On a humid September evening we ran and cycled down Lewes Road to Moulsecoomb Primary School to help them prepare their school field for the first day of term the following day.

However, this wasn’t just your bog-standard school field. Upon arrival Warren gave us a little tour and showed us the replica Iron Age Roundhouse, a Clay House, some beautiful flowers and a vegetable patch all covered in wild grass plus a new greenhouse. The students get to explore the buildings in their history classes and they help out (and sometimes even enjoy!) maintaining the vegetable patch too. We were joined on the task by first time Goodgymers Andy and Tom - welcome to both!

We were tasked with removing the Bindweed from the Vegetable patch, weeding and moving and bagging the ready-to-go compost from the compost patch. Fittingly, and much like a school disco, we split into a boys group and a girls group, and although we didn’t dance separately we did all roll our sleeves up and get going! Apart from a few vicious (and as yet unidentified) insects in the vegetable patch everything went swimmingly and we were able to leave Warren with a few manageable tasks for the children to finish on their return.

No pub for us afterwards, all the Brighton Goodgymers needed an early night before the first day of school the next day 🤓

Yes, the pubs are open, yes we can hug and hold hands (and BHAFC can play in front of a home crowd and win!). However all this means nothing compared to the return to Moulsecoomb Primary School, genuinely one of the best schools in the area that puts the community at its heart.

Tonight we met Warren and Jules who put us to work in the school's fruit orchard. Paul performed the hero task of turning the compost and getting it ready for the year 4's vegetable patch lesson in the morning.

Michael did his best goat impression, cutting through the grass that was growing around the fruit patches. The rest of the weed destroyers removed all the misplaced plants to give the raspberries space to grow and a play time snack for the pupils in the new term.

Once the weeding was complete Warren showed us the school's pond which is current full of tadpoles! Every visit to this school is genuinely fun and educational.

Also, this writer has never seen so many snails in one place. Moulsecoomb should think about adding french cuisine to the lunch menu!

Tara and I met Jules at Moulsecoomb Primary School who showed us to their lovely allotment. The space is used for kids who need some quiet time or are having particular problems in class and also a chance to learn about the things we grow. The area was in need of a lot of TLC as it hadn't been paid a lot of attention during the holidays and lockdown. The brief was basically to clear dead,brown stuff and leave the green. We cleared several wheelbarrows worth including brambles and teazles but there is still much to do so I'm sure we'll be back.

8 goodgymers descended on Moulsecoomb School once again from far and wide and were met by Jools at the school gates. A variety of tasks were assigned. Roy and this writer cleared out a huge pile of weeds in an area on the opposite side of the field using spades and a trolley dating back to Victorian times that definitely had a mind of it's own. Michael and Tara started by clearing out the compost sections and putting the manure into large sacks...they were good students...a small tribute to Tara's great pun from the weekend! Susan and Tabitha continued the plum work and cleared off the rest of those rotten and decaying damsons and Lydia and Juliet cleared an overgrown area around what is delightfully called the butterfly cemetery. Once completed we all set about clearing weeds away from the row of raspberry plants. The school is certainly an inspiring place and teaches the kids there about where our food comes from and the benefits of healthy eating. Once finished we all set off and hopefully arrived home in one piece with darkness arriving despite this writer taking a tumble running home...I'm ok!

It was harvest time at Moulsecoomb Primary school: School governor Warren met us to help with the school's orchard which is used to teach children about growing food as well as provide a healthy snack at break times.

Welcome to James who joined us for the first time this week, and welcome back to James who joined us for the very first time last week: James^2 looked after composting duties, turning the heap over and adding to it from the weeding taking place amongst the raspberries.

Welcome also to Rosa who joined us from Newham Goodgym, always great to meet other Goodgymers! Rosa, Emma and Michael ploughed through the weeding while David, Rosemary and Frannie handled the plums...

This left Roy, Michelle and Juliet clearing out a very dry pond (and rumour has it a dead squirrel?!) Much was achieved in our 45 minute session in the evening sunshine and a general good feeling that this Goodgymer has been missing recently.

Warren is looking to have us back soon with such a lot of school grounds to cover.

Hey there fellow goodgymers!

Thankyou for your warm welcome back into the group this evening much appreciated and really good to see you all keeping healthy and have survived this pandemic, hopefully I can make up for my absence and also inspire any other runners who are thinking about joining :)

Tonight was a great task meeting school warden Warren who was very passionate about the school and its development so was inspiring to see meet him, they have the largest outdoor space of any Brighton school with over 40 different organisations chipping in to run different after schools clubs and activities which has created such a awe inspiring community effort, they raise money through these events and different organisations in order to be able to allow the less well wealthy local families to be able to afford sending thier child to this school which is everything myself and good gym are about promoting access so got down to nipping, tucking and deweeding the edge of thier forest school area which contained the infamous bug hotels projects which they try and encourage thier children to embrace through outdoor learning practices, taking out the loose dead grass, bind weed and grass surrounding the raspberry plants along the edge, leaving the snapdragon pants and creating a troul edging, after being able to chat and catch up with everyone we were finished in no time as it was all hands on deck and very much a team effort indeed, after putting his tools back in the man made straw roundhouse at the bottom of the playground we rallyed for a team photo and headed our seperate ways for a final jog home as a nicer task for some because we didn't meet up first at the YHA so individual runs could be sorted more depending on location making it more convenient for some members or able to get a longer run in, hoping to get out with the team more shortly and catch up properly.

Happy running, stay clear and stay safe everyone

From my android Kind regards Damian