Welcome to Sophie, Diane, Ellie and Chris who joined us for their first GoodGym Bristol Group Runs tonight!

We quickly split up into two groups. Patrick led The Hardcores on an 8 kilometre return trip to Easton Community Garden. They set a speedy pace and made it out there and back in time to leave 25 minutes to get through all of the tasks Nat had set them including weeding all of the bark at the Community Garden to help it stay strong. According to Nat, you guys were

an awesome bundle of energy and loveliness and got the jobs done at lightning speed! 🎉

Meanwhile...

A sea(gul)l of a-poo-val

The rest of us set off on a 6 kilometre trip to St Werburgh's Community Centre. Alice was deemed the luckiest of us all on the way as 26 of us dodged a seagull's toilet trip and it landed right down her (previously beautifully clean) GoodGym t-shirt. Alice wasn't sure she agreed on how lucky she felt...

When we arrived at the Centre we were diverted while they set up and we got the chance to fit in a fitness session before we got started on the task (Alice's luck was obviously rubbing off on the whole group). We split into two teams to play circuits Cat and Mouse. Well done to the Cats who caught their Mice, while the other group were remaining equal despite some questionable counting and corner cutting going on.

We got back to the Centre and split into two groups: a team headed out in the evening sun to deliver some Helpful Peeps leaflets to the local area. Another team tackled the outdoor area of the Centre to dig up, brush up and bag up all the remaining rubber pieces from around the play area and give everywhere a good tidy-up. In just 15 minutes the place looked a lot better!

We headed back to base to feast on Claire's super delicious belated 50th Good Deed celebration cakes in the remaining sunshine. Credit to Matt for the pun!

It was great to welcome Natalie and Tracy to their first Bristol GoodGym run this evening! It was a special night for several reasons. Richard G hit his 5 year Group Run streak. What a hero. To mark the occasion, he had a fetching '5 today' badge which he wore with pride for the rest of the night. Our second celebration of the evening was Emma becoming a Centurion with her 100th Good Deed. Massive well done Emma, we look forward to seeing your wear your wings with pride 😊

Spring forward for a good forking

The group split into two gardening tasks to celebrate the first light Tuesday evening of the year. The first group set off on a longer 8km run to Easton Community Garden. There, they did some speed compost shovelling, sawing, sanding, digging and weeding to make a dent in the pile of work required to start off the warmer months at the garden. We will definitely be back to continue this work before long!

The second group headed over the hill to St Werburgh's City Farm Community Garden. The garden has adults with disabilities there during the week, so the group were set to work with manual tasks around the garden which are too difficult for the group. The tasks were: digging and deweeding a large mound for planting, putting their signs up, weeding a bed for planting, shovelling animal compost (Group 1 weren't the only lucky ones...) and chopping down large amounts of overgrown willow. Sarah was gobsmacked at how much of a difference we were able to make in just 30 minutes with all hands on deck.

After we had got a bit too involved in our willow-lopping, it was time to hot foot it back to base. After this, it was time for our monthly GoodGym Eats, where twenty of us crammed in to Bambalan for delicious food and a delicious Alice-baked cake (again!) to celebrate Emma's 100th. Thank you Clo for organising!

16 Saturday superstars bravely took on two tasks in one morning, building benches and prepping flower beds for St Werburghs Community Centre AND tidying up the wonderful Easton Community Gardens!

We met outside Roll for the Soul to be briefed by newly qualified run leader Alice Whale who took the group through a little warm up and split them into two teams.

6 brave soldiers decided they'd take the plunge and head 5km with Alice to St Werburghs Community Centre whilst the more energetic souls went for team Dave to go for the longer run to Easton Community Gardens.

Team soil in the bed

On arrival at St Werburghs Community Centre the brave soldiers were met by one of the centre's lovely team who ensured we all had a fun task to keep us busy. Keen to be a part of the centre's up and coming community open day next Saturday we quickly got stuck in with one team of 3 assigned to build a picnic bench and the other team to fill two brand new flower beds with soil.

And as if by magic, as soon as team bench started to tackle the picnic bench task, the sunshine came out in full force as if to support the requirement for sunshine and picnics.

Meanwhile team soil divvied up the task between them with some using shovels to fill up buckets and the others carrying the soil down to the flowerbeds.

With both teams spurred on by the sunny support, the team smashed this task in just half an hour leaving enough time to get out the big guns and move a rather hefty bag of soil out of the way and into the corner.

Of course it wouldn't be GoodGym without a bit of silliness and the teams couldn't resist testing out the new play tunnel built by one of the other volunteers that transforms you into a beautifully illustrated insect (you'll have to look at the photos to see what I mean)!

Team Weed-in the garden

As we ran over to Easton we were concerned that the run briefing today had not included "watch out for dinosaurs!" but we managed to shoofty past this particular obstacle just outside a garden centre.

Arriving at the Easton Community Garden, one of our favourite places in the whole of Bristol, we split into two groups.

One group got stuck into digging and clearing one corner of the garden, with Sion on barrow duty, Matt on shears, Mike and David on forks and Nick (fresh from backmarking us on our run) standing guard over a plant that needed keeping amongst a group of weeds that looked a bit like flowers. I checked later and the plant was still there, whilst the weeds had disappeared - Nick obviously did not let his guard down!

Meanwhile, Sarah, Will, Charlie and I weeded the pathways around the garden to help make them look nice and tidy, putting the waste into the compost box.

Then, as it was a warm and sunny morning, we took on some water, chilled for a photo and then trundled back down to town, at a reasonable lick, stopping only to get a photo with an imposter dinosaur (we weren't fooled!) - the real one had headed off to the zoo for some lunch. Nice!

Thanks for making it such a fun run today guys, you're all brilliant. But a special big shout out to Emma who's taking part in Bristol Night Ride tonight!

And nice one Alice on your first run lead! Top stuff!