Xxxxxx

The day dawned with sunshine for the annual RUN Fest event. What a relief after last year's awful weather!

The fabulous 5 of us worked our socks off all morning welcoming over 2500 runners back after either their half marathon, 10k or famly mile.

Many thanks to Belinda, Anne, El and John who, after setting up, were all on the tee shirt tables. Meanwhile, I was giving out boxes of Joint Ace vitamins to the runners as they came around the finishers funnel. El and Anne has displayed their GoodGym Tee shirts on the finish line whilst holding the winners ribbon which was a really nice honour for us all.

Congratulations to the GoodGym runners too - Daisy, Paul ( and John) and Sue W did the half marathon and Sue Acaster, Sarah, Ryan and Craig the 10k .

Great work all round team:)

Getting to the (almost) root of the problem

On a stunning April evening we had headed across Sunny Worthing to one of more recent, but also favourite tasks, at English Martyrs school. We were met by Helen, the head teacher who had a comprehensive list of task requests. Many of us had arrived with loppers in readiness for hedge and bramble work so we got straight to work.

Special mention to Roxy who completed The London Marathon yesterday in a fantastic time. Massive congratulations also must go to Anne who completed the 50 mile South Downs Challenge a few weeks ago and returned to her GoodGym buddies tonight.

Most of the team including Belinda, Barbara,El,John,Ricky,Paul Gillybean, and Anne got stuck into lopping down large brambly hedges lining the bordering fence. They certainly worked with great gusto with lots to get done in a limited time. The progress was excellent with piles of debris soon appearing ready to be transferred to the compost heap.

Roxy and puppy Mala decided to continue painting the fence that we had started last year. With only 1 paint brush it was a 1 person job but we do hope that we will push through and finish the whole thing this summer before it will all need doing again next year! Luckily for Roxy, when Mala got a little too hot and restless Helen's daughter stepped in and was only too pleased to take her inside to play with her.

Stéphane arrived just in time to help me empty compost into the new raised beds before concentrating on helping with all the debris clearing. John had usefully brought along a brand new electric strimmer which was sliced through the brambles beautifully. Gill very usefully found a trolley to help with transportation to the compost heap ( great photo)

Superstar of the day

Talking of the strimmer ..... John unfortunately misplaced a wing nut on it so we were all trying to keep a look out for it which was a little like looking for a needle in a haystack ! However thanks to our eagle eyed ( and determined) El this was the first of two problems that we didn't need to worry about! Within the space of 10 minutes she had not only found the missing part for the strimmer but also Paul's glasses which had dropped off his head into the abysis of foliage ! El is definitely one we are keeping !

What a lovely evening this was :) We will be back again next week to continue with more jobs. As its a bank holiday Monday we will be meeting next Wednesday 7th May at 6pm instead.

Have a great BH long weekend and see you next week.

Julia x