washing and squeegeeing the outside windows, window sills, and the kitchen entrance, while Angela fearlessly battled with the ovens, leaving them sparkling. Next on the list was cleaning the fridges, cupboard doors, and their handles. Finally, with about five minutes remaining, we all focused on the last task - cleaning underneath the countertops.

The to-do list was conquered.

Everything was checked off. ✅

There’s a satisfying feeling that comes with completing a physical to-do list!

Well thank goodness our task this week was indoors! The April showers were definitely out in force!

We were welcomed by Jo from the Community Kitchen, a fantastic organisation who host cooking classes to fund Community events for those with Additional needs, dementia, or maybe inspiration to make their food budget go further. Highly recommend you check out their classes on their website.

Jo, ever organised, had a list of chores ready for us to tackle through out the kitchen including antibac-ing, cleaning and sorting! With so many of us in attendance, we got the lot done in no time!