Seven runners and four walkers made their way to Riverside Park in the evening sunshine to do what we do best...rid the parks of rubbish with style, panache and a little je ne sais quoi! (one of our new GoodGymers is French and I remembered that I am fluent at French! :-) So bienvenue to Genevieve and benvenuta to Brent GoodGymer Gaia (who's Italian, which is not one of the many languages I speak so had to Google that one.) It felt as if spring had finally arrived this evening and while we worked hard at the task, it was great to hear the chat and laughter while doing good, and seeing passers by smile and acknowledge the work we were doing for our community.

It was lovely to see a bunch of red t-shirts ready to help Vaguely Northern Darren to enjoy his 300th deed - congratulations, Darren!

We had our litter pickers, we had our recyclables and non-recyclables bags and off we set, the 7 runners outnumbering the 3 walkers. The runners kindly went for speed on the newly-reopened Chocolate Path so the walkers would have some litter to p-p-pick up like the Penguin wrapper Arron found - How do penguins cook pancakes?*

Jason was quick on the draw along the path whilst Melanie acted as the torch for the group - a vital role if anyone asks.

As we approached the Create Centre at B-Bond we saw lots of red t-shirts heading our way and we'd found the runners, armed with their litter pickers and bags of rubbish and recycling accumulated from the firework and party area on Brunel Walk. And they'd taken some really lovely photos of The Bridge at night.

We then had the familiar "where shall we leave the bags" dilemma, trying to find a bin that would be accessible for collection. First, we stopped at the Create Centre's HUGE recycling art with GoodGymmers gamely recreating the letters in human form before starting back to Queen Square on time to get to Eats at Pieminister - it's officially pie weather, an upside of late autumn.

With pickers still collecting small bits of litter there was suddenly much excitement asninstead of findong a Bristol Waste bin we found a Bristol Waste truck stopped at the traffic light and successfully flagged it down to be able to chuck our rubbish (and recycling) straight onto the back with photos to prove it! The Bristol Waste guys seemed only slightly bemused.

The runners then passed over their pickers so they could run back and the walkers heroically carried all the pickers back to Workout in the unexpected deluge before travelling on to dry out at home or whilst eating lovely pie.

Happy 300th, Darren!

*they use their flippers

Most of Bristol aren't in Bristol this late summer bank holiday week and that included GoodGymmers!

That meant loads of time for chatting amongst ourselves as we arrived on the Bath to Bristol Railway Park to meet up with Sustrans who volunteer to look after the "lateral park" alongside the Council.

Divided between cleaning graffiti from the beautiful mural, clearing the path edge of overhanging vegetation and clearing rubbish sites, the 4 of us were soon making a big difference. Even a quick downpour was soon on its way so we could keep tidying in our own ways.

Lots of passing runners, walkers and cyclists passed on their thanks as they passed and it was really nice to help out, introducing Sustrans to our highly professional and technical language of Wipey Wipey for the removal of graffiti and a debate on whether Clinky Clinky was an acceptable term for recycling bags of glass bottles or had undertones of racism - eek.

When time was up, we split into running and walking groups and were soon back in the heart of Bristol, feeling good.

Here's to more adventures with Sustrans!

We used to help out here when it was an Incredible Edible project but they had to abandon it after repeated vandalism.

The Friends group has gone quiet but that’s where we came in to help out, why we try to establish of anyone else is volunteering there, but giving it a tidy in the meantime.

A bit of tidying done and scoped for future Commishes or Group Runs - but we might need to run the long way around the harbour!

It was another delightfully dry January night that greeted 15 GoodGymmers who set off on time to St Agnes Park, next to our beloved St Paul's Adventure Playground - we cant help them at the moment as the have support from Community PayBack on Tuesdays during the day :-(

The park was pretty tidy but there was bindweed to pull out and the surrounding streets and hedges to litter pick with our fresh supply of Bristol Waste bags.

Having identified the lamppost Melanie may just have side-swiped in her truck in her early days with Bristol Parks, we spread out far and wide. Headtorches were bobbing all over the place!

We soon had things much more ship-shape (like the playground) and were able to tie off the bags for collection and run back in the same Richard sandwich as the run over - Richard B run leading and Richard G back-marking in expert style.

Stretching and chatting back at Queens Square and post-run drinks enjoyed at Workout for those not allergic to latex!

21 GoodGymmers standing on a wall. Or bouncing on wobbleboards/trampolines/seesaws whilst out first excursion of 2022 took us to a new-for-GoodGym area of Bristol, St Jude's.

After much fitness bouncing/swinging/roundabouting, we managed some litterpicking through the trampolines, under some hedges, in some long grass and pulling out oodles of noodles of bindweed root and scraping moss.

A short run back to Queen Square followed for the amazing poem* to celebrate Richard's awesome 500 good deeds and Caroline defecting from Wandsworth to glorious Bristol. Or just moving house. Definitely one of the two.

• Twas brillig, and Giddings the running tove, Did deed and gimber in Brizzle hove, 500 is friggly number now, Samploistics just shout out wow!

Hail Sir Giddings of GoodGym, p0p Knight of the litterpicker, Who halted the woppy jumblericker

Richy G sorted the tins, Filled up the bins, Made cardboard beds And shifted... the shifty things...

Hail Sir Giddings of GoodGym, Knight of the running art, Who made the roads look like, zagg-rart.

Mr G entertains us all, With run reports full of stories tall, Quirkiness to make us smile, A cracker costume or a blompydile

Hail Sir Giddings of GoodGym, Knight of the gromits run, Who made us pose like chuttermun

He avoided the dogs that guard the door, With teeth so veep you can't ignore, He dighted the worms so they didn't die, He chopped the weeds so they didn't thrive...

Hail Sir Giddings of GoodGym Champion of 500 good deeds