We welcomed Anne to her first GoodGym run tonight with a "Captain's Table" warm up game including some impressive pirate impressions from Rosie. Maxine showed us her new watch (thanks Primeday!) and Sarah, having the same watch and an IT background, was unable to answer the syncing question! Alex was modeling her nice new red T-shirt.

After plenty of deck scrubbing we headed up the road to the Naomi House shop. We arrived at the exact same time as the walkers, it's almost like we plan these things!

We haven't been up to the shop on a Wednesday for two whole months and the donations pen was full so we had plenty to get on with. There were some lovely fancy dress outfits this evening as well as a vintage St Micheal carrier bag with an outfit that wouldn't have looked out of place in Dallas or Dynasty. Sam unearthed a mankini among the donations - I wonder who will buy that!

Angela found some wings but that wasn't how she broke the ceiling... that was when we were filling up the "sorted" pen and it went very high, not knowing her own strength she threw a bag on top of the pile and cracked a ceiling tile in the process! Oops.

We stayed a bit over our time tonight so it was a quick run back, stretch outside the centre and then room emptying!

Don't forget there's an opportunity for good deeds on Saturday morning and Saturday afternoon this weekend. Next week we're off to St Swithun's school - could be painting or gardening so don't wear your best kit!

We were treated to a perfect summer evening for our group run this week, full of sunshine. A warm welcome to Alex and Angura who joined us for their first runs this evening. Give them a cheer on their profiles!

We met off base, at Hilsea Lido, and headed out for a quick run around Hilsea Lines in our pace groups, enjoying some of our very local trails.

Maura shared a lesson in running glamour: "You need pockets in your leggings for lip gloss, because you never know!"

When we finished our loop, we arrived back at the Lido and were tasked with watering some new plants that have been planted and touching up the paintwork. Kat was happy touching up the bottom.

After all the hard work, some of the group took on swimming some lengths in the pool to cool off as the sun set and Katie was kind enough to come prepared with a box of mugs and selection of tea and biscuits!

In true GoodGym spirit no-one let the weather put them off some good deeds!

Welcome to Toni for her first ever GoodGym experience - give her a cheer on the website, we hope the next run is a dryer one! Also welcome back to Alex from GoodGym Central who last visited us on our launch run but specifically made sure he planned his council meeting so he could come along to a group run.

Tony, Rohima and Lucy made up the walking group tonight and hot footed it down the road towards the task. Hopefully Lucy had time to pick Tony's brain for top ultra running tips as she's signed herself up for 100km in September - good luck Lucy!

Everyone else headed into the grounds of St Mary's to terrify some poor man who looked up to find groups of 3 GoodGymers running, bouncing and skipping towards him!

Somehow, the stars had aligned as well as the clouds and we had an indoor task booked in tonight - result! Once we had run to the church hall it was time to dry out & get creative at St Cuthberts, decorating jars for the tombola then filling them with prizes for either adults or children. Jo was feeling non=creative so opted to stay in the kitchen and remove the labels from some of the donated jars. Once the stickers came out and shiny bits and pieces were discovered everyone else discovered their creative side and got decorating. Angela's creative side is obviously well used in her job & she was inspired to make a jar that matched her hat. Some lovely examples of all the jars in the photos and check out Tracey (in her GoodGym t-shirt!!!!) giving us the saleswoman posed by a selection of the jars.

There were a few comments about how this task was like art therapy or a hen do, hopefully the visitors to the fayre on Saturday will be suitably impressed! (11-3 if you want to pop down).

Kat observed:

it's the kind of night you'd want to get in your jim jams, instead we've got GoodGym jam jars!

As always, it was impressive what we got done in the time, great team work!

A quicker session than planned on the parkletics on the way home and a few who couldn't resist the temptation of the zip wire in the playground and all of a sudden it was 8pm and we were back at the community centre. Time flies when you're having fun.

Our name is obviously getting known in the church circles as tomorrow we have a community mission to St Nicholas' in Copnor and next week we're off to tackle the garden at St Faiths (we usually get a cuppa after our hard work there too!). Hope to see you at a group run / community mission very soon.

Don't forget we also have our midsummer run on Friday 21st June - hopefully it will feel a little more like summer by then!

A big welcome tonight to Liv who joined in for her first GoodGym run!

We started our evening with a great warm up led by Sam in the churchyard around the corner. There was jogging, high knees, side skips and sprints to warm us up.

