Eleven GoodGymers met up this week for our group run, with 7 meeting at Edinburgh Street Food and 4 people making their own way to the task. This was our second visit to help Friends of the Meadows and Bruntsfield Links (FoMBL) and it was another great evening.

We've really enjoyed getting to know Neil, whose passion for maintaining the Meadows and encouraging a rich diversity of plant life is infectious. He was on hand again to kit us out with spades, forks, wheelbarrows and trowels and he briefed us on what needed done.

With three different tasks to do and enough of us to spread out, we split the group up with some tackling the heavy work of digging and spreading mulch around newly planted trees. This help to protect them and give them the best chance to thrive.

Others waged war on some stubborn thistles, hard work but it paid off with a huge bag filled up in a short space of time.

The final team got busy planting bulbs and managed to complete the fence line we targeted so that it will be brightening up the area with purple flowers next spring.

We were expecting a wet evening with the forecast, so it was a lovely surprise that the weather was kind and we ended up with a dry evening throughout.

It is a slightly longer distance run to Bruntsfield (3.5km each way) so it was expecially great to see a strong turnout, we made good time getting there and managed to get a huge amount done in a short space of time.

Thanks to Neil and the Friends of the Meadows and Bruntsfield Links for having us back. Hopefully we will be seeing you again soon for another great task.

Shout out to Laura and Raphael for coming along for your first sessions. It was lovely meeting you and hope to see you again soon.

Another lovely Tuesday evening session with 7 Gooodgymmers returning to the community croft in Leith for some hard graft.

With the fading daylight, we benefited from our patch having a nearby streetlight providing enough light on a lovely crisp autumn evening. As we were taking on a heavily overgrown section of land we brought our best 'Ross Kemp energy' and got stuck in. Armed with spades, forks and gloves, we dug, pulled, cleared and shifted our way through stubborn vegetation, gradually reclaiming more ground for future growing.

Although we made excellent progress, there is more work to do, so the plan is to come back again next week to continue the work - sign ups are open now. With a few more sessions, we're hoping this patch can eventually become productive growing space and play its part in supporting the amazing work being done by Earth in Common and the wider Leith community.

Until then, we'll keep getting grubby

It was a mighty meetup on a pleasantly mild Tuesday evening this week with 13 GoodGymers joining 12 Edinburgh Trash Club litter pickers for a joint mission around Tolbooth Wynd Park and the surrounding area.

Walking and running groups set off from Edinburgh Street Food and made excellent time down Leith Walk to get to the meeting point. There we met up with Indy and the Edinburgh Trash Club for our first, but hopefully not our last, collab.

Edinburgh Trash Club meet up once a fortnight for cleanup duties around the city (and post cleanup socials in the pub) and are well worth checking out: https://www.instagram.com/edinburghtrashclub/

After some friendly introductions we got to work, armed with bags, litter pickers, gloves and plenty of enthusiasm. Over the next hour we set out to gather as much rubbish as we could, and there was plenty to keep us busy!

And what a transformation it was! So many full bags of rubbish collected and the whole area was noticeably cleaner and more welcoming afterwards. Our efforts certainly didn't go unnoticed too, with a number of local residents stopping to chat and sharing how grateful they were for the work being done with litter being an issue

A huge thank you to Indy and our new friends at Edinburgh Trash Club for welcoming us along and helping make the evening such a success. It was brilliant to work alongside another community-focused group that shares our passion for improving local spaces and bringing people together through local community action.

Here's to more collaborations, more community action and a cleaner city!

Shout out to first time Goodgymers Sam and Maya - hope to see you again soon :)

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Please note there is no GoodGym next Tuesday 29th September as I'm on holiday, We'll be back in a fortnight.

Our second ever GoodGym Edinburgh group run is officially in the books, and it was a fantastic follow up to last week's launch. Six runners met at Edinburgh Street Food, had a quick warm up and covered over 6km on our route to and from our litter picking task working with the brilliant Fountainbridge Canalside Community Trust (FCCT) . We even managed to fit in a quick workout in Harrison park.

FCCT is a great charity working to improve the area around the Union Canal through social inclusion, environmental projects, and community action. Their work keeps the canal welcoming, safe, and vibrant for everyone who uses it. A big thank you to Rob for coordinating and Annie who volunteered to be on hand to dish out equipment. We were supplied with bin bags, metal hoops, gloves, grabbers and a net and got to work quickly.

🧹 In a short space of time we managed to cover Fountainbridge Green and the area around Boroughmuir High School, a section of the canal tow path and Harrison Park East. We estimated around 900 bits of litter collected between the 6 of us. I did manage to embarrassingly misjudge a patch of mud and spent the rest of the session with soaked shoes, but we emerged unscathed otherwise. With some energy to spare we squeezed in a quick pyramid workout challenge before heading back across town

By the time we tied off the final bags, the difference was clear — cleaner paths, safer spaces, and a noticeably more welcoming stretch of canal for the community.

🏃 A Growing Group With Growing Impact Even though we’re only two runs in, the Edinburgh crew is already finding its rhythm: meet, run, help, chat, repeat. It's a pretty simple formula.

🙌 Thanks, FCCT

A huge thank you to Fountainbridge Canalside Community Trust for partnering with us so early in our journey. Their commitment to community‑led stewardship of the canal makes them a perfect match for GoodGym’s mission — and we’re excited to keep building this relationship. For anyone wanting to get more involved with them, check out their website www.fcct.scot/ which has more info on their activities including:

RE-UNION CANAL BOATS – 3 boats providing funded social inclusion and mental health trips and activities, special events, community group trips and private hires VOLUNTEERING – activities, training and development opportunities on and around the canal CANALSIDE WELLBEING WALKING GROUP – weekly walks part of the Scottish Health Walks Network EDINBURGH CANAL FESTIVAL – our flagship annual event on the third Saturday in June COMMUNITY EVENTS – we also organise and get involved with other local events, particularly those with an outdoor, creative or wellbeing focus CANALSIDE GREENSPACE GROUP – exploring and improving our local greenspace, for people and for nature