It was great to have Sarah, Karen, Elizabeth, Janine, Beanie, Claire, Genoveva and Zhang join us on their first Group Run tonight, several of whom were joining us as part of the Bristol SU Mind Your Head campaign. Welcome all!

We got warmed up (and I had to warm up my Maths due to Clem's demands) then split into two groups for the night with Liam leading a shorter-run group and the rest of us heading on a 5km loop.

Tool-tal wipeout

Liam's group (with impressive 2-day post marathon backmarking from Matt) headed to Faithspace where we were helping Hotwells and Redcliffe Development Group. This was a task planned a couple of months ago which we got distracted from by helping them with an emergency that night instead. By now, our planned gardening was desperately needed! The group set to work with gardening in the small park next to Faithspace, making a big difference to brightening up the local community. Another group were given the task of leafleting about the community happenings to the local houses, which turned into more of a challenge due to the extreme lack of residential houses in the area! They ventured further afield and managed to complete the task in no time.

Don't skip a beat

The rest of us set off to our regular session at Felix Road Adventure Playground. Thank you to Richard B for wonderful backmarking on our journey along the cycle path with chair, squat and sprint fitness stops and a cheer team of a several groups of local children on wheels. We soon arrived and were met by the usual overjoyed welcome from the team. The group were split into two: a skip team and gardening team.

Team Skip got to work with with smashing and bashing (technical term) to fit all the items into the skip. I must say, I have never seen such a neatly packed skip in all my life, neither have I witnessed someone saw a wheely bin in half (nice work Russ) or get quite so into hammering things to pieces (slightly worrying, really...) Team Gardening had the massive task of tackling all the nettles, brambles and sticky willy (I promise it's an innocent thing) to clear the land for planting and make it safe for the children to play.

In half an hour the team smashed through the tasks and once again left a very pleased Felix Road team with 6 bags of garden waste bagged, 2 bags of litter picked and a full skip waiting to be collected.

Tool-y, skip-y, sticky missions complete!

Our first Saturday meeting at our new start point - Mud Dock café. We were given a warm welcome, enjoyed a coffee or two and were allocated a couple of lockers for bags so all in all a very nice start - thanks Mud Dock!

We also had FOUR new runners today which was fantastic - welcome Jane, Heather, Alefiyah and Lauren! Hope you had fun and will come back and visit again soon!

Our warm up on Queen Square was accompanied by the news that Bristol is currently so well off for volunteers that our planned task at the Christmas homeless shelter now required only 6 people to sort donations. We agreed to divide this up and have one group tackle the first half hour and the other the second.

So we set off on a 2k run to the shelter, only to find that we had been beaten to it by the unexpected arrival of yet another band of donation sorters; a young offenders group. Ed our host had quickly put together an alternative mail-out task so with the help of Jack and Maria (and their Google map apps) we were able to dispatch a couple of small groups to deliver those. Thanks to my Run leaders for co-ordinating a few lunges while I was gathering up the envelopes!

The rest of us took a little fitter-litter tour around St Paul's. Starting at Portland Square with some meet-and-retreat, and a dash of running train we proceeded via Brunswick cemetery gardens with some press-ups and then on to Brunswick Square, collecting up litter as we went. It may not have been planned, but the local squares certainly benefited from our diversion as everyone managed to collect a lot of rubbish (including a pair of rather damp shoes).

Meanwhile the postal parties had managed to do their deliveries although there was apparently a little confusion over the location of the Wild Goose café, leading to Maria's lovely pun.

Thanks for being adaptable everyone - we still did plenty of good today and most of us managed a good 5k of running too!