There aren’t many rainy Tuesday evenings but the ones we get do seem to coincide with our visits to the Hillview Good News Centre!

Way back in December we applied the first coat of paint to their outside wall and tonight was our third visit to attempt to apply coat two. But yet again the weather was against us and rain stopped paint! But as always community workers Sean and Fay came up with a great alternative so there was still good to be done at the end of our run!

But first in tonight’s news we congratulated Helena on winning a bronze County medal at the Sussex road relays on Saturday and we all admired Roy’s new half marathon PB set in Istanbul at the weekend. Big ups also went to Amro, Paul, Rosemary & me who all completed missions this week. I certainly enjoyed mine, when alongside Amro we overcame a series of technical challenges to mow Mrs D’s lawn, and thoroughly recommend people to get involved with this aspect of Goodgym.

Back to tonight and a rainy, slightly uphill 4.5 km took us to the north of town where our task was twofold:-

1. to prepare the community centre for a Chomp session tomorrow by laying out lots of tables and chairs and giving the centre a general clean.
2. to move a pile of reclaimed wood that will eventually be used by a The Good News Shed group to make various items to sell at fairs, fix fences etc.

Task complete, we enjoyed a slightly faster, downhill return journey before heading off for beer and pizza for our monthly social. Well done to all for coping with the longer distance tonight.

Don’t forget it’s our monthly parkrun meet up at East Brighton on Saturday and then the big one on Sunday when Brighton hosts its 10th marathon. Best of luck to all running, volunteering or supporting.

Until next week...

In tonight’s news we…. * mentioned the Goodgym Shindig happening in July. I t would be great to get at least a couple of representatives from Brighton attending. * warmly welcomed Kate for her first Goodgym run. * couldn’t work out how to make ourselves into the number 34 and take a photo in the dark!

In tonight’s task we…. * ran to The Phoenix gallery which supports the arts in Brighton by providing affordable studio space and runs various community art groups * swept, mopped and wiped a vast amount of dust from the southern stairway which had accumulated as a result of the building of the swanky new cafe

In tonight’s fitness session we… * didn’t get interrupted by any drunk people * had a go at skipping with skipping ropes * did some lunges, squats and single leg deadlifts

At tonight’s social we…. * ate lots of beige food * listened to the Jackson 5 on repeat! * discussed Brexit, the Michael Jackson documentary, good films we’d seen (Capernaum) and the joy of folding!

in tonight's run report * Tara thought she was doing bullet points but got it wrong and couldn't work out why!!

Happy Running guys, see you next Tuesday!

Under a big, bright full moon 17 Goodgymers gathered to get fit by doing good in the Hanover & Elm Grove ward.

Before heading off we welcomed Daisy for her first Brighton Goodgym run and congratulated Helena, Roy & Tabitha on their new parkrun PBs. A hatrick of personal bests, must be something in the water!

Just a short 1.5 kilometres to the start tonight where we were met by Cllr David Gibson & Simon who set us to work on removing yet more graffiti in the area, this time from the large communal street bins and junction boxes. Now no-one minds a bit of carefully crafted street art but this is not what we’re talking about here! This is some pretty basic, scribbling and definitely does not create the impression of a well looked after neighbourhood. But Goodgym to the rescue! Armed with spray cans, face masks, paint thinners and cloths we set to work on wiping off and painting over the offending scribbles. Meanwhile the rest of the group headed off to clear the streets of litter and after half an hour the neighbourhood was much improved thanks to your sterling efforts.

Just time for a few intervals of the Level to ensure that you got your dose of getting fit as well as doing good. Interval running is a great way of pushing your running on to the next level (excuse the pun!), as the faster running, interspersed with rest periods challenges your body to work harder and adapt to the increase stress so making you fitter! They are tough but nothing beats that feeling when they’re done!

So we headed back to base leaving Hanover looking considerably smarter and you all feeling a little fitter. Good luck to all who are running the Brighton Half Marathon on Sunday. do come and give us a cheer, it really does help us go faster!

And thanks to Tabitha for tonight's pun!

And we’re back in the game!

After what seemed like ages since out last run but was in fact only 3 weeks we gathered once more to Get Fit and Do Good Brighton style.

