A massive group of 21 runners ran along the canal path to Cleveland Pools. We did lots of jobs to help keep the grounds clean and safe. It was really exciting to contribute towards a historic and important part of Bath! We ran 3km in total.

Welcome Anni!

We met outside the leisure centre and I gave the introduction talk. We welcomed Anni to her first GoodGym run. It was great to have you come and join us, we hope you come back again!

After a quick warm-up we were on our way. We took the scenic route and enjoyed the peace and tranquility of the canal path. I encouraged the runners to do some exercises by the side of the canal and we formed a conga line of walking lunges!

You don't pool me!

Our host, Sally, met us at the pools. The building and swimming areas at Cleveland pools date back to the Georgian period. In fact, it is the last surviving lido (outdoor swimming pool) that still exists in the UK. It fell into disrepair and hasn't been used since the 1980's. We have been to help maintain the grounds of the pool before, but since we last visited the team there have worked tirelessly to secured a game-changing amount of National Lottery funding. Hopefully with a further bit of fundraising the team can look to get regeneration work started and open up to the public again in the next few years.

Sally had lots of work for us to do and we split into teams.

Pool me once, shame on you. Pool me twice, shame on me!

A group of us donned our gardening gloves and tidied the grassy banks around the pool. We removed lots of sticky weeds, ivy and general weeds from the grounds and disposed of them. This is to stop them taking over the whole area!

We have hidden depths

A duo of runners worked together to 'fish' various weeds and plants out of the pool. They filled two wheelbarrows full of their treasure! Great work! Luckily we had Mark, our trained lifeguard, keeping an eye on things on this task! Thanks, Mark!

Another team were trusted with hand-held scythes and saws to cut down some aggressive stinging nettles that were taking over a patch of land. Their removal will make it easier for builders to eventually get work started.

Better great than never ... April pools!

A few of our number picked sycamore seedlings from the ground surrounding the buildings. If left, these seedlings will grow into fully-fledged trees which can disrupt the foundations of the buildings. It was an important job to nip in the bud!

Some of the runners worked together to clear other weeds and old tree roots that surrounded the old changing rooms. These pesky roots were starting to disrupt the brickwork and removing them means more of the buildings can be salvaged.

An old bra came to support us!

The rest of the runners were hunting in the disturbed ground near the entrance to the pools. They were acting like Indiana Jones and searching for any ceramic pieces of pottery that has been swallowed by the mud over the many years that the pool was used. We filled several tubs and the plan is for them to be made into a large mosaic by schoolchildren. Some of the odder things we found were half of a Lego character, a small rubber monkey and a very old and very disgusting bra!

Overall, it was great to spend the evening outside in the fresh air and make a valuable contribution to an important piece of our heritage in our wonderful city. Sally was really pleased with how much work we got done and we were really proud of our efforts.

Thanks!

Thanks Steph for backmarking for us and thanks to Sally for hosting us. Thanks for the pun this week, Catrin, and thanks to everyone for all the other puns included in the report!

Upcoming runs

• We have a great Community Mission on Sat 27th April at The Orchard
• We are also doing a really fun Community Mission on Sun 28th April as part of the 2019 Worldwide City Nature Challenge
• Next week: we are gardening at Donkey Lane
• In June there is an exciting race in Cheddar Gorge that some of GG Bath have already signed up for
• In June we are also helping at the Saltford Festival

It was a chilly evening in Bath but that didn't stop a fantastic force of 19 runners coming out to help clean toys at Oldfield Park Toddler Group.

We welcomed Chris, on tour from GoodGym Bristol, and Andreea who has joined Bath from GoodGym Hounslow.

After a quick warm up we ran out to Oldfield Park Baptist Church, where our host Katie was waiting to meet us with a huge pile of toys which needed cleaning. This has become a regular half-term task for us, as we can get the work done in 30 minutes whereas it takes the church volunteers at least a day! We split into two teams and got to work!

Esme, Chris, Katrin and Dora were the dishwasher team, who took care of all the small plastic items, including building blocks and an interesting array of plastic food, including a very realistic Pringle! We had to send in back up as there were so many small toys to dry and we ended up leaving some very soggy tea towels behind!

The rest of our mean, clean running machine took care of the larger items, using cloths and anti-bacterial spray to give everything a wipe down. Tom left his Maths PhD behind and went old school with an abacus, Dan resumed construction of the castle he built on a previous visit and Pascale was let loose with the steam cleaner to clean up some softer, squishy items! Tim even grew a tail?!

After cleaning up and a quick group photo, it was off on the run again and back to the Leisure Centre. Thanks to Pascale for back marking this week. Emily had to come up with the pun and can only apologise for lack of originality. We need a replacement pun-master while Joe is injured!

Happy running!

Upcoming runs

*Running the Bath Half? We have a series of weekend training runs. Next one is Sunday 3rd February and will be 12km. *Send A Cow have also offered us some FREE BATH HALF PLACES as a result of all our fantastic flyering. You just need to try and raise £200 for the charity. So get in touch with Emily or Sam if you're interested. *Next week we are helping to organise the store cupboard at 51st Bath Scouts

Socials

We're headed to St James Wine Vaults for the pub quiz next Thursday (31st January) for our end of the month social. Join us if you can!

