It was harvest time at Moulsecoomb Primary school: School governor Warren met us to help with the school's orchard which is used to teach children about growing food as well as provide a healthy snack at break times.

Welcome to James who joined us for the first time this week, and welcome back to James who joined us for the very first time last week: James^2 looked after composting duties, turning the heap over and adding to it from the weeding taking place amongst the raspberries.

Welcome also to Rosa who joined us from Newham Goodgym, always great to meet other Goodgymers! Rosa, Emma and Michael ploughed through the weeding while David, Rosemary and Frannie handled the plums...

This left Roy, Michelle and Juliet clearing out a very dry pond (and rumour has it a dead squirrel?!) Much was achieved in our 45 minute session in the evening sunshine and a general good feeling that this Goodgymer has been missing recently.

Warren is looking to have us back soon with such a lot of school grounds to cover.

Goodgym Brighton’s Tuesday evening run (jog, walk, crawl) to Cardinal Newman Catholic School in Hove took in, in my opinion 80% of Brighton’s steepest hills, I really did crawl at some points !

In tonight’s news…… Well done to Helena on your shiny Silver medal (for the Sussex 2019/20 Cross Country League) and also to Katharine for running further than she's ever run before. And ideas for next weeks social are most welcome (in the Whatsapp group).

Armed with feather dusters microfibre cloths in assorted colours and enough spray cleaner to rid Europe of the corona virus we set about our task of buffing the hell out of the staircases. Noticing a sign on the stairs saying UP ONLY, I could only imagine the pile up at A&E as uninitiated year 7’s figured out inventive ways of getting back downstairs.

As we chanted our mantra ‘cleanliness is next to godliness’ handrails were spruced , strings were polished, stanchions scrubbed, balustrades buffed and newel’s rendered spotless. We were so devoted to our task that many of us missed an impromptu acoustic gig taking place in the music room…….

Task completed we retired to the field to complete our exercises, good+gym =

And just a reminder that we are having a Goodgym volunteering takeover at Junior parkrun this Sunday. Sign up here.

I can’t believe its Pancake Day again! That really creped up on us! And what better place to go on Shrove Tuesday than Elm Grove so that we could make a flippin’ good pun. Ok Hove might have been a bit batter!

In tonight’s news…… Well done to Roy for storming the Brighton Half marathon in really quite shocking conditions on Sunday and coming home with a brand spanking new PB! And kudos too to our task owner tonight Cllr David Gibson for also completing in a very impressive time. And cheers of admiration go out to any one else connected with Goodgym who also ran.

In other news a quick reminder of the community mission happening this weekend. Check it out here.

So we’ve had several visits to Hanover and Elm Grove ward to do battle with the taggers, scribblers and as it’s pancake day I think I can say tossers, who have outgrown their crayons and moved on to the spray can. But every time we go there is a little bit less for us to do which means we are winning! So just a couple of walls to paint tonight, with lots of local residents stopping to express their gratitude for our efforts. It’s really good to know that we are making such a difference!

Whilst half of us were painting and litter picking the rest were delivering the ‘Hourglass’ newsletters on behalf of Extinction Rebellion to spread the word about the climate crisis. This monthly newsletter is distributed entirely by volunteers, and tonight with 9 of us delivering hard we achieved in 30 minutes what would take one person most of a day!

After the good was done we gathered on the Level to indulge ourselves in some ‘do-gooding’ our own health and fitness with some Level laps and a couple of circuits of various exercises that make us all a little bit fitter than we were yesterday!