Massive kudos to the 16 people who showed up on a very cold night for this, our sixth instalment of HelpfulPeeps leafleting. Over the last year we've worked our way through Kingsdown/St Pauls, Victoria Park, Southville, Stapleton Road and Bedminster spreading the word about this Pay it Forward initiative where requests forof help are answered for free by a growing online community of HelpfulPeeps.

Tonight we were off to hit St Marks Road in Easton which meant a nice long 3k each way (plus an extra 1 or 2k for running between letterboxes :) ). This kept us pretty warm considering the sub-zero temperatures around us and we managed to cover a lot of ground by splitting into pairs and covering a street at a time.

But this wasn't all ...

We had received our own request for help from a valued member of our GG Bristol project community and being HelpfulPeeps ourselves, we quickly put together a team of 4 led by run leader Jack (thanks Jack!) so that we could send some assistance. Ann-Marie at Full Circle needed a sofa moving and a number of items packed away into a skip and in no time at all, the items were all taken care of.

On our return we made sure to congratulate Caroline and Kait for reaching 50 good deeds and qualifying for their highly prized black T shirts. Kait and Caroline have contributed massively to GG Bristol, both are very popular regulars on our Group Runs and Missions, and Kait has been running to her coach for some time now too so its really nice to be able to recognise allthis tonight. Sadly its Caroline's last week in Bristol before she heads off to Sheffield (and GG Sheffield!) but she's promised to come back and visit soon!

Thanks to Caroline for the pink wafers and party food at the bar tonight and to Daniel who kindly baked some delicious chocolate brownies for us all!

Thanks to Alice for the pun!

There was a certain tension in the air tonight as a high knee-off between lefts and rights looked like it could descend into a rather unsavoury fitness duel. Hopefully the rights will keep their rather boastful comments to themselves next week or it really looks like the lefts could (heel) kick off.

Still, things calmed down eventually and as the dust settled an astounding 33 runners came into view. That's 33 amazing people who are happy to give up their Tuesday evening and run through the cold and dark to help sort the stock at their local food bank. Gert proud of all of you!

Our run tonight took us past the broken Cheesegrater bridge, (closed for six months after a lorry drove onto it!) and out to Big Yellow storage where the East Bristol food bank stores its stock and where we were met by Andy.

After enjoying the challenge of testing the quoted capacity of a 26 person lift, we arrived at floor 3 to find that Andy had been busy. A neat line of crates lay waiting for us all labelled up with the particular food type they should contain - there was even a "Christmas things" crate - how exciting is that! In fact, with our huge turnout tonight we dispatched a small team to lay out a second line of crates, thus doubling our sorting rate.

The sort process is simple, crates containing a random array of items are removed from the store cupboard one at a time, weighed and then their contents are sorted into categories using other empty crates so they can be dispatched to the various food banks around the city for distribution. Ciara manned the scales and did an amazing job of efficiently recording the weights so they could be quickly carried around for sorting.

A steady stream of Goodgym red passed into and out of the store cupboard and I was pleased to observe some excellent crate lifting form after our practice at the warm-up.

By the end of our timeslot we had succeeded in sorting ALL the crates - brilliant work everyone! We said goodbye to Andy (who looked really pleased with our progress) and ran back to base, with my group taking in a few sets of steps along the way.

Thank you to Mel for leading the second group today and Richard and Dave for backmarking. Thanks also to Richard for the pun!

And lastly special mention to Matt for ensuring that every one of his crates was captured on film.

The rain stopped just in time for us this evening as we met up to play our part in Bristol Waste's "Autumn Blitz" on litter.

Our assigned area tonight was pretty much on our doorstep, so we offered the option of a couple of runs before we got started. Most people signed up for a longer 5k version around the harbourside so Charlie and Alice led two different pace groups - thanks both of you! The remainder joined me on a shorter run 2.5k option around Spike Island with some bonus walking lunges and squats to keep us busy until the other two groups returned.

The runs completed, we again split into groups - this time so we could cover the areas we had been assigned for litter picking. Richard led his team around King Street and Queen Square, while Charlie and Jack took on Victoria Street. Emma took a third group up Prince Street towards Anchor Road. So much street name royalty in one place!

Employing their "Street Master" litter pickers (other brands may be available ... but probably not with such a cool name) with considerable skill the teams quickly bagged up large quantities of rubbish to be left at the allocated pick up points for Bristol Waste.

All that remained was to wish Jack congratulations on completing his 50th good deed tonight - and celebrate with the fine selection of cakes and party rings he had brought with him. Well done Jack!