It was a Bumper Birthday Night: massive happy birthday to Claire who celebrated with us (and a whole load of chocolate cake) tonight and to Kerry who had her birthday on Sunday. 🎂🎈🎉

It was great to have Stephen join us for the first time - welcome Stephen! And lovely to see Nick back from his 6 month stint in Canada, welcome back to the rain Nick! Alex and Richard also joined us an impressive 3 days after completing the Green Man Ultra - ouch! Great to see you both.

We had two tasks tonight to help with tonight. Maria led a group to Clifton to do leafleting for her orchestra who are doing a fundraising concert for the Bristol Drugs Project. The team did a great job of climbing Park Street, distributing the several hundred leaflets and working on their orchestra impressions/ invisible instrument playing.

Meanwhile, the rest of the gang headed to Faithspace where we were met by Suzanne and Marky. Marky set a small group to work with some gardening tasks in the green space opposite the community centre. The rest of the group helped Suzanne by distributing 200 leaflets about upcoming community centre events around the local area, prompting a game of Who Can Find A Letterbox - surprisingly challenging in Redcliffe!

We finished off with some biscuits, juice and a bit of core, then headed back to Queen Square with a stop for arm-circling-relays and finished off with tabata lunges and squats - you might feel them tomorrow.

I don't Claire what you say, there is no such thing as too much cake

After all of that, we headed in for birthday celebrations with not one, not two, but three types of cake. OOFT.

*Pun credit to Darren and obviously not me who it needed explaining to

It's Tuesday, it's Group Run night and it didn't rain! Woohoo! In other great news, we had Christin, Regina, Maddie and Jess join us for the first time tonight - welcome!

Once we got warmed up, we split the group into our two tasks for the night, Northern Slopes and The Southville Centre.

Alison took a hardy group of 15 to Northern Slopes where they were continuing their task which was started (in the middle of Storm Dennis) on Saturday. Although it wasn't quite Storm Dennis, it was still pretty windy and cold up there, but the hardcore group got to work shifting brambles and clearing a pathway for when their trees are planted, so they can protect the birds nesting in the area. The tea and biscuits which were provided after this cold hard work were very welcome, then the group made their way back to warm up further back at Workout.

Like watching paint dry

Meanwhile, it was GoodGym DIY SOS at The Southville Centre tonight, where Hugh had set us up with five chest of drawers to sand, varnish and repaint and a hallway to give a fresh lick of paint to. Amid in the pedestrians going to Taekwondo and French classes, the group got them done in no time, and as we switched the fitness to task groups at the half-way point, there was even time to get a second coat in.

The group got some impressive hill sprints squats, press ups and planks in during their fitness slots too. After that, it was time to head back and revel in our new up-cycling skills. Brilliant work everyone!

With Ciara and Dennis mainly deciding to stay home tonight, it gave the hardcore GoodGymers a chance to get out for Tuesday Group Run with only some gusts and a bit of hail to contend with. It was great to have Ellie, Darius and Julia join us for the first time - welcome! It was an extra special day for GoodGym as it was UK Pun Day - surely this is the equivalent of an important national holiday for GoodGym?

Turning the tables

Liam was leading the Warehouse Shifters to Emmaus, where they were helping Xanne on our regular slot in their big donations warehouse. As we had been told that they were going to be leafleting for the night, it was a lucky escape into the warmth and dryness of the indoors! The team were tasked with a massive game of Furniture Tetris (or clearing all of furniture donations into ordered areas with enough aisles and room for movement around them). A lot of shifting, lifting and 'To me, to you'-ing later and the warehouse was in a much better order than before.

Up above the streets of Bristol, leafleting in the night, GoodGym fills your letterboxes, with stuff you'll like - come and run the Children's Hospice Rainbow (Run)

The rest of us headed to Clifton to continue leafleting for The Children's Hospice South West's Rainbow Run. Luckily the hills were not to punful, and soon we were up and punning and ready to go. We split into four teams to cover the area. Between them, they distributed 500 leaflets in less than 25 minutes. Paul B was there so I think he was sharing his secret leafleting skills with the group. The first group back celebrated with the underrated biscuit classic which is The Party Ring. We headed back to centre with the added entertainment of watching trailer-gait and Darren entertained/confused most of us who were vaguely young with a rendition of the Rainbow theme tune with the impressive GoodGym-based lyrics. Luckily the power of Google has refreshed our memories and we kind of know what he was going on about.

Finally, our bunch of pundits got inside and paired up with their well-earned GoodGym pint/beverage/hot shower/dry clothes. Happy Pun Day one and all!

Bristol is no GoodGym group which only gets out to hit their new year's resolutions and January challenge goals: on our first run of February we had a massive 62 people join us to run and walk to do good. It was great to have a massive 10 new runners join us - welcome Chloe, Becky, Owen, Aidan, Steve, Beth, Reuben, Barnaby, Dom, Emma and Sophie! It was also great to have Ivo pop by on his travels to the South West - thanks Ivo!

Brooming marvellous

Alison stepped in to lead a group to Task 1 of the evening to Hannah More Primary. The group were tasked with making the place look spic and span, so it was all hands on brooms and all brooms on deck to get the place sweeped up and then everyone did a mass litter-pick of the grounds until it was spotless. They got this done so quickly they had time to do some relays on their return to get their heart rates up!

Meanwhile, Richard led the hardcore mob up (and up) to Task 2 in Clifton to do some leafleting for Children's Hospice South West's Rainbow Run. Not only did they conquer the hills, they also delivered 400 leaflets around the area - phwoar.

I introduce you to: The Red Barrows

Melanie was leading the walking group to do some additional jobs at Redcliffe Nursery, where we had helped last week. The group had a huge long list of tasks to get through, but there was so much sand from the sandpit which had been blown all over the playground in the recent bad weather, that they spent their whole session clearing this all back into the sandpit. Oh, and importantly setting aside some time to choreograph GoodGym's very own aerobatics display team, the impressive Red Barrows.

Sally is waiting for you

The rest of us headed up the cycle path for Task 3, helping The Matthew Tree Project with our regular donation sorting. The team were split into groups for tin-sorting (or sor-tin more like), crate washing and separating the food donations into food type. Everyone was also lucky enough to get a chance to meet Sally for a quick (but who knew 3 minutes and 25 seconds could feel so long?) session of Sally Up Sally Down. Gary admired how well Matt scrubbed up, and we all headed back on our way.

Once back, it was time for a good stretch off and for our GoodGym Eats for this month to Turtle Bay organised by Clo - thanks Clo!