Q: Why couldn’t the runner get away from the zombie? A: He hit the wall

But there was no wall-hitting tonight, only a bunch of brave GoodGymers, risking missing the Bake Off Final merely by attending and risking losing all feeling in their fingers and toes by weeding on such a cold night, and a bunch of weeds and litter, soon to be no more.

Ghosts v Ghouls

While the Walking Group made a headstart, the night started with an incredible show: as a merely Trainer in a world of other beings, I watched as the Ghosts and Ghouls battled it out in a running-drill-Scare Off. Luckily, it wasn't quite scary enough to scare off Rodwel on his first GoodGym experience - phew and welcome!

Exorcise

On our way to the task, this foolish ghoulishness was continued with zombie walking lunges (special shout out to Clo and Alex who did this with impressive enthusiasm and sound effects) and we soon made it to Newtown to meet Saliha from Up Our Street.

Fangtastic good deeding

The group split into litter-pickers and weeders. With this divide and conquer tactic, we had soon got rid of a whole section of weeds from 30 metres of the roadside in question, while the litter pickers managed to fill several bags per pair with litter (with the top interesting finds going to Caroline and Richard's chair, Clo's glasses and Alex's car keys). Within 30 minutes, the group had created a pile of full bags of litter, garden waste and recycling to be collected by Bristol Waste tomorrow. During this time, Clo and Darren mastered the art of litter-picking swinging (see the photo for evidence) and other members of the group were spotted practicing their zombie moves for tomorrow... All in a hard night's work!

With the temperature dropping further, we started on a speedy keep-warm run home, stopping for a quick game of Halloween corners and covering Darren's favourite Wobbly Bridge Strava Segment along the way. Before long, we were back at base with another Good Deed under our belts and, although we tried, we had not managed to outrun the skele-pun.

You are all unboolievable, and I will leave you with a final, awful Halloween joke to send you on your scary ways...

What do you get when you drop a pumpkin? Squash.

You've got the tools but have you got the touch?

With some stiff legs and sore throats from Bristol Half Marathon running and cheering at the weekend, a big group of runners still stumbled together to show Shania Twain what her lyrics should really be. It was great to see lots of new faces tonight - welcome Hannah, Stefano and Nia!

With the dark nights drawing in, the group did me proud with a great array of hi-viz and head torches on show. I am looking forward to seeing much more of this over the coming months! In our red and fluoro-clad group, we hopped off to the south side of the river to help two different tasks.

Dave took a group to Cherry Tree Garden, where they were helping Julie give the garden a big cut-back and weed for the Autumn. With all hands on deck, the 15-strong group made a massive dent in it and left the area neat and ready to be enjoyed by all the Bedminster locals. The group even had time to do a Beatles reenactment on their way home...

What the fork

Meanwhile, the rest of the group went to help Urban Buzz at Gores Marsh Park. Hayley from Urban Buzz explained to us that after a summer with a drought, followed by the recent rainy weather, the meadows in the park have now been left with a thick layer of mulch on them. We needed to remove this and then reseed it. Thirty pairs of hands got a hold of whatever tools they could find, and here started a competition between mulching with a fork, spade, rake, shovel or hoe was the best method. Meanwhile, our expert Mulch Movers skirted back and forth, getting rid of the piles of mulch being dragged up. With a quick reseed under the darkening sky, the group waved goodbye to the meadow and headed home.

Well done to everyone who helped make Bedminster beautiful tonight!

Tonight was the night. The stars aligned, the figures added up, Matt's beady eyes on GoodGym stats came to great use and the five years of Bristol GoodGymers being jolly good people culminated in

GoodGym Bristol hitting 10,000 Good Deeds!!

Just two weeks after GoodGym hit a grand old total of 100,000 good deeds, you have shown what a massive contribution you have all been. You are all amazing!

But first, what Good Deed got us up to this big old milestone? We gathered in our usual spot to run out to Easton to return to Cafe Connect. It was great to have some new runners with us tonight - welcome to Gemma, Rhiannon and Teresa! Libby and her team at Cafe Connect are planning to do a grand reopening of the space as soon as they can, and had drawn up a big list of tasks to keep all 34 GoodGymers well and truly occupied. The team were quickly split into small teams each with their own tasks.

The Garden Group

The painting team gave the inside and outside walls a fresh lick of paint to finish off the job they had started last time. The gardening team got green-fingered by giving the tomato plants a helping hand and planting some new ones. The wood-chopping team got ferocious with saws and axes to split up wood into kindling.

The Kitchen Kids

In the kitchen, the group did a stellar job keeping their hands above their heads for half an hour, and had the added bonus of taking down lots of excess plastic and foam from the kitchen which will massively help the Cafe Connect team with their health and safety.

The Cafe Crew

Inside, Kait found her new passion for varnishing (if you need a varnisher, you know who to call) and Gary got reunited with the table he so lovingly sanded all those weeks ago. The magnetic board team spent a long time holding the board against the wall (shown beautifully by Alex and Freddie in the pictures). After 30 minutes, they realised that they couldn't actually stand there until the cafe opened, so the team eventually found some nails to keep it in place miraculously hands-free.

After a speedy half an hour, much to the group's disappointment, we had to pack up our toys and head back on our 3km run home. The group zoomed along, and we were soon stretching off our evening's antics. Little did we realise that Matt was going to be trumping his own birthday cake (but not his own face on his birthday bottle) with the 10,000 good deeds, showstopping, Carl the Caterpillar cake, topped by an impressive array of numbered sparklers. These were so decidedly hard to light that it led to a fantastic countdown from well...one to..zero. We very much appreciated each one though, Matt!

