*Sunshine at last ! *

It was a wonderful evening for a visit to Turning Tides Victoria Road hostel. Some walked, some ran and one arrived as a complete surprise to us all ! It was so good to see Beth back in Worthing for her first GoodGym in 2 years ! Lets hope we see some more of this little pocket rocket in the borough again soon.

Also surprising us with her presence was our very own social secretary Tamsin - so good to see you and thank you for your continuing hard work in and outside of tasks :)

It was also good to see Sue Anne and Craig back again tonight after a few weeks break -the warm sunshine definitely brought out the crowds this evening.

We were tasked with putting together garden furniture together with a tidy up of the garden and breaking down alot of cardboard ready for recycling. Sarahand Anne jumped on the chance for some self assembly of the bench and were also joined by John in a supervisory role! Paul Tamsin and Craig assembled the table ( despite lack of tools! )

RoxyGillybean, Daisy and Sue worked tirelessly all evening sorting the wilderness around the borders and rediscovering the raised bed that had been completely obscured by tall weed like bushes.

Meanwhile Belinda and Beth were busily breaking down boxes and sorting between recycling and general rubbish - they somehow found space in bins !

Great job done everybody :) See you next week.

Julia xx

Turning Tides

With the bank holiday being on our regular Monday meet up day we moved the session until Wednesday this week and what a good decision this proved to be!

It has been lovely to have Roxy back at GG in recent weeks and we were delighted that she chose to celebrate her birthday with us today.

Before the birthday celebrations began, we had a new task at a Turning Tides hostel In Queens Road. We had been asked to give a helping hand clearing the garden. One of the residents called Lisa, who had had been living there since March and had taken a keen interest in the back garden and we were only too happy to assist. She directed us to all the jobs she politely asked us to do.

It was a really good turnout tonight with guest appearances from Duncan, Stephen together with Jay Katharine and the gorgeous baby Olivia who is ( unbelievably ) almost 1 year old.

Joining these celebrities were my regular teamRyan [John](/v3/profile/john-robinson-3fd25dec-75bb-4e8d-9799-f66af7474b63 GillybeanBarbara Roxy and Sarah Thank you all ! We achieved an amazing amount in just one hour with extensive pruning, weeding, raking and moving pots. Lisa couldn't have been more grateful.

After we had called time we headed to the beach where Roxy produced a huge bag of drinks and snacks from her boot. She then headed off to the Fish factory to pick up the most posh food we had ever had outside at a task! Fish and chips with a vegan alternative of halloumi and falafel with a gorgeous greek salad for Barbara and I. Following this , Roxy produced the most amazing gluten free honey cake baked to her mothers traditional recipe. Having been stuffed with our starter snacks and main course we all politely asked for a small slice. Within minutes we were all asking for second helpings and takeaway slices to take home for our loved ones- it was absolutely delicious. The question is did the extra slices make it home ?! What a very generous gesture it was of Roxy to provide all the food and drink for us all to join in and celebrate her special day. Thank you lovely lady :)

Apologies for the lateness of this report - no real excuses - just an extremely full few days !

Hope to see lots of you tomorrow evening at Haviland House.

Happy Sunday evening to you all

Julia xx

Operation January

We welcomed back from sunny Morocco Belinda and Johnafter their sunny week away. Extra kudos to Rosalind who had already been working outside all day . Craig - so good to see you back ( please link your strava to GG again! ) It was great to see Paul back after his bout of covid and it was an extra surprise to see Sarah especially as there was a 30 % chance of showers! Daisywas hoping to swerve some fitness by meeting us at the task ( bad luck!! ) and despite her toothacheGillybean came to help and support us too. Thanks team - a good, healthy turn out to support the January challenge.

The running group set off in the direction of the pier whilst the walkers headed directly to the task where we met up with Gill and Daisy.

We had been asked to return the The Recovery Project, which is part of the Turning Tides local homeless charity, to tidy up their front garden. It was 2 years since our last task there, and we were happy to see that it was in a good state with a minimal amount of pruning and tidying to do. With this in mind, once the runners arrived I got them straight onto fitness with functional drills and timed laps around the block whilst the rest of us stayed with the task.

In the end everyone gave a hand to get all the debris bagged and cleared up. I think the general consensus was that the group all enjoyed the 'old school' format - join me Wednesday evening for a litter pick and bonus fitness session with sprints on the seafront.

Don't forget to log any good deed and all your km's on strava - every little counts.

Thanks all of you and hope to see you soon:)

Julia xx

Back to the normal RV

For the first Monday meeting of January ( last week was cancelled due to snow) we met at our regular meeting point at Splashpoint LC. It was so nice to see Stephen back at GG together with Paul, Anne and Rosalind On such a cold January evening it was a real treat for me to see them turn out to do good. Special mention to Ros who had been outside working all day too.

We all set off running through the town at a steady pace until we arrived at Byron Road.

*Brushing it away *

We were enthusiastically met at the venue by Jason , one of the residents who was so pleased we were there and who is keen for us to return to sort the back garden out too as his room overlooks it. I enjoyed a chat with Jason, hearing about his story reminds me that we are only a few instances of bad luck away from being in his position. I wasn't so keen on his 'King Rat' account of finding a giant rat around the hostel!

