A double whammy tonight as both our task and run leader had to be substituted at the very last minute.

Our trainer Gary was unwell so he was unable to join us for his penultimate Bristol run. (There were some rumours that he just needed the extra time to put the finishing touches to his fancy dress costume for his farewell session next week).

Not only that, but our original task had been canceled! Fortunately, the emergency red GG Bristol phone had rung just hours earlier with an urgent request for help down at the Malago Greenway Berry Maze. The project (which we visited just last weekend) had run into difficulties after ploughing had revealed a veritable mine field of rubble that was sure to take out the rotivator when it arrived later in the week and put paid to the Mock A Maze day planned this Saturday.

Naturally we jumped at the chance to help out - our members love nothing more than to help a project in need - so we headed out along the Malago Greenway and got stuck in moving as many rocks as possible out of the soil and into a pile. Meanwhile Tom, Ian, Alex, Andrew and Richard were on wheelbarrow and refuse sack duty moving the pile into a location for collection by a skip.

Everyone worked hard collecting up rubble and rubbish. As is often the case we made some interesting discoveries - a shoe, an old orangina bottle and indeed it appeared that on this occasion that we had discovered an ancient car burial site as first Liam uncovered a tyre and then Rachel located a steering wheel in amongst all the dirt.

By the time we were due to leave we had uncovered most of the rocks so Mock a Maze should be able to go ahead!

Thanks everyone for adapting so willingly to the changed plan. Raluca was really grateful for our help and this was one of those occasions when it's difficult to see who else could have done all that manual labour at such short notice. You all rock!

Our work finished, we returned to base and then headed off to our monthly eats. A really great turnout at the meal tonight (as you can see on the selfie!) - lovely to have you all along both at the task and at the restaurant afterwards!

Thanks to Dave for leading the second group and to my back markers Alex and Clo. Thanks also to Caroline, Richard and Jack for the glove run!

Welcome also to new runners Emma and Richard

Don't forget it's (optional) fancy dress next week for Gary's last run. No theme, the more random the better!

An Emmaus-ing 38 runners turned out to run 2 miles to help a local charity sort through their donations.

This evening's task was to help our good friends at Emmaus sort out a room full of donations that they have recently received. These donations will then be sold in their stores or recycled. Every item funding the team to keep on doing the great work they do.

There is something about summer evenings that makes people keener to come out for a run, which we love because it means we can really let loose on a task. Our largest group of the year amassed this evening, 38 runners in total, which gave us volunteering superpowers. After introducing ourselves, splitting into two groups and running less than a mile to the task we were ready to go. Xanne from Emmaus was awestruck with our numbers and enthusiasm but knew exactly how she could harness the might of GoodGym Bristol.

She showed us a room that had been stuffed like a pinata of donations ready to be bashed by the GoodGym stick of organisation. She also realised that with our powers combined we could tackle weeds and litter accumulating outside the building. After a short discussion teams were built and chains were linked to get the jobs done.

Inside the pinata were a crack team of sorters and lifters led by stalwarts Alice and Charlie who directed the donations out and along the chain to such destinations as bric-a-brac bungalow, electronic island, the book shelf and the clothes cave. It was a joy to behold the organisation of such a energetic team getting the job done.

Meanwhile outside our weeding and litter team were making the place look more presentable than Jon Snow wearing his smartest hand-painted tie as part of an immaculate outfit while visiting his in-laws for dinner and displaying the finest table manners seen since the Victorian era. Weeds were dug from paving, cigarette butts were swept from gutters and floors were swept. It was a thing of beauty.

After 30 minutes the room had been cleared, the grounds had been tidied and the donations had been mostly sorted (nobody could sort all of those clothes in that time, except maybe quicksilver from x-men). An amazing effort by everyone involved. We all amassed outside for a group shot before running back to Queen Square.

On arrival I treated the group to a new game, called get your COB on. COB standing for (chicken, otter and badger). I'm not going to go into details about how it works but everyone got a great workout and enjoyed themselves. If you need to know more then get yourself along to a Bristol GoodGym and we can teach you. Pinata Charlie won the game in a sprint finish.

Thanks to everyone who came along today, newbies and old guard. You and you're wonderful spirit enable us to really achieve something worthwhile every run and I know Xanne was blown away by what we achieved tonight.

See you next time,

Gary