It was brilliant to have Lauren and Phil join us for their first GoodGym Bristol run tonight! It was a big one, as Jack hit his 100th Good Deed - massive well done Jack! And what better way to celebrate it than with two of GG Bristol's favourite tasks, painting and Emmaus!

Emmaus-ing

Alice led the first group to meet Xanne at Emmaus. The group were set to work with various tasks. Some of them were on warehouse sorting which, as usual, may have ended up more of a warehouse-wide treasure hunt for the best hat (photo evidence shows Maria and Richard as key contestants). The rest of the group were outside taking apart unusable furniture to be recycled. They got to work with wood chopping, foam removing and more, making a great dent in the task.

A mauve-ing task

The rest of us headed to The Station, where two of our GoodGymers work (life outside GoodGym?!). We were met by our Taskforce member and the charity's Events Manager, Alice. She explained that the Creative Youth Network, based at The Station, are sprucing up their outdoor area for summer and the first way to do this was to repaint all of the picnic benches (you guessed it) mauve.

Through the Clo hole

While some had creative methods of avoiding getting paint on them (I'm looking at you, Shreena's tights over leggings), others went all in for the purple body-paint (Chris and Tom...). Despite this, the group still managed to get a large amount on the benches themselves and within 45 minutes they had painted the first coat on all of the benches left for us. Not forgetting that most of the group also managed a fitness blast in our sub-in, sub-out system. Thanks for having us Alice!

We jogged (/sprinted the Strava segment) the short route back and then got to watch Jack masterfully put on the Centurion outfit and indulge us with three different types of cake. What a baking comeback! We will be expecting a lot more from where that came from now...

Twenty-one GoodGymmers - including a Birthday Boy and Girl - went to Manor Valley Woods to meet Martin for one of their work days. They've been reclaiming the old brickworks at the edge of the park from brambles with a plan to turn it into a wildflower meadow with an orchard. We've been out a couple times and it's lovely to see how much work has been done.

We helped out by digging up bramble roots, snipping back nettles, and David and Phil sawed up some pallets for signs. Tom got his hands on the Root Assassin and we got Raphael wielding a spade on his first group run.

This patch of land is a Slow Worm habitat and Martin and the others are cutting back brambles on the sunny slope to expand it so that more can be introduced. Slow Worms are a protected species, they are a rare legless lizard native to the UK and are coming out of hibernation now. We were able to peek at a few under their warming mats. You can read more about them here: https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/wildlife-explorer/reptiles/slow-worm

We ran back to Mud Dock for some much appreciated birthday cake. Happy Birthday to Zdeni and David (thank you for baking)!