Today, Anne was the queen of pruning and did some great cutting back of some of the lanky shrubs. Steve, Ros and Paul got stuck into clearing the borders. Luckily for us there was a big skip that we threw all the debris into which made life very easy for us. As it was so cold, and because we all wanted to do some fitness, we downed tools. The group photo outside the front door looks a little strange as they were all blowing cold air when I took it!

Fitness is back

We headed to the seafront and we loved doing squats, lunges , jumps and sprints all the way home ( via the pier) This will resume as a regular feature of Mondays for those who would like it - for those that don't, thats fine too as we can accomodate every ones needs.

January Challenge

Please do try to get to as many tasks as you can - we need 76 more this month to meet our target ( 24 so far) Plus remember every KM counts to so ensure your strava is linked to GG and get recording every time you walk, run or cycle anywhere ! If you do a good deed like Barbara does every week, then please ensure you self log it too.

See you next time !

Stay warm all of you :)

Julia

Dodging the raindrops three Goodgymers headed to the Turning Tides donation hub. Tamsin and John arrived first, so let the pantomime begin.

Oh no it’s not… We arrived expecting to put together Christmas provisions ready for later distribution to each of the Turning Tides services. Amy, from Turning Tides, greeted us, and confirmed that the task was as we thought. “Where is the food to be packed?”, we asked. “It’s behind you”, said Amy. Actually, what she really said is, “you don’t mind going to the shop first do you?” That was fine, as everybody knows, John absolutely loves shopping, especially in busy supermarkets, especially just before Christmas…..

She’d made a list….. The reason for needing to shop was that there had been a drop in donations compared to previous years. We headed off in two cars to ensure boot space. Amy’s car screeched to a halt. She’d got the list, she’d checked that twice! What she hadn’t checked was whether she had the means to pay! A quick change of passenger arrangement saw John and Tamsin speeding off with the shopping list, whilst Amy rode back to base with a planned rendezvous at Tesco!

With trolley tokens kindly provided at the information desk, we joined our first queue - to get access to the returned trolleys! One and a half of the trolleys were full before we crossed the threshold of the store proper. 30 bags of potatoes, 41 bags of carrots, 20 bags of parsnips - you get the idea! Whilst Tamsin and John vegged out, Amy set off on the hunt for meat - turkey, ham etc. No partridge though - apparently it refused to come down from the tree.

It’s till not the end List fulfilled (all but one Christmas Cake), and several so called jokey comments about the trolley full of brussel sprouts, we joined our next queue. We’d reached the tills. Amy declared as we arrived “I always choose the wrong queue”. That soon proved to be true, and the unloaded shopping was soon being moved one till along where things seemed to be moving more quickly. Amy was right though! It was still the wrong queue! As we were waiting the customerless cashier alongside us just looked on and smiled!

Cars loaded we headed back to base. Tamsin, ever the multi tasker, made a quick detour to adjust cooking temperature for dinner that evening.

We Three (un** pac) Kings Paula had arrived in time to lead the unloading of the cars into crates ready for Amy to set up the “packing line”. We three were sent upstairs to count to ten (you know, coffee, tea, tunnocks tea cakes. That sort of thing…) while the packing area was created.

Given the all clear we began working through the spreadsheet of requirements adding items to labelled crates as appropriate. We soon realised that “paying more attention” would mean not having to take things back out and starting again. Once realised Team GoodGym came into its own. We are always most effective when we operate as a team. Amy having asked us to just “concentrate on the first four, and we’ll see how it goes” was surprised to hear us declare “finished”. The minor spillage was forgotten (fortunately the phone survived its brief cleansing) and we three headed back out into the rain heartened by Amy’s grateful thanks.

Rain rain go away - or Sarah will cancel ! :)

Just 36 hours later, it was a far cry from Sundays glorious weather that we had enjoyed on the beach and during the fitness session. The forecast was looking good but 20 minutes before we met up, and just as many of the team were setting off for the task, there was a downpour of rain meaning a few getting soaked before the task had even started and a few deciding to cancel too.

Luckily Sarah had believed the forecast, booked into the task and left home before the rain started so we won ! Ha ha ! She is usually more careful when committing to tasks (I think she would agree with this! )

Helping out at Turning Tides - about Byron Hostel

At Byron Road the support for many hundreds of men and women who pass through their doors is as follows.

• 15 bed complex needs
• 24/7 staffing, double day and single night cover with waking night workers
• 14 bed move on hostel
• Abstinence and harm minimisation
• Psychologically informed approach

Giving a helping hand with the garden

Tonight, after 2 weeks of being rained off we were determined to make the front garden tidy up happen. We collected up and bagged a lot of pruning debris that had been previously been done by other volunteers. In total there were around a dozen bags filled. Nice work Duncan

Daisy and Suealso spent a lot of time sweeping and clearing the drive of leaves and debris.

Whilst in another corners of the garden Rosalind John and Sarah plus Daisy too, were on hands, knees and butts weeding the drive. With the ground so wet this was a task that proved quite addictive !

An hour later the garden looked much tidier and a lot smarter.

Tonight was small but mighty team who turned out on a fairly grim November night - Massive thanks and kudos to you all.

Have a great week and see you next Monday

Julia xx