Last night we were originally due to paint and reorganise a communal space at Pathways, but due to a change of plans we ran to Odd Down Sports Ground to paint the inside of their community cafe and clean their children's toys. The route we took was essentially one big hill and were all pleased to complete a steep 7km training run.

Welcome, Sophie, Luke and Stephen!

When we met at the leisure centre we welcomed three runners to their first run with GoodGym Bath. Sophie and Luke have run with other GoodGym groups before and it was Stephen's first ever GoodGym event. It was great to have you all along to join us and thanks for your help. I hope we see you again soon!

Latest GG News

• Thanks to Phoebe and Rachel for representing us at a Community Mission at the weekend with Dry Arch Growers. You can read about what they achieved and the interesting wassail ceremony here.
• Rachel has kindly set up a GoodGym social for next Tuesday after the run. Please sign up so we have an idea of numbers to book a table.
• There is still time to sign up to the Dark Horse, a fun nighttime 10km in Bath. Several GG runners have already signed up so there will be friendly faces to see there!
• Next week we are running to help The Nest.

A night of two tasks

The first main task was painting the walls around the room. The community space is used a lot by different sports groups and members of the public and so they get quite mucky. There were spills on the walls by the teas/coffee area and there were marks from where old posters have been removed. We split into teams to improve the walls: some of us covered the edges with frog tape, others cleaned the walls down, others used the big roller brushes to clean the main areas of the walls and finally other runners swept in behind to paint the edges and skirting board with finer brushes. It required a lot of team work and coordination to get it right in the short amount of time we had and we were really pleased to get it all done.

The second big task was to spray and wipe down as much as we could. The cafe has a large collection of plastic and wooden toys and there are lots of tables and high chairs. A group of runners put their gloves on and got to work. This was a really important job to keep the cafe clean and free from germs.

Finally, we thoroughly cleaned and tidied where we had been. We took a group picture and then ran back down the hill to the leisure centre.

Thanks!

Thanks to Ali and her team at the cafe for hosting us at such short notice. Thanks to everyone who turned out last night to make the task a success. It was a classic example of where we can make a huge difference in a short space of time. And also thanks in particular to Chris, Emily and Rachel for backmarking for us.

Last night a group of GoodGym runners got involved with the last GoodGym Bath run OF THE DECADE! We ran up to the Odd Down Sports Cafe to paint some walls for them and give the community space a new lease of life. We ran a hilly 7.5km and enjoyed some great nighttime views over Bath.

Welcome, Rob!

We met at the leisure centre and welcomed a new runner to our ranks, Rob. Thanks for coming along last night, Rob. We hope you will come and join us again! After a warm-up we were on our way running up Holloway and Bloomfield Drive.

I'm dreaming of a (painted) white Christmas!

We had originally planned on writing Christmas cards for a community Christmas meal, but our plans changed at the last minute and instead we were tasked with some painting. The Community cafe is used by a range of different groups. In particular, there are lots of toddlers and young children who use the space and the walls around the toy area needed to be repainted. There were areas where the paint was looking faded and thin because of mucky hands and there was a fair amount of crayon on the walls too! We got to work and split into teams to paint as much of the walls we could in the time we had.

When we were done the places where we had painted looked much fresher. We really breathed a new lease of life into the walls to help keep the cafe a welcoming place to meet and relax.

After we had packed up we ran around to St Phillip's and St James' Church to see the results of some tasks from earlier in the year where painted a giant advent calendar for the church's Christmas display. Behind each door a community group drew a picture of what "The King is Coming" means to them. Our offering was lovingly crafted by Tessa, an author and illustrator who runs The Happy Book company, a local company that has just released a beautifully-illustrated children's book. Thanks, Tessa!

Thanks!

Thanks to the team at The Odd Down Sports Cafe for hosting us, thanks to Emily for backmarking for us and thanks to everyone for a great group effort with the Christmas-themed pun!

That's it for 2019! Thanks for coming along and running with us. The next group run will be on Tuesday 7th January. It will be a fantastic way to get back into running after the Christmas break - see you there!

9 GoodGym volunteers made it up the hill to Odd Down Sports Cafe for the last Group Run of 2018 to write Christmas cards for community meals. We ran a hilly 6.5km in total. We enjoyed ourselves and had a great workout!