We then headed north to familiar territory to help sort donations at the Naomi House charity shop. The group got straight to work emptying out bags of donations and sorting them into categories. Big piles were made of women's, men's and children's clothes and added to the new "Sorted stock" section that had been set up in the stock room. Bags of sorted clothes were piled sky high (or as high as we could reach) ready for tagging and preparing for the shelves.

Best finds of the evening go to Vicki for the mystery exercise equipment and Rosie for the bag of dog related items (or dognations as it were) - featuring the cutest little dog rucksack. What would a dog carry in their rucksack? Rachel was lucky enough to find a cape - proving GoodGymmers are true superheroes!

As always, the time flew by and it was soon time to head back to base. Sam led a great stretching session for us all and once we were all stretched and relaxed, we headed off into the still light evening.

Don't forget there is plenty going on in the coming weeks - sign up here to group runs and click here to sign up to join us for a community mission litter pick on Good Friday to Earn Your Easter Eggs.

Tonight we welcomed Sarah, John and Holly to their first GoodGym experience. Thank you to everyone for making them feel so welcome - don't forget we can spread the love some more by cheering them on the GoodGym website!

*//Cheers *

Now even though it was Johns first time, he stepped up in GoodGym fashion and was back-marker. Thank you John B!

Tonights task took us back to Baffins Pond where we were met by two members of the Baffins Pond Association. The Baffins Pond Association have planted over 100 trees in the last two years and we had the great task of tending to the trees to ensure they grow big and strong. The last time we were there it was so dark it was hard to appreciate how much work we hard done to tend to the new trees. However, the weather this evening was beautiful, and there were lots of smiles which prompted Amanda to introduced us to the word "Biophilia" which is a love of living things and nature.

We did a great job removing the grass and plastic supports from the tress and spreading the mulch to help the tree absorb the rain water and nutrients they provide. We were also shown a pond close to where we were tending to the trees which needs re-lining which could be a job for GoodGym soon! You'll see jazz hands in our group photo and Amanda and Adam doing the wheelbarrow - impressive stuff as we took about 100000 photos trying to get a good one! It was great that it stayed light for the whole task and was still light when we returned to base to do our stretches.

*//GG Portsmouth News *

• Rachel achieved a new PB at ParkRun - good work Rachel!
• There is a Beach Clean this Saturday, meeting at 10am at Southsea Coffee Cup, for more details and to sign up click here. If you are going along the organisers have requested we use buckets instead of plastic sacks, so if you have one please bring it with you.

Thank you all for being so well behaved whilst Katie is away - I only needed to use my teacher voice once!

Looking forward to seeing you soon.

WOW there were a lot of good deed GoodGymers out tonight.... I think we might have broken our own record (with the exception of the launch event). Great to see so many faces tonight.

Welcome to Holly, Kim, Reza, Fatima & Rohima on their first GoodGym good deed!

We had a bit of a task with a difference tonight as the task was brought to us so we didn't have to run anywhere... Holly works for the Ickle Pickles charity & was in need of many GoodGym hands.

Let's do the time wrap again...

We wrapped Lucky Dip presents, sorted many boxes of lego cards into packs of 10 and packed up some leaflets for the Bubble Run. If anyone wants to get involved with the Bubble Run - running or volunteering there's more info here.

A small group of 4 (Sophie, Jo, Lucy & Sam) also opted out of the boiling hot room and went out in the cooler evening to do a sweep up and litter pick at the front of the community centre as we'd noticed last week that there were rather a lot of cigarette butts on the ground. It definitely looks a lot better now!

After the task we split into a walking group (led by Tony) and a running group. The running group went down to the railway bridge to do a lung-bursting session of 6 x 8 second uphill sprints. Lots of enthusiasm and maybe a little bit of competitiveness creeping in! Good work by all! Bonus points as we were back in plenty of time to vacate the room for the MMA group too.

We have lots of other good deeds to get involved with before next Wednesday when we head to the deaf centre. On Saturday at 9 come and join us for Parkrun (don't forget your barcode), beach clean at Southsea at 10 - please sign up here if you are coming to make sure we get your good deed registered, AND a second community mission at 2pm in North End at the Naomi House shop, please make sure you sign up for that here if you are coming along.

See you all very soon. Thanks for a fun evening 😊

Don't forget to start your squat challenge on Friday.... (see Monday's email for details!)