It was a small but mighty crew for this week’s GoodGym Edinburgh group run, with four of us meeting at P’s and G’s Church at the slightlier earlier than usual time of 5.30pm to support Volunteer Edinburgh as they closed down and cleared up Scotland’s largest Volunteer Recruitment Fair.

Our stall had been buzzing throughout the day, thanks to the brilliant efforts of Lucia, Katie and Suzanne, who came along earlier to help spread the word. Across the event we spoke to over 110 people, lots of people keen to get involved and many folk having spotted our feature in Monday's Edinburgh Minute! https://www.edinburghminute.com/the-edinburgh-minute-monday-31-august-2026/

Packing Down the Fair

At 5.30 the fair was closed to the public and there was mountain of work to tackle. We got stuck straight into shifting and stacking chairs, packing down tables across the hall, sweeping and mopping the main floor and clearing leftover materials and rubbish.

The staff on site were hugely appreciative for our help making a mammoth end‑of‑day job manageable. It’s safe to say we earned some serious brownie points with Volunteer Edinburgh for a strong showing during the clear‑up as well as the fair itself.

A Drizzly Litter Pick at St George V Park

With spirits high after a satisfying indoor task, we dropped bags at Edinburgh Street Food and jogged down to St George V Park and Rodney Street Tunnel for a bonus mission: a quick litter pick in the light drizzle. It proved to be a worthwhile spot. In a short session we collected over 300 pieces of litter with some bizarre, and slightly creepy, finds along the way.

Thanks to Chris Evans and Edinburgh Council's Seafield Street Cleaning Hub for providing us with litter pickers, gloves and bags, and thanks to Councillor Jack Caldwell for linking us in with the team!

Finishing With a 5km Loop

To round off the evening, we completed a 5km loop taking in Warriston Path. Big efforts from Jake (closing in on 50 GoodGym activities completed!), Kate, Luke and Jake for a great evening!

A tidy hall, a cleaner park, and a solid run — not bad for a Tuesday evening.

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

Wow, what a great first session launching GoodGym Edinburgh with a bang!

Big shout out to all the runners and walkers who turned up for the debut Tuesday Group Run. We were joined by GoodGym CEO Hannah Crane who made the trip up from London to celebrate Scotland's first GoodGym community getting started.

We set off from Edinburgh Street Food with our running and walking groups and made good time down to Leith Community Croft where the incredible Ali from Earth In Common was on hand to share out tools, tell us about the work they do and talk us through what needed done.

I was blown away by how much weeding, wheelbarrowing, clearing and tidying up we were able to get through in a short space of time. The raised beds were looking in good shape once we were done, we had managed to clear a good chunk of material off site into a skip and made a good start on the market garden (potential for a follow up task here I think).

Finishing off with a 'Bring Sally Up' squat challenge before tucking into some discounted grub and drinks at Edinburgh Street Food was a real highlight for me. Looking forward to seeing what other kinds of short workouts we can squeeze into future runs!

A huge thank you to Places for People for their support in helping bring GoodGym Edinburgh to life. Their partnership has been key to getting this new community off the ground.

For the next sessions I'll be looking for helpers in run leading and photography. There are also opportunities to get involved in setting up tasks as a member of Taskforce. if you'd like to help out with GoodGym Edinburgh just drop me an email.

big love,

Dave