We welcomed a fantastic four new runners having their first Goodgym experience….Paula, Angela, Katharine & Nat, it’s great to have you on board. And a big welcome also to Lisa, a seasoned London Goodgymmer, joining us whilst working down south.

In the news….

January Challenge is go. The aim is to do as many good deeds and run as many kms as we can in January. So please get all your runs on Strava and linked to the Goodgym website so we can smash our target.

You can add kms and deeds by park running with us at Hove Prom on Saturday morning at our monthly meet up and then coming along to Sloane Court to complete a good deed at our extra January weekend group run. This is helping out in the garden at a council run seniors accommodation so a great fit for Goodgym.

Tonight’s task was a regular for us, cleaning a community kitchen which uses all its profits from commercial cookery classes and events to fund work with community groups to help them learn about food. There are some fantastic courses coming up to extend your culinary repertoire, check them out here and at Goodgym we get a discount by using code GOODGYM618 valid until the end of March 2019.

Jo & Evie from the food partnership set us to work on cleaning the windows, paying particular attention to the sticky tape left behind from the Christmas decorations, and wiping down surfaces and cupboards to clear off sticky fingermarks. After 20 minutes or so of hard work, all was clean and we headed off to the seafront for our fitness session.

Meanwhile….over to Helena who led a sub group on a Christmas tree hunt….

Nine of the Brighton Goodgymers took on the seafront, and LOTS of New Year joggers, to run towards Hove and round up the discarded Christmas trees that didn't quite make to collection points..

Splitting into pairs and threes we covered much of the Palmeira area, working our arms, shifting at least 20 HUGE trees. A special mention for Sherman who dragged 2 trees taller than himself across half of Hove! These trees will now get made in to compost insead of going to landfill and have made the neighbourhood much tidier. Smelling distinctly of pine, we all headed back to meet the rest of the Brighton Goodgymers for our fitness session.

Reunited as one big group we took on the fitness challenge of five rounds of mountain climbers, sit ups and squats, decreasing from 25 reps of each down to 5 for the last round. But once somebody had completed all the reps of one exercise everybody could move on to the next one. Special thanks to Damien for smashing out those mountain climbers!

It felt like the first but was indeed the second Tuesday of the month which means monthly social time, so we headed to the Black Lion for some drinks and pub grub, where some of the group were delighted, and the rest of us were disappointed not, to be asked for their ID!! All that getting fit and doing good is obviously keeping some of us looking young!

So hope to see some of you at the extra run this weekend, or next week we’ll be back at the prom sweeping the last of he pebbles to clear the course for parkrun.

Keep on running!

A brand new location for our task tonight as we visited the Phoenix Art Gallery for the first time.

There’s a lot going on in this massive building including loads of affordable artists studios, exhibition spaces, family workshops and community art therapy groups. It’s run on a not for profit basis and has the core mission to create the conditions through which art can flourish.

After welcoming Ajil for his first group run and congratulating PB machines Michael & Roy on their progress at parkrun we headed north, negotiating the improvement works of the Valley Gardens Scheme. Premises manager Jon welcomed us and set us to work. Katie & Paul took on the outside task of litter picking and weeding the parking area at the back of the centre. This is an area we visited a few weeks ago to paint over graffiti and it was good to see that the area is still mostly graffiti free. And now it's litter and weed free too, thanks to our efforts.

Meanwhile indoors our other task was to sweep and mop the two main staircases. It seemed like it had been quite some time since this had been done and much dust was swept and mopped and we left the area much improved.

We then headed south for our fitness session featuring speedy laps of our 400m ish ‘track’ . There were some fantastic times and it was great to see you working off each other and pushing each other on. The laps alternated with a butt busting sequence of moves designed to strengthen those 'all important for running, but a bit knackered by sitting' gluteal muscles.

There was some discussion during the evening of the best night for our Christmas social, and social sec Nipun suggested a ‘doodle poll’ where we can vote on our preferred evening, 5th or 6th December. More details in this weeks newsletter.

Next week we’ll be back in the Hanover area but until then hope to see you some of you at parkrun on Saturday.