Millions of people visit Brighton's beautiful beaches every year to swim in the sea and enjoy the seaside vibes. However, not everyone departs without leaving a trace. After this year's May bank holiday weekend, the council cleared up 20 tonnes of rubbish from the beach.

Brighton & Hove Tidy Up Team is a volunteering organisation that has equipment stashed all over the city to allow volunteers to proactively keep their city clean.

On a blissfully cool summer evening, we took a shift with their equipment to have a beach clean of our own. We were joined by new Goodgymmer Alessandro, lapsed Goodgymmer Rachel back after a long sabbatical and Liz for her second task with us. We picked-up funky vests, monstrous litter pickers and an array of bin bags from the communal equipment bin by the Bandstand and then descended on to the surrounding promenade and beach.

We split into pairs, with dedicated bag holders to avoid the ignominy of having a gust of wind upend your rubbish bag while you're trying to put something else in. Although the beach wasn't looking too litter strewn we still managed to pick-up a lot of cigarette butts, bottle caps, plastic wrappers, straws and cans.

Hearteningly, throughout the evening we were approached by a number of people thanking us for our work, which was a beautiful reminder that most people care deeply about keeping their beaches clean and that the litter is only dropped by a small minority.

I had a great time volunteering at the GoodGym beach clean-up on the Sunday of Brighton Pride!

On a sunny Sunday morning, numerous volunteers gathered at the Kings Road Arches to collect the rubbish left behind after the previous day's Pride celebrations, along with what appeared to be the remains of several beach barbecues.

We filled plenty of bags with plastic items, bottle lids, broken glass and even a tent peg. However, the prize for the most unexpected find has to go to a pair of sunglasses!

Afterwards, many of us headed to Pride in the Park to enjoy performances from Paris Hilton, Mel C and the wonderful Diana Ross, safe in the knowledge that we'd done our bit to help keep Brighton's beautiful beach cleaner and ready for everyone to enjoy.

9 GoodGymmers walked, ran and cycled over to Round Hill to help the Round Hill Society keep the streets of the neighbourhood tidy. We welcomed local councillor Raf for his first mission as a GoodGym member and welcomed back 3 of our recent marathon runners (Rosie, Liam and double-champ "more marathons than a 1980s tuckshop" Ruth).

Upon arrival we got a quick pep talk from Dom and then went to pick-up brooms, shears and spades and set to work trimming back the hedges, cutting back bindweed and picking up litter. It was great to see the hedges still looking in a good condition after our visit last year and this time we didn't need to cut back anywhere near as much - although there was of course a healthy chunk of bindweed.

This mission was part of the Workout For The Future campaign recently launched by GoodGym to promote activities that help the environment, create a community connection and keep people healthy. Look out for more over the next few months! The task marked the 1 year anniversary of the creation of the Round Hill Community Pocket Park by the Society.

We made quick work of the topiary and after a snap with Dom we crept back home in the fading spring light.

*Report title must be sung to the tune of One Step Closer by Linkin Park

11 Goodgymmers jogged and walked the short journey over to Round Hill to help keep the neighbourhood tidy. When we arrived we joined forces with Dom and the volunteers from the Round Hill Society. The Round Hill Society helps to preserve, improve and create pride in the the area. We also welcomed new Goodgymmer Andrea to her first task!

After going to pick-up tools from the local community store we split into 3 groups to tackle a few different areas. Armed with secateurs, shovels and brooms we got to work on cutting back bindweed, trimming overhanging hedges and clearing the edges of the pavement. With 3 big teams and a can-do attitude we made short work of the pesky bindweed and quickly filled-up 14 bin bags. The looming darkness at the end of the task reminded us children of summer that autumn was indeed coming!

Once we finished all our tasks and regrouped, in scenes reminiscent of Jesus feeding the 5000 Stefania fed us all from huge reserves of end-of-life croissants, bread and salad. Fully carbed-up we all jogged back home in the autumn darkness.

This week's maxi challenge was a Brighton Pride weekend tradition: the Sunday morning beach clean 🌊🌈

Accessorised with blue bags and litter pickers, we sashayed along the shoreline picking up an assortment of plastic wrappers, cigarette butts, and tired old coffee cups 😬 Litter? we don't know her.

Goodgymers, although your outfit choices were more pedestrian than pavilion, your collective effort helped restore our beloved beach from trashy to classy, and for that you are all queens 👸

Happy Pride everyone! 🌈✨️

The garbage they gather is grand, I'm sure.

5 of us ran from Victoria Gardens to Hove Lawns, where we met Sarah, in order to pick-up litter on Brighton Beach on an exceedingly beautiful spring evening.

The clean-up was done as part of the Tidy Up Team initiative which works across the city to clean-up public spaces in order to create a sense of civic pride.

Some technical difficulties with the Tidy Team locker led to Stefania improvising a last-minute task with her backpack full of gloves and bin bags. Given that its the first week of the Easter Holidays we decided to focus our attentions on picking-up litter from the beach. We started in Hove and methodically made our way towards the Palace Pier.

Hove was on-brand as ever and pickings were slim, but as we got nearer the pier we unfortunately started finding much more litter and we ended-up with a full bag of rubbish to ceremoniously deposit in a wheelie-bin.

As the sun set behind the West Pier we eventually managed to take a selfie that Rosie was satisfied with and jogged-off home, leaving the beach a little cleaner!