Firstly, a big welcome to Alex who joined his first ever GoodGym session tonight & also to Lynn who had her first experience of a group run after meeting some of us at the Groundlings community mission last week. Special mention to Egg who is the GG York trainer who couldn't resist coming along to visit when she's down with the family. Hope the dog hadn't missed you too much when you got back to Southbourne tonight!

Tonight we equalled our attendance record which was set on the very first group run back in May 2018. Then, lots of people were just curious about this new GoodGym thing, now we know people know how great it is and want to be a part of it! So thank you to all of you for showing up.

This was the first run we've done to the foodbank since the new warehouse was built. What this meant was that there were more of us working in a smaller space. But that doesn't phase us - there was lots of squeezing past and passing cans / packets along lines. Plus more people to walk around saying things like "beans 2021?" or "fruit 2020" - maybe we should start some kind of foodbank bingo. Chrissy had the find of the night - Rhubarb & Custard Cream biscuits - I think we may have to take up the GG Islington biscuit tradition and try them out on a group run!

Tony, Solo and Manuel were sent upstairs to try and scrape the old warehouse labelling off the floor - a job which is going to take a while but they managed to clear half the hall floor. Mel, Maura & Vicki started off in the foodbank store sorting through the short date box and seeing what could be rescued. Laura, Aimee, Judy & Tracey were the designated bag ladies - sorting out the carrier bags into easily packable stacks.

Once we'd sorted all the harvest festival donations, we headed back to use the railway bridge for a hill/sprint relay. Then it was back to the community centre for one more rendition of Happy Birthday for Louisa (still milking it from the weekend!) and Judy (for Friday).

Next week I'm on my holidays so you are in the hands of Jo for a visit to St Faith's and I will be back for our run and lantern making on 6th November. Hope to see you all then!

Tonight we welcomed Manuel to the group. He'd heard about us this afternoon at the uni volunteer fair where Sam was doing an excellent sales job! At the other end of the scale, Jo was wearing the wings tonight to celebrate her 100th good deed.

We headed up to Hilsea Lido to put another coat of paint on the one we'd done at the weekend. Unfortunately the task owner was unable to meet us so we had to find another good deed to do. Pretty tricky when we didn't have anything with us.

Luckily Sarah saved the day as she had a litter picker & a bag in her car and I had a pair of gloves so we split into teams of 3 to see who could collect the most litter in 4 minutes. I'm claiming team 4 for the win (!!) but it was actually quite amazing how much each team collected in the dark with very little equipment! Nice work team. And good efforts in the fitness challenges to keep warm while the other were completing their litter picks.

We have a few more options for good deed this week:

• Friday night at Naomi House sorting out autumn / winter stock
• Saturday morning for a beach clean
• [Sunday morning]https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/october-great-salterns-litter-pick() with Tracey at Great Salterns

Good luck to everyone running on Sunday at the pieces of 8. There will no doubt be a cuppa afterwards to talk about how our runs went.

Next week we are heading to a new task at the Life House in Albert Road. Check out the listing here and sign yourself up!

Well, that was a fun Wednesday night!

In a slight change to normal process, tonight was a one way run. We met at Fratton as usual and then headed to the beach (unusual!) where we picked up another 4 GoodGymers who met us at South Parade Pier. We then donned party hats, sparkly ties and rolled out the flags for a beach based photo shoot to celebrate 10 years of GoodGym! We may only be a baby area (16 months old) but we certainly feel part of the GoodGym family, plus we love an excuse for a celebration. We then had a shingle run over to Castle Field - jelly legs replacing a more structured fitness session. A couple of quick pics on the steps (site of our training run last month) it was time to head into Southsea to our task.

We had previously done a community mission where we loaded a van with all the donations that had been stored in the office and brought them to the shop. The transformation of an empty shell of a hairdressers into a stylish and well stocked charity shop in a month has been amazing. Massive kudos to GG member Anne for all her hard work on this and thanks for inviting us to help ready it for opening on Saturday. It looks AMAZING.

