Hi All,

Before we kick things off i want to say a warm welcome to Russell who joined us tonight for his first group run. Hope you enjoyed it and hope to see you again.

From the week commencing March 25th, GoodGym teamed up with WWF to do good for the community across the UK with a variety of environmentally themed tasks for the tenth year of Earth Hour. Earth Hour is the world’s biggest switch off event. Each year, millions of people around the world switch off their lights and organise events – at home, in their community or in their towns or cities – to show they care about the future of our planet.

Tonights task was for us do some plogging along the streets of Chelmsford. Plogging is a combination of jogging and picking up litter which ( i think you'll agree ) fits us perfectly as it combines fitness and helping our community.

After a warm up we set off and started scouring all the path ways and hedges we past and with gloves and bin bags in hand swiftly picked up all we could find.

I had organised 2 routes for tonight, 1 group was 5km in length at a slower pace with the emphasis on chatting . the other was about 7.5km and to be at a slightly faster pace for those wanting to push it a bit. The routes would have meeting points along the way if people decided that they wanted to change groups and with myself leading the longer route and Laurie taking charge of the shorter one.

Chelmsford on the whole is quiet a clean and tidy place but through the combination of 13 people covering around 13km we managed to fill a couple of bin bags full of pieces of rubbish collected as we ran along , at night, with headtorches on. So a big Thank you to you for making it a nicer place. All these little acts build up to make a big difference and on the whole a nicer place to live.

We regrouped on the High street where we put our bin bags into the dustbins and ran back to base together. Some where lucky (unlucky) to arrive at the traffic lights by the police station as they changed to green so carried on. where as the rest (luckily) missed them and have to have a rest while they changed.

A group stretch off and chat about up coming events of the week. Hope you have a good, happy and healthy weekend and hope to see you next week where Gerry will be taking back to the Broomfield allotments for the first time this year.

Thanks and Keep running happy

Rich

14 runners did our first Broomfield good deed of the year!

This week we had to fight past the waiting paparazzi after the legends that are Laurie and James G appeared on BBC Essex. You can listen to it on the link at the bottom of this run report. Tell your friends! The person who made that possible also came to their first of hopefully many Goodgym runs - a warm welcome to Charlotte! You picked a great task for your first one, with us all excited to go to Broomfield in what seemed like the first time in forever!

As we set off on our way, we picked up two extra runners at the pub, Leanne and Lindsay, who claimed they'd been warming up. Running past St Mary's church and up through the graveyard we arrived at my car to pick up some of the tools. With Andy eyeing up my boot beers, I had to swiftly move us on to meet David. We were needed to trim down the red dogwood bushes so that they will grow back even redder ad stronger. As you can see from the before and after photos, it was the perfectly timed task. We crushed it! David outlined the incredible plans they have for developing a walking route around the outside of the hospital showcasing their history, everyone was hopeful that we can get involved in the willow-weaving of woodland creatures. Although I am not sure our skills will stretch to that...

As Goodgym, we are celebrating our 50th launch in Coventry so we needed to take a photo of our number - 16! I am pretty pleased with the result, with the build spearheaded by Rachel and Julie, although I am not sure it was the best photo I've ever taken, with only a couple of people not looking windswept. No names. We then ran back to ARU, bumping into Chelmsford Goodgym founder Ken on the way, for some stretches and excellent work on one of our longer runs. Great to see you all and don't forget to fill in the doodlepoll if you want to come for the unlimited pizza in April!

If you'd like to listen to their BBC Essex radio appearance from Saturday morning, you can listen via this link at 1hr 5mins in. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p071kvbp?fbclid=IwAR1qkYhiGOOBHKkZCU0sxsfcUc5W-mfD8PRDVOLKszqH996OU9VyvsuB5e4

15 runners ran just under 5km to litter pick in Chelmsford

On what began as a lovely Spring evening (until it got dark), we all signed in at ARU. After a run brief and confirmation that we weren't allowed to use explosives inside, we popped outside to congratulate Catherine on her 50th, James on his from last week and Joseph on his 20th! As a treat I had some party poppers I had prepared earlier and BANG off we went with the streamers coming down, special shout-out to Abigail and Anton who had the panache to fire them up so high that even I managed to get them in the photo. We cleaned up our own litter, the first of a lot we picked up, and did a brief warm up. Grabbing the pieces of kit, we set off.

Jogging to our first port of call we split into two and picked litter on differing sides of the river, before meeting in the middle. Laurie had the fullest sack so she won the prize of a photo opportunity. After Andy decided against taking the sleeping bag he found, and Jenny scarpering fast from the conversations about football, we tidied the final pieces of litter we could find as people were clamouring for running and fitness.

It was great to see the competitiveness, particularly between Adam vs Joel (aside from the former's cheating against Joseph) and Emily vs Mark. Good running everyone. Its good to mix up running; hills improve knee lift, joint mobility and strength. With the level of intensity, you might ache a little tomorrow! After Lindsay pointed out the fantastic Super moon (alas no photo), we then cunningly hid the litter pickers for me to collect on my way home (they were all there by the way!) and ran a longer route on the way back. With the option of extended distance up the avenues, four running legends, spearheaded by Max, took up my generous offer and met us back at base. While it wasn't the longest run, we did all put a lot of effort in which is always tough on a February evening. Once we returned to base, Catherine had a magnificent surprise for Joseph, a pack of his favourite biscuits, chocolate bourbons! As a student, Joseph was extra appreciative as it means he won't need to do grocery shopping for another four days.

Thanks for coming everyone, it is always great to see new faces return as it means as run leaders, we are doing something right!

Happy running,

17 runners went to Interact Charity for gardening good deeds

On a somewhat mild February evening, we were happy to greet newcomers Lindsay, Max and Abigail, as well as congratulate James G on completing a brilliant 50 good deeds!

After going through the usual information (in my clearest voice for our new members), we went through a quick warm up and set off for Interact. We noticed two other runners jogging after us on the way, but thought they must be another pair out on a Wednesday. Once we stopped at the lights, it turned out they were joining us. The addition of Mark and Emily made our new members total five for the evening!

We kept our eyes peeled for more recruits along the way, but we were joined by Goodgym regulars David and Fay when we arrived at Interact. Gerry outlined the jobs for us to do, and we then split into two groups. One group did some heavy lifting, moving slabs and bricks, while the other went to landscape a new flower bed. The slab team completed their job so efficiently that they came to help the landscaping team to move the soil. All that hard work meant it was time for our biscuits from the greenhouse, and once satiated we set off back to ARU.

Adam led out, and was in charge of guiding us through Bond Street, almost into Song's, and back on to the High Street. It's good to mix it up with different routes and run leaders every now and then! We resisted the urge to do any squats or star jumps at the Victoria Road lights, and finished with some stretching.

Thank you all for coming to do good, and we hope to see everyone back soon!

Laurie