It's Tuesday, it's Group Run night and it didn't rain! Woohoo! In other great news, we had Christin, Regina, Maddie and Jess join us for the first time tonight - welcome!

Once we got warmed up, we split the group into our two tasks for the night, Northern Slopes and The Southville Centre.

Alison took a hardy group of 15 to Northern Slopes where they were continuing their task which was started (in the middle of Storm Dennis) on Saturday. Although it wasn't quite Storm Dennis, it was still pretty windy and cold up there, but the hardcore group got to work shifting brambles and clearing a pathway for when their trees are planted, so they can protect the birds nesting in the area. The tea and biscuits which were provided after this cold hard work were very welcome, then the group made their way back to warm up further back at Workout.

Like watching paint dry

Meanwhile, it was GoodGym DIY SOS at The Southville Centre tonight, where Hugh had set us up with five chest of drawers to sand, varnish and repaint and a hallway to give a fresh lick of paint to. Amid in the pedestrians going to Taekwondo and French classes, the group got them done in no time, and as we switched the fitness to task groups at the half-way point, there was even time to get a second coat in.

The group got some impressive hill sprints squats, press ups and planks in during their fitness slots too. After that, it was time to head back and revel in our new up-cycling skills. Brilliant work everyone!

What a night! To join us for the first time in this even-more-crazy-than-normal addition of GoodGym Bristol were Toby, Charlie, Dulcie and Rory. It was great having you and we hope to see you very soon when we (probably) won't make you sing. Tonight's craziness was due to the very special occasion of the amazing Paul Becker having joined the 500 Good Deed Club.

Our celebrations for him included: * A giant running, litter-picking Pink Panther in the shape of Chris ft. a weird lump carried around the whole night which was, in fact, 500 pink wafers * An amazing PINK SEQUIN CAPE, now known as the Cape of Good Hope, crafted from scratch by the talented Mel (and suffered the sequin aftermaths of by Darren) * The YMCA and Macarena with Clo and Matt's incredibly crafted new lyrics to fit PB Senior, sung (and danced) beautifully by our crew * An incredible massive pink wafer cake baked by the talented Richard B * Pink Panther masks for the masses made by Julie

Phwoar! What a load of Pink Panther Goodness for our very own PB. However, this is GoodGym, so there is never too much good to be had. Before all of this got appreciated, we had 40+ GoodGymers to do two Good Deeds before all of this could be appreciated.

Dave did a last-minute lead of the first group to Emmaus where they were met by Xanne and set to work with a bunch of tasks in the huge warehouse. The group got lifting, shifting, donation sorting and, most importantly, top photo-shoot shot finding. As usual, they were met with a plethora of weird and wonderful goods around the warehouse, and had to be torn away to get back to Queen Square in time.

Paul-uted

Meanwhile, the rest of us headed to Riverside Park to do a litter-pick for Bristol Waste. We split into four litter-picker teams and tackled different sections of the area, managing to gather a massive 10 bags of litter in just 15 minutes. We then ran on to get a litter-pick, running relay in at - you guessed it - St Paul's Park.

A wonderful Sequin-ce

Following all this hard work, we headed back to Queen Square to have a (very long) stretch off and regroup to perform our incredibly well-rehearsed Paul songs, eat lots of cake and, not forgetting, celebrate the wonderful Mel who reached her 400th Good Deed earlier today. Well done Mel!

Pun Credit to Richard G!

...Oh, light

It was great to have Catherine and Ingrid join us for the first time tonight - welcome both of you! We headed back to Holy Trinity Church tonight who were lending us their space to help The Marmalade Trust to prepare their hampers which each of their guests attending a Christmas lunch will receive.

When we arrived (with Maria's brilliant back marking safely getting the whole group there), Amy told us a bit about the incredible work they do: some of the people they speak to when arranging the lunches have not spoken to anyone in 3 months, and the hampers they get on Christmas day are the only present any of their guests have received on the years they have been running. The lunches can spark a change in the older people's lives and the charity direct them to social routes in the new year.

Crafty bunch

Our task for the evening was creating wrapped candles to add to the hampers. We divided ourselves into Very Crafty, A Little Bit Crafty and Not Crafty and got to work with distributing and wrapping candles and making labels to add to them. As time went on, the Not Crafty group even got a bit more crafty! (or at least gave it a shot and put the tables away very well...). 40 minutes later and we had a table full of beautifully wrapped candles ready for the hampers. We pretended to be candles for the group photo (see evidence above), then wished Amy from Marmalade Trust and Maria from Holy Trinity goodbye and ran back (with a short stop for planks, of course!).

What better way to finish off the night than with a candle-based joke?

When is a candle not a candle? When it's a-light!

Thanks Tim 😉

We had a last minute change of plan tonight as our planned task couldn't get into the building we were helping in. Never fear, it was the perfect time to finish off leafleting for Penny Brohn's Christmas Concert on 6th December, which we started last week. Mel also stepped up to lead a walking litter-picking group around the local area to clean up the space.

Welcome to Amy, who joined us for the first time tonight - it was great having you!

While Mel's group set-off to litter-pick, the rest of us headed to Hotwells, where we started our zig-zagging long climb up to Clifton (with a lot of back and forth leafleting on the way), with Clo taking some blurry photos to prove just how speedy we were running. Our four teams covered the area and delivered 400 leaflets in no time, as well as having lots of time for wall-sits and partner arms workouts in between.

Merry Crouch-mas

With all of the leaflets safely delivered, we headed on a gratefully-received downhill run back to Queen Square. Here we got to test out our four teams one more time with a hotly contested sprint-into-crouch relay. After that excitement, it was time to cool down, head back into the warm, and wonder where on earth the key is.