A big batch of Bristol runners broke out of their beginning-of-the-week babble to bumble along, break some brambles, bamboozle blackberries and bag up some bad litter. Some say barmy, we say brilliant.

The Jumping Jack off

The group started off with a merry jumping jacks warm up. Or so I thought... according to Darren's photo evidence from the night, Alice and I were merrily doing our jumping jacks while everyone else was doing their utmost to pretend they weren't with us...

Task 1: The Bramble-Removal

Alice ably led a group of runners out to the Harbourside to help the Friends of the Harbourside Reed Bed. After a summer of growing (and our help a few months ago) it was time for another trim to keep the area looking spic-and-span. Not ones to like an easy challenge, to do a good job, the group had to tackle brambles and a nest of wasps in the area. But they got it done in no-time and left the area looking ready for the Autumn months.

Task 2: The Litter-Pick

Our second group of wiling runners went to the other side of the harbour to Gaol Ferry Bridge to help the Friends of the Avon New Cut to do a big litter-pick in the area. Unfortunately, this part of the river has become rife with anti-social behaviour, leaving a lot of litter and more in the area. The group did an absolutely fantastic job of filling 16 bin bags with waste. Massive well done to everyone for getting your litter-pickers out and getting stuck in!

Task 3: The Fun One

Meanwhile, those who wanted to stretch their legs a bit further (or knew what was in store) were led on the 3km run to Bramble Hill Farm by Paul, where they met Chris for animal feeding and blackberry picking. Roll-on animal stroking, selfies and blackberry eating, just in time to roll back down the hill for finishing time.

To top all of this hard work off, the group then powered their way through a circuit session around Queen's Square (until a pug came along to distract everyone from their burpees).

The most important sporting event of the day

Tonight, the world watched as two closely-matched teams went head-to-head.

One has a much smaller population but had a strong set of skills. The other had a bigger population and the endurance required to keep up the pace. Both were prepped for the high expectations upon them. They arrived on the pitch just before 7pm, mesmerised their audience with their enthusiasm and commitment and they did not stop until the hard work was done.

I am, of course, talking about the two task groups who helped at the Reconnect Project and Dame Emily Park.

Team 1: A lot at stake

Not only did Mel excel herself with such a wonderful pun it now graces the title of this report, she also led a group on a stake-erecting expedition to Dame Emily Park. Unfortunately, the council mowed down the beautiful wildflowers that had been planted in the park. The GoodGymers met with Ursula, who had managed to gather posts to put around them to protect them going forward. Following the recent heatwave, this job was a lot harder than it seemed at first, and it took a lot of hardwork, force and willpower to get those stakes firmly in the ground. The group managed to put eight protective stakes in the ground and water 100 lavender plants in between. Their hard-work was rewarded by some much-appreciated biscuits, which went to good use as they fueled them to find six Gromits on their way home!

Team 2: Reconnecting

Meanwhile, the second group headed to Cafe Connect, part of the Reconnect Project in Easton. Although a small space, the cafe are preparing for a reopening in September and so had lots of jobs for us to do to help them. Libby and the team quickly set us to work in different groups, putting up magnetic noticeboards, polyfilla-ing and painting corners inside, sanding the serving table, planting tomato plants, painting the outdoor walls and moving bits to the roof. Everyone was having such a good time using their tools that it was with several disappointed 'awws' that we rested our tools and headed back with a promise to revisit to continue our work soon.

Unlike other, inferior, sporting feats of the night, none of our teams went home disappointed tonight, but proud of a hard effort and good run on a July Tuesday eve. Well done everyone!

Feeling hot, hot, hot

On the hottest day of 2018 so far, our gaggle of GoodGymers were not intimidated by the sun which was still blasting as we gathered for our Tuesday evening run. It was great to have James and Nicole join us tonight for the first time - welcome both. And a massive congratulations to Chris and Caroline who both achieved their 200th Good Deeds tonight, fantastic!

Nailing it at Felix Road Adventure Playground

After we got even warmer through, well, warming up, the group split into two to spread our Good Deeds around Bristol. Sally did a great job of leading her first group run and took a group to Felix Road Adventure Playground. The group got stuck in with sorting the massive amounts of wood they have at the playground, removing nails so that it can be reused around the playground and in the pizza oven.

Planking at Emmaus

The rest of the group went to Emmaus, where we finally conquered the prickly bushes last month. Xanne introduced the new runners to the wonderful work Emmaus do to help people who have experienced homelessness or are currently suffering from homelessness in Bristol.

Following Xanne's warnings, the brave members of the group ventured to the mezzanine of the warehouse to forage a path through piles of furniture, Christmas decorations (much to the joy of Mr Christmas a.k.a. Richard), exercise balls and whatever else you could possibly think of. This will make the warehouse a much safer place to be again for the people using it. And we got to try on hats, so it was a double win.

The other half of the group put in a brilliant effort sanding, soap washing and painting planks which are going to be used to put up new shelfing. Cue a selection of fantastic NSFW puns by the group on wood and nails...

THE 1(.2 ) kilometre time trial of the year

On return from Emmaus and Felix Road Adventure Playground, Bristol GoodGym held their very own 1 kilometre time trial for the GoodGym Olympics. With some outstanding 1km efforts, including Patrick, Darren and Gary fighting a very close race to the finish - brilliant efforts by everyone who took part and fantastic cheering by the cheering squad!