August means quiet turnouts generally, but there were still a decent handful of members around to welcome Baton to his first ever GoodGym! What a night to join. Beaulieu Community Centre is our furthest task area from the meeting point and it was extremely muggy, so we followed the motto “we get there – eventually” and took it easy on the way up. Andy even managed to find the cut-through we stumbled on last time. We arrived to find Team Car already on site and briefed to clean the windows on the community centre. Martin immediately got put to work on the top bits and swapped a now-traditional backpack of courgettes for a bucket and cloth. Sallyann was absolutely delighted by free courgettes – almost as much as Martin was at managing to actually empty his weighty bag. Fay seemed much less interested, but held off on fish and chips this time (or if she did get some for the drive home, she resisted sharing a photo this time!) A group upstairs were blasting dance music, but the downstairs karate kids were far more discreet. So it was a huge surprise for Joe, mid-squeegee, as the curtains of a now extremely clean window opened and he suddenly had an audience of confused-looking children. The run back from Beaulieu is downhill all the way, but Rich was livid it couldn’t have been downhill to get there as well. In fairness, he’d done a 100 mile bike ride on Monday – the hottest day of the year – from Norwich back to Chelmsford and was clearly still feeling it. Top tip for recovery – a huge amount of pineapple juice, apparently. The weather looks great this weekend so expect some of us at Parkrun, others at the Basildon Inflatable 5k and maybe a deciding grudge match of Poohsticks to settle Joe and Andy’s one-all draw from last weekend. Stay tuned…

Run Happy

Joe

After a brief discussion on the best way to Beaulieu Community Centre, we set off with Joel leading out in the sunshine. We mostly worked it out along the way, apart from some confusion over what sort of looked like a path, but felt more like an uneven grass verge next to a busy road.

We found Fay and Sallyann with cloths and buckets in hand, so the rest of the group picked up sponges and cloths to clean every possible surface in the Heath Room, ahead of the Centre's open day this Sunday.

David went straight in whilst everyone else loitered for a short period, but his work clearly wasn't evident as the window he cleaned first was cleaned at least twice more by other members of the group.

Best use was made of Andy's and Joe's heights, by asking them to clean the tops of windows, whilst Martin and Nisar took the two sponges and did a great job of cleaning up the marked walls.

I spotted a couple of cobwebs on the ceiling, so suggested Rich and Joe give them a good swipe with their cloths, which ended up more of a posing opportunity for Rich than actual cleaning (followed by another posing opportunity with David and a dustpan and broom).

We finished with a lovely group photo, and then thought we were leaving Fay and Sallyann to walk home. Much to our dismay (mostly Andy, David, and Rich) they popped around the corner for chips on the way, whilst the rest of us were at Andy's mercy for his choice of the running route back.

We didn't let it dampen our spirits too much, and we took a celebratory photo with Nisar in his lovely new red t-shirt, before heading home for our less fun dinners than Fay and Sallyann had.

Great work everyone! Let's hope we get invited back to Beaulieu Community Centre for more tasks.

See some of you at parkrun on Saturday for volunteering, and the rest of you on a run soon.

Laurie