There were plenty of jobs for us to do:

• scrubbers: Toni cleaned the fridge and Judy cleaned the bathroom - there was a strong smell of lemon freshness after their efforts
• stuffers: Catherine, Jo, Rosie, Tony, Tracey & India stuffed the handbags so they looked full and stood up nicely on the shelves. We found out that Catherine used to work for Accessorise so was using her skills to set the bags up to perfection
• bookworms: Angela, Maxine, Maura & Rachel stuck pricing stickers on the books and DVDs while debating exactly what was fiction or non-fiction (Tracey's find of "Calm Down Boris" the 10th anniversary edition was particularly relevant...)
• doormats: Tim and Solo did an amazing job of fitting large doormats to the back and front of the shop.
• steamers: Sam & Pippa got steamy with the clothes & also spotted a couple of purchases for their own wardrobes!
• picture pricing: Jo and India got into the cupboard full of pictures to put the pricing stickers on them

We were also ably assisted by Molly, Anne's dog who was wandering around the shop saying hello to everyone and was sniffing enthusiastically when the cake came out! Yes, we finished the task with tea and cake before most people headed down to Panero Lounge for a bite to eat and to continue the celebrations.

We passed round the GoodGym book "Fit Together" containing stories from the last 10 years & listened to some talented accent impersonations! I'll be bringing a copy to the next few group runs / community missions so you can have a look if you missed it.

Next up with have a community mission to St Judes (Thursday 19th) followed by Super Saturday (21st) when we have FOUR good deeds to get involved with (Thank You to Maxine and Judy for help with setting these up). There are also plenty of other opportunities to get involved outside the normal Wednesday night group runs so check out the community missions listings

See you all very soon.

Tonight we welcomed Solo for his first group run. Give him a cheer! He's moved to Fratton from Hong Kong so it's up to us to show him around Portsmouth!

After a confusing headcount which made Jen forget her name, we headed into the churchyard for a game of "stuck in the mud" - the 2 Jo's doing great sprint practice!

Next we headed north for a mile with lots of polite drivers and pedestrians standing out of our way (makes a change!). We arrived at the Naomi House shop where Sarah was already waiting for us. The majority of us are old hands at this shop now (and it's Sam's favourite) so bags were quickly taken out of the unsorted pen and tipped out ready for sorting. A few Christmas donations have started to appear, it's still too early to think about Christmas isn't it? India and Judy found a few halloween pieces, it's not too early to think about that - how about a halloween theme fancy dress run for our group run on 30 October?

Angela found an amazing bright t-shirt and shorts combo which has been put aside for her to come back to get (perks of the task!), there were a few fancy dress outfits and 3 matching t-shirts which Maxine, Jo and Angela modeled - the new line up of the Sugababes perhaps? Jen found a great Batman swimsuit which she wore for a lot of the evening before it found its way to the "Women's Summer" bag!

Here's a Batman quote for you that could have been made for GoodGym:

It's not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me

Deep eh?!

As usual we got lots done. We are so well known for it that we have been asked to help with a massive shop sort out for a £1 sale throughout October - we'll be sorting out the sale stock and using the upstairs area to prepare the Autumn/Winter stock ready for putting out in the shop once the sale is over. Here are the links to all the community missions coming up at Naomi House:

• Saturday 21 September 3pm as part of #GGSuperSaturday
• Thursday 26 September 630pm
• Friday 27 September 630pm
• Friday 4 October 630pm
• Thursday 10 October 630pm
• Sunday 13 October 11am

Next week we are celebrating #GG10 - GoodGym's 10th birthday. We are going on a training run on Tuesday night and doing a one way run to our task on Wednesday so that we can go out afterwards and celebrate. Wear as much red as you can next Wednesday! Click on the links for more info.

Great to see everyone, see you again soon - whether it's at the Fratton Family Festival on Sunday, a community mission over the weekend or a group run on a Wednesday!