Social Media

Please like/follow us on social media and share/retweet our content! We are on Facebook and Twitter. Organisations are getting in contact with us through these platforms and this means we are securing more varied tasks for you to enjoy!

For our first Group Run of 2019, 13 of us ran around Holloway and Bear Flat in Bath delivering 750 flyers for Send a Cow. We ran a very hilly 5km and had a fantastic workout!

Welcome Tom!

We met at our usual meeting spot inside the Leisure Centre main reception. We welcomed a new runner, Tom, to our group. Is there someone you know who would enjoy GoodGym? Then invite them along to join us!

Strava and our January Target

Across the country, GoodGym groups have set themselves January targets. We have set ourselves the challenge of running 500km and completing 100 good deeds in January. We are in a league with other groups and want to try and come top! Track our progress here.

You can be part of this by signing up to Strava (it's free) to record your run data. Then link it to your GoodGym account on the GG website (GoodGym Settings -> Strava/RunKeeper). As long as you do at least one good deed in January every run you record on Strava (even if it isn't a GoodGym run!) still goes towards our target!

After sharing news, we did a comprehensive warm-up to prepare us for the hilly running ahead on a cold wintery night.

Holy Cow, what a good cause!

Send a Cow is a charity that do lots of development work in Africa. They are an established charity and have been working with communities there for over 30 years. We were asked to deliver flyers advertising their Bath Half marathon places. If you are interested in a getting place in the Bath Half this year through Send a Cow then please refer to their website. There is only a £10 entrance fee (compared to the usual £40+) and an expectation that you can raise £200 in donations for them. Still not convinced: you get a free cow-print running top!!!

Scared of hills? There were no cow-ards here!

We split into two groups for this task. Emily lead one group around Holloway and then part of Bear Flat. I lead a second group further into Bear Flat. This was to make sure we made the best use of our time and spread the flyers to a variety of areas to increase our impact. We joined up near the end of the task and finished the final roads around Bear flat as one big group.

An udderly brilliant way to beat the January blues!

Getting back out running after a festive break is always a challenge, but we made sure that we all got around together!

Thanks!

Thanks to Emily for leading a group and thanks to Emma for backmarking. Thanks to Ruth for the awesome pun this week!

Upcoming runs

• Running the Bath Half? We have a series of weekend training runs starting this Sunday.
• Join us for a fun task to celebrate Wassail with other community groups at a Community Mission on the 19th Jan
• Next week we are gardening at Action On Hearing Loss.

Social Media

Please like/follow us on social media and share/retweet our content! We are on Facebook and Twitter.

Organisations are already getting in contact with us through these platforms and this means we are securing more varied tasks for you to enjoy!

We created some Christmas stockings and filled them with donated canine essentials like food and toys. These will be distributed to members of the homeless population at a free veterinary clinic run by The Together Project based in Bath. Some of us then headed to The Boater for some food and a Christmas drink to celebrate all we have achieved this year at GoodGym.

Some boot-iful stockings

After meeting at the Leisure Centre and a quick warm-up we headed to the Girlguiding headquarters on Walcott Street. They kindly offered to let us use their space as our workshop for this task. The task was organised through one of our longstanding GoodGym members, Nicola, who started and now runs The Together Project with other volunteer vets.

We helped Nicola carry supplies from the car and then she introduced the task to us and told us more about the project. The team run a free clinic for dogs every other Tuesday afternoon. They are based at Julian House on Manvers Street. The dogs that the project work with often live on the street and sadly don't get many treats or toys. Our hard work will bring some joy and happiness to these dogs and, in turn, their owners over Christmas.

Running stitches

The first part of the process was cutting the stockings from some thick red material. We then used our dexterity to sew up the stockings (remembering to stitch the inside and not the outside!) making sure that the gaps between the stitches wern't too large. One team had already sorted the variety of donated food and toys into small piles, so it was easy to turn our stockings outside-in and fill them with goodies.

Mary, Queen of Stocks

Some of the group then added some custom decorations to their stocking. There were lots of great and colourful designs on display. One particularly awesome one was the Christmas pudding made by Mary. Amazing!

Christmas social!

We the headed to The Boater for a Christmas meal. It was a fun way to end the evening and reflect back on all we have achieved this year. It was also great to see the array of Christmas jumpers and festive accessories on display!

Thanks! Thank you so much to Nicola for organising and facilitating this task for us! Thanks to Chris for volunteering to backmark (and with such enthusiasm!) and thanks to Emily for the pun this week!

Next Week

We are running to Odd Down to write some Christmas cards for a community Christmas meal. This is the last Group Run of 2018! Sign up here!

Socials

We are heading to The Brew House to watch one of our GoodGym team and her band play some Christmas tunes. More info here.

Sign up here for the first Boater pub quiz of 2019!

Social Media

Please like/follow us on social media and share/retweet our content! We are on Facebook and Twitter.

Organisations are already getting in contact with us through these platforms and this means we are securing more varied tasks for you to enjoy!