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!

This week's GoodGym runs are all in partnership with the Great Get Together celebrating what we have in common. We even had a few stickers and wristbands to give out too!

Tonight we welcomed 2 new runners, Steve and Mike - give them a cheer! Toni is now an old hand on run number 2!

No walkers this evening so we warmed up with a round of squats and balance learning about favourite cakes and first cinema visits. We also discovered that there aren't many members who are going to get their cricket team call up!

We then headed off the St Faith's to tackle the garden area which was being overtaken by bindweed. Maura, Charlotte, Steve and Mike were on litter picking duty and found plenty to fill the black bags (4 in total by the end). Interesting finds included a tree decorated with energy drink cans and a shop security alarm (which obviously didn't do it's job). All other hands were on deck with tackling the weeds in the garden. Several impressions of David Bellamy "wummaging awound in the undergrowth" with GoodGymers appearing from the middle of bushes! Kat contorted herself into the hedge to pull out a bottle, Jen used her bouldering skills to reach weeds and litter that others couldn't reach. Rachel stood by to take photos of the health and safety nightmare!! Jo found a frog (or toad) who wasn't best pleased at being disturbed. Almost everyone ended up covered in bits of green!

After a quick round of step ups and mountain climbers while the kettle boiled we were treated to a cuppa and a slice of cake or biscuits as a thank you for the hard work. Bonus!! And much enjoyed by all with the most direct route back to Fratton taken afterwards to try and prevent the cake stitch.

Our great get together truly was! It was lovely to see such a good number of people tonight.

Don't forget our social run on Friday (all welcome). Picnic after if the weather holds. Then we're back to Fratton to help out with the Great Get Together event at the community centre on Sunday, details here.

Next group run on Wednesday we're off to help PARCS with their garden. A new task location but not too far away. See you again soon

It's a busy time of year, making the most of the light evenings even if the weather isn't always quite what we'd like it to be!

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!)

A good group of familiar faces headed out for an evening of plogging at Baffins Pond. We made a slight detour on the way there to check out the exciting new Parkletics equipment at Kingston Rec. We split into teams and Katie set us a circuit to do using the equipment. Plenty of smiles and giggles along with some solid efforts on the mountain climbers, press ups, tricep dips and pull ups.

We finished our circuit and headed off to Baffins - everyone was quite eager to get litter picking so we even got started before we left Kingston Rec, finding lots of various plastic and drinks bottles.

As we headed to Baffins Pond, we were treated to the most beautiful gigantic golden moon shining down for us. Did anyone else catch that moon?

We were also lucky to be greeted by a tree full of beautiful blossoms as we arrived pondside. Is Spring in the air? Could it be?

Everyone split into two groups, one team heading around the pond clockwise and the other anticlockwise aiming to meet round the other side. We collected many cigarette butts, bottle caps, plastic bottles, energy drink cans, chocolate bar wrappers, chip forks, pink gin and an empty bottle of berry wine.

There were some wonderfully "extreme" litter picks - top prizes going to Jen, for rescuing what I believe was a discarded Valentine, Katie for hanging over the fence to save a bottle from going in the pond, and Rosie for doing a fine job fishing out some crisp packets that had been disintegrating in the water.

By the time we made it round the pond, we met the other team to tie up our bags. Tim was KNOT happy with his but soon managed to tie things up.

We took a shorter route back to the Community Centre and had a nice cool down stretch outside before saying goodbye.

We return to Baffins Pond for a pond clearing task on 16 March, sign up here.

Think you'd like to join us for an evening of running or walking, chatting and doing good? Pop along and join us on a group run soon! Find more info here!

Tonight we welcomed Penny, Frankie AND Sandra to their first ever gym runs. Great to see you all and hope you will be back soon!

BIG LOVE NEWS IN VALENTINE'S WEEK! We also welcomed Rosie back from her trip to New Zealand where she got engaged! Congrats to Rosie and Aaron.

Luckily tonight's task was to the Naomi House charity shop, which have wedding dresses and outfits aplenty so Rosie could get some early ideas to start her planning!

The shop had received bags and bags of donations since we were last there, it's quite incredible how much comes through the shop itself. So we had the challenge of seeing whether we could empty and sort all the donations that had come in. Challenge accepted! And, of course, completed.

There was a good scale from "really?" to "wow look at this" in the donations piles this time. Highlights being a slanket (modeled by Frankie), a mermaid bikini (suits you Louisa), an Elsa wig which made Tony look like Pat Sharp and Sandra found a motivational t-shirt with some odd typeface placement. There were also some maternity trousers but unfortunately they'd be more like shorts on Laura so no luck there! And LOADS of Christmas things we unpacked including brand new Star Wars themed hats and stockings. Definitely worth a shopping trip in November!

Post run we headed back to the community centre for curry-themed circuits (tandoori tuck jump anyone?) and Sam ably lead the cool down stretches. After all that excitement, 11 of us sampled the delights of the Paanchi takeaway and rolled out of the community centre stuffed to bursting a little later than usual!

We are back to Naomi House again as a community mission at 2pm on Saturday 2nd March - we will be doing different jobs like steaming, tagging and sorting in the stock room. We are also back here on another group run on Wednesday 13th March for more donation sort outs. What gems will we find then? Sign up to one or both to keep on collecting your good deeds.

Next week we are outside for a big litter pick - sign up here. Fingers crossed it's a good weather week!