Yesterday was our third appointment in a row with a very uncertain weather calling the greatest GoodGym motivation to get out to help St Andrew Church in Hove, for our weekly group session.

We BELIEVED in it, and all worked out very well – apart the fact that I punctured my bike 😊.
Those dull dark clouds and weather warning of risk of heavy rain did not even touch us - just!

St Andrew Church is a busy city community church with a visionary plan to change their asset to create an open and inclusive space more adaptable to all, from small to grown up audiences. It is a community building, building for the community, where everybody is always most welcome!

In front of the church, their Friday’s meetings in the sanctuary have been lacking space due to invading weeds, promptly now removed by GoodGym-ers. And, indoor, you can now smell the fresh fragrance of botanic scent and of wax (a bit less botanic 😉) because of additional GoodGym-ers’ cleaning action!

Our eyes are already shining of excitement for what will potentially turn to be a GoodGym indoor refurbishment workout! For now, we support the great expectations of Rev. Dan, John, and of the whole community.

A nice group session for Jasmin, a visiting GoodGym-er from London. Follow us to see what’s on next

Saint Andrew church in Hove is a church who “want to Love God & Love Hove like Jesus”. It is in the centre of Hove, for a reason: to help the city to transform for the better – so, its community believes. It's a loving family, who aspire to be open and welcome everybody in need of food or clothes or just of a safe space in the garden to meditate on the sense of life.

I like that, we like that.

Brighton GoodGym-ers love helping rev Dan and John to maintain the green space next to the church graveyard - a hidden peaceful oasis where the community like to gather at times. For some GoodGymers, St Andrew church is a bit of a longer stretch (than usual) despite always a nice and easy 3.5K run from our meeting point in Hove from the Peace Statue.

Nevertheless, even the doubtful weather did not stop us to get in action at the end of a tiring working day! Like for Juliet who decided last minute to join our GoodGym session by bike or for Rob and Sarah who run a lot further from where they live to train their legs for the Brighton Half.

Yesterday, lady Kathy welcomed GoodGym with tasks suitable for everybody, and then she blowed away with the wind suggesting that some rain could have catched us later on! But, it didn’t 😊. This GoodGym session ended up being a funny quick and spooky “fight” (not to miss-spell with the word “faith” as I almost did not being a native English 😉) with the Ivy plants. We cleared lots of ivy from the walls and there was lots of chatting and laughter despite the cold. Rob and Amaryllis took the prize for the biggest bits of ivy. We also delivered some Fairshare's surplus good food that I managed to deliver to the benefit of Saint Andrew church’s foodbank.

Brighton GoodGym-ers are (like) Saints, … so, I often feel to be honest. We like to #DoGoodGetFit and to keep ourselves moving, as good Samaritans do.

Join us next week for a Pancake group run, and social pub games! – This will be a typical GoodGym group fitness (easy) run with a theme, followed by a social gathering to get loose, meet your fellow GoodGymers in Brighton & Hove and discover what GoodGym charity does.

Happy GoodGym-ing!

Saint Andrew’s Church vision is based on something that Jesus said at the end of his story about the good Samaritan. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind”; and, “Love your neighbour as yourself.” Jesus - Luke 10:27

“Night-strimming (deserves a quiet night)” (for all the REM fans out there ☺ - thanks to Jason for the inspiration)

13 GoodGym-ers headed to St. Andrew’s Church in Hove to clear overgrown areas of the churchyard, helping to maintain this important urban green space for community use and reduce anti-social behaviour.

Jogging, skipping and grapevining our way along the chilly seafront on a wonderfully welcome warm-up led by Helena, we arrived at St. Andrew’s - beautifully illuminated in the settling twilight - primed and ready for action!

Welcome toTallula who joined us for her first Goodgym session and wasn't put off by the nippy air or energetic warm up!

After a quick briefing from Rev Dan and Ian who quickly got stuck into the task alongside us, we donned gardening gloves and selected our weapons of choice from an array of shears, mowers and strimmers.

Head torches and high-vis casting dancing shapes around the churchyard, the group got to work trimming down bushes and overgrown areas. The big task of the evening was removing ivy from the back fence, handful by satisfying handful, before transporting the vines to the waste pile.

Persevering through ivy dust and giant month attacks, we got everything clear and celebrated a job well done before jogging off into the night.

It seems Hove Prom was the place to be tonight! There were many people out running and "promming" with the sun and still water it felt like a great spot to relax....

Not for these Goodymers though! We had a date with some gardening utensils and an over ground church yard! We ran along the sea front to St. Andrews Church of Hove to meet Vicar Dan who was already mowing between some headstones. Dan, and the parish, are hoping to keep the grounds tidy to discourage antisocial behavior and make it somewhere for people to enjoy as well as pay their respects.

We had the choice of hand tools to help with general weeding or power tools to do some real destructive gardening! Frannie, Tabby and Amro, geared up with mowers and strimmers tackled the knee high grass, [Angela](/runners/angela-mynott, Juliet, and Matt went town on bindweed which had obscured several head stones, while Jane, Jason, Rebecca and Michael cleared the back of the grounds where some antisocial activity has been known to take place.

With so many hands this week and Vicar Dan's well stocked garden equipment store, we got a lot cleared and rewarded ourselves with a core work out! As runners and walkers it is go to maintain our core to help keep our posture and isolate our arms from our legs so that they work together to propel us forward and to that finish line! To promote some social behavior we completed 10 core exercises in the round - hopefully no one will be feeling it too much tomorrow! If anyone wanted to have another go at our work out your can find it here.

With task and work out complete we headed back along the seafront for a steady, flat run.

Well done to Jane who told me she is doing couch to 5k - looking to see you at a Parkrun very soon!

Best of luck to Angela who is doing the 10k at the Brighton Trails event this Sunday - hope the trail run from the other week will help you smash out a great time!

Welcome to JJane who joined us last night for the first time!

A light-ish, bright-ish evening saw us return to St. Andrew's Church. We met vicar Dan and two church volunteers, who asked us to remove ivy from the fences and remove a sweet little tree that had grown awry, and was also blocking the view of the CCTV. They hope this will help to reduce anti-social behaviour in the churchyard.

While the volunteers stuck up signs on the newly bare fences, Tara led us all in 'planking around the world'. And before we left, the last of the tree was uprooted from the ground.

What’s going on?! Perhaps you all really like pancakes, or maybe you’ve discovered some Welsh ancestry and were celebrating St David’s day? Or most likely it was the rain!

So whilst you were all home scoffing your faces with pancakes and celebrating St David myself , Michael & Angela had a refreshing run in the rain to St Andrew’s. Keeping on top of the cleaning at the church is a lot and they are very grateful for our help. We each took a vacuum cleaner each and sucked up flaking paint, masonry dust, snack detritus and oh so many cobwebs!

And the rain really wasn't as bad as it looked, you know, you shouldn't let it put you off!!!