January targets, sign-up to Strava!

We met at the Leisure Centre and shared our GoodGym news. As a group we have set ourself the ambitious challenge of running 500km and completing 100 good deeds in January. As long as you do at least one good deed in January every kilometre that you record on Strava (even if it isn't a GoodGym run!) still goes towards our target, so please sign up to Strava (it's free!) and link Strava to your GoodGym account (GoodGym Settings -> Strava/RunKeeper). Together we can do this and win the Golden Trowel!

Oh rein-deary me, that was hilly run!

We ran by the river, up Holloway and then up Bloomfield Drive. There were some amazingly decorated Christmas houses on the way up, including one mesmerising laser-light show! The hill is particularly steep but with typical GoodGym spirit we all made it up together! We always have at least one dedicated backmarker (thanks Alison and Emily!) to make sure that noone gets left behind and we all make it up together.

Volunteering the write way!

We arrived at Odd Down Sports Cafe and met our host Dave. He told us how over the next week the Cafe is hosting several Christmas meals for members of the Odd Down community. For most of us, Christmas is a time to enjoy time with friends and family. However, often the people that come to these meals are isolated and sadly don't have any visitors over Christmas. So our task was a really important way of helping avoid loneliness and fostering a sense of community.

Holly cow that was fun!

Our task was to write and decorate Christmas cards to make sure that everyone at the meals gets at least one Christmas card. This will help remind them that they are part of the Odd Down community and bring them some Christmas joy. We really enjoyed using our GoodGym creativity to create some festive illustrations: there was plenty of holly, lots of Christmas trees, several jingle bells, a fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-llama and at least one Christmas penguin. After stacking our pile of envelopes we headed back down the hill to the Leisure Centre.

Thanks to Alison and Emily for backmarking for us and thanks to Nicola for the pun this week!

As mentioned above, please sign up and link to Strava to help us meet our GoodGym January target!

Next runs

• There is no Group Run on Tuesday 25th December or Tuesday 1st January!
• We have a fun and really useful Community Mission on Saturday 5th January. Sign up here!
• We have already got group runs and socials booked in for whole of January (woo!). Sign up here!

Social Media

Please like/follow us on social media and share/retweet our content! We are on Facebook and Twitter.

Organisations are already getting in contact with us through these platforms and this means we are securing more varied tasks for you to enjoy!

Finally, thank you to all of our volunteers and all our partners for their tireless hard work and dedication improving our local community. We couldn't to this without you! Have a great Christmas and Emily and I are looking forward to seeing you out running in 2019!

Thankfully a little less chilly for 15 runners at Goodgym Bath for a 8k run up to Odd Down community cafe to help Ali write the Christmas cards ready for a Community Christmas lunch she provides for the elderly.

A warm up and headcount finding out everyone’s favourite CHEESE was in order before we took to THE HILL.

Snow Joke jogging up that hill

SUPERMAN SAM took the lead tonight and damn fine job he did getting everyone nice and warm with some high knee skips and walking lunges in the subway before the ascent to the summit.

Mother Mary was awaiting us at the manger

O.k so it was Goodgym Mary but she is a mother after all and she was clever enough to avoid joining us for the hill, shes a smart cookie.

Ali had a whole lotta Christmas Cards for the group to write for the elderly residents, in fact 66 to be precise so we formed orderly groups to see how fast we could be on the task

Enveloping the Christmas spirit

Writing and putting into the envelopes ready for the big day, it took us just 20 minutes but would have taken one person hours. we had chance to discuss the songs for next weeks singing with sign at action on hearing loss.

A leisurely jog back down Bloomfield taking in the views of Bath and some light sleety rain.

Don't Forget!

The Christmas Party on Saturday, 16th December meeting at the Apres ski bar at Bath on ice around 7pm for Glow in the dark golf for those wishing before moving off into town to paint it Goodgym Red.

Bath Skyline Race #2 on Sunday 17th December (sure, it'll be fine...PBs for everyone).

We have our last group run next week, so sign up and dig out your Santa hat and tinsel https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/carol-singing-with-sign-language