After a string of poor excuses, only the bravest of goodgymers met last night (having a baby? pssh).

Traffic was awful so there was a lot of discussion over the best way through town right now, and the answer is clearly on foot.

Fay, Andy and Richard drove in but survived the ordeal. The excellent 'reverse advent calendar' foodbank collection is underway. Joe appeared when summoned by Andy.

A cold run to the church hall and we got to work, it's like we've never cleared any leaves at all every time we visit but it keeps us out of trouble. Everything was filling up with piles of leaves still waiting to be lifted so a brisk walk for a bin secondment allowed us to get more picked up for collection day.

We will be back for more leaves in a few weeks!

It was a dark and stormy night.. well, it wasn't stormy but it was dark- and it is halloween so just imagine.

Erin got there nice and early to skulk in the shadows. I was attacked by a giant spider on the way to meet the gang. David had been under Frankensteins blade (explains all the extra body weight). Rich was terrifying as usual. Kate was riding a DIY-high and eager to crack on.

We trotted down the highstreet avoiding any slippery leaves. At the hall we found another spider (Sallyann), a pumpkin (Laurie) and.. the devil? (sorry Fay). They had made an excellent start and we blitzed through the brown bins in no time. Goodgym will be back soon to re-leaf the hall of the remainder of foliage as it drops over the next few weeks.

See you next week for some pub based prep.

For our first GoodGym Group Run of 2024, after what feels like endless rain, we were really pleased to have 15 in the group for our final leaf clearing session at St John's Church Hall this season.

It was also Richard's 50th good deed, what a great way to start the year!

Due to the number of runners, I threatened a fitness session in case of lots of standing around at the task. Stephen found us an additional task inside the church hall, so whilst most of the group cleared leaves, the rest went inside to cut and stick film to the glass of the new doors. Angela, Joe, Leanne and Fay expertly measured, cut, and stuck the film, showing that we can also complete slightly more complicated tasks! This additional task meant that fitness was narrowly avoided, but it will return!

Multiple bins were filled with leaves as usual, with Jenny, Joel, Martin and Sallyann getting on without making any trouble, Erin telling tales of new year's eve induced amnesia, and Cowboy Ben gleefully yee-hawing whilst jumping into a bin of leaves.

Unsurprisingly, Andy and Rich's relationship seems to have become complicated; they're uncontrollable when together and must make sure everyone knows it.

Before parting ways, we posed for a final photo on a bench in the church hall - spot the naughty children!

As long as the weather's ok, we'll see you for running and volunteering at parkrun on Saturday!

Laurie

On a chilly Wednesday evening we caught up about our weekend's activities of Santa Fun Run Volunteering, breakfast out, and our surprise 3rd place at the quiz on Sunday. Jess asked Rich how the Santa Fun Run was, and it became clear that she had confused Andy in a white polyester beard for Rich, much to both Andy's and Rich's delight. We also heard how Andy made his way through two pairs of felt Santa trousers before/during the run, no surprise. We completed our warm up, with more complaints than last week, and Joel sped off towards the task.

As tonight was Joe's last GoodGym of 2023, he turned up appropriately dressed in his special jacket, christmas lights, and festive pyjama bottoms. This also puts him in with an excellent chance of winning the best outfit prize in the return of the GoodGym awards this year.

We had the usual high levels of socialising, so much that we had to keep reminding Rich to use his rake rather than use it to prop himself up. Other than that, lots of leaves were cleared and bins filled at St John's Church Hall!

Great work everyone, we'll be back in January for more leaf clearing.

Laurie

We went from leafletting to do some leaf-getting at St John's Church and 14 very keen GoodGymers headed out on a dark and cold November night to help out!

We jogged over down the high street and admiring the Christmas lights in the high street to meet Fay, Rich (injured arse and all), and Angela beavering away.

We leapt to work despite the fact we weren't getting S-paid we were still raking it in. Joe hopped in the bin to push the leaves down and Jess was helping until she said 'you're better off alone', to which Joe whistfully replied 'that's what my ex said'. How we laughed. Doug almost on his knees in laughter. After filling four bins we posed for photos while Andy almost committed tree-son by suggesting we shake the trees to get more leaves down. Leaf it out mate. Laurie lead us on a long route on the way back, we admired the gymnastics Russell attempted and made it back to base.

See you for Parkrun volunteering this weekend! And then spoons, baby!

On a day when we saw heavy rain and strong winds come and go Rich Andy Joel and Joe set off from hq in the glorious sunshine and headed towards St John's church hall where we would meet Sallyann for a spot of gardening.

We roamed along the high street sweating in our waterproofs and soon arrived meeting Sallyann and soon after Stephen who was very happy to see us.

Tonight's task was to clean some muck out of some gutters that had blocked up and rake some leaves at the church hall, then go around the corner to the vicarage and help tidy the garden before the new vicar was to move in.

Joel and Joe got set with knee pads and scrapers and started clearing out all the muck in the gutters while Andy and Sallyann raked some leaves until Andy flew his Brook stick along with the others to join myself and Stephen in the vicarage garden to start raking more leaves from the freshly cut lawn.

Sallyann found a pepper pig toy along with many tennis balls that must have been launched from the neighbouring school.

With not a drop in the sky we set off on a more scenic route back to base after saying good bye to Stephen and then Sallyann. Our waterproofs now becoming more boil in the bag we remarked that it hadn't rained at all during the task. And then just as we reach hq and started saying our goodbyes I felt some drops hit me.

Guess it doesn't rain at goodgym 😉

Thanks all for coming and see you all soon

Smile as you run

Rich