Five Goodgymmers, Eleanor, James, Roger, Keith and Lea turned up for some mucking… well, carrying about 50 bags of manure mulch down some steps to drop them in varying places in the Pine Cliff Gardens, a hidden gem of a cliff top location with views of the sea and even Old Harry in the distance. After the carrying came the cutting open and emptying of the bags. Then the regular garden volunteers could rake the muck around the plants. With each bag weighing between 15-20 kilos, Goodgym’s help was much appreciated. Keith was heaving the bags onto the wheelbarrow and trolley, James, Roger and Eleanor carried them down the steps with Lea doing a one-armed trolley run. Eleanor heaving the bags up as if it was nobody’s business, was very impressive! You can imagine what her hands and tshirt looked like after all that. James, Eleanor and Lea could get rid of any aggression by slashing open the bags before tipping them. Keith and Roger collected the empty bags. A quick coffee and a chat and then a “thank you very much” from Vicky and with that another Goodgym task successfully completed. But the beautiful wooden statues of insects proved too inviting… they provided a nice bit of mucking about after all that mucking!

Yes, the Grockels had done it again: plenty of stuff to be litterpicked today. We had a new Goodgymmer join us: Alina! Then there were four more: James, Roger, Keith and Lea. The Durley Chine car park and the steps up and down got a good going over! On top of the cliff, around Cherry Tree Walk (not that many people know about its existence) and back down to Durley Chine Beach, enough rubbish to fill 6 bin bags. And one huge pile to be reported to the council. Unfortunately no amazingly interesting finds today, just lots of cans, cigarette butts, bottles and… rubbish! A few “thankyous” from passers by and a nice cup of tea (coffee, latte, decaf latte) afterwards and we are happy to have done our bit again. Alina assured us she would like to join us in other tasks, so a good Goodgymmer morning was had by all.

What a great turn out for tonight's session! Runners Graeme, Mohammed, Daryl, Caprice, Milly, Emma, Sophie and newbie Harry met for the Group Run to the session. They were joined by more GoodGymers at the task, Eleanor, Luke and newbie Julya It was lovely to meet Harry and Julya and they weren't afraid to get stuck in! They were met by Dot at The Well Coffee Lounge, she had a list of jobs to get through and the group got to it! Tonight's session was for all lighting to be taken down and cleaned, so before they could get cracking Dot switched off all the main lights, just to be safe. We had Team Clean which consisted of Milly Emma and Sophie who removed all the side lights and scrubbed them clean. Eleanor, Graeme and Daryl then placed the side lights back all clean and shiny. Luke got to work clearing out and cleaning the fridge. Daryl, Harry, Graeme and Mohammed were in charge of safely removing the large globe lightshades for the Team Clean to scrub and dry. Eleanor was in charge of sorting the house plants, stripping away the dried leaves and she was eventually joined but Mohammed who helped sweep and tidy. Daryl and Julya removed all the old fairy lights with Caprice lending and hand. Caprice got some good action shots of the group. They were there for an hour but so much was achieved, even if it was performed in very low lighting! Dot was happy with our efforts and it looks as through they would love our help again in the future. Watch this space!

Six Goodgymmers, Emma, Sophie, James, Daryl, Keith and Lea, turned up at the Dorset Children’s Foundation hub to help Patsy with some chores that would take a lot longer for her on her own! Recycled ceiling panels, dustier than dusty, had to be swept with a brush, a task taken on lefthanded by Lea, then taken to the painting team, consisting of Sophie, Emma and James. What about Keith and Daryl though?! Well, a kitchen that was covered in dust, because of work done in the building, was waiting to be cleaned from ceiling to floor. When Lea returned from the DCF charity shop with some jigsaws that had to be counted (yikes, 1000 pieces?!, and some smaller ones) Lea set to counting to 1000, later on joined by Keith and Daryl who took the smaller jigsaws. When the floor was covered with the ceiling panels, having turned from a dusty grey into beautiful black, the kitchen sparkling clean, and the jigsaws counted, we called it a day! With Patsy, as ever, very grateful again for all our hard work. And Chloe very happy indeed with a few more jigsaws counted! Hopefully there will be a next episode soon.

It's that time again! Our favourite task of the month, GoodGym's Quiz at Abbeyfield Retirement Home!

Tonight was a good turn out. We had James, Chloe, Eleanor and Luke on the ladies team "Loose Women" and Janet, Daryl,Ross and Paul joining team "The Seagulls."

Caprice this week was quiz master giving a tricky quiz of four rounds. The four rounds included; Geography, History&Politics, The Arts and good old General Knowledge. The Arts Round again proved to be the most challenging with some really tricky questions, it really got them thinking! This week's winners smashed it with a respectable 28/40 "The Seagulls" Well done to them, what a cracking score!! "The Loose Women" scored a well earned 21/40.

It was tough tonight, the quiz had some tricky questions We will return next month this time with a music and a picture round! We hope to see you there!

A lovely weekend in Bournemouth culminated in a 10k for Tavand James, as well as an amazing half marathon for Ella. The challenge was for Tav to finish the 10k quick enough for Ella to get the 20minute bus to the race start and we managed it. Ella ran a super 1.39hour and Tav ran 42 minutes.

Well done all! Tav was running to raise money for Love Support Unite, a lovely charity who help orphans in Malawi. If you'd like to donate click here