It was great to have Jess and Joanne join us tonight for their first group runs - welcome and we look forward to seeing you back soon! We were also delighted to be joined by Klara tonight, who is going to be the wonderful new Trainer of Exeter when it launches on 20th August. She put the group through their paces as Trainer of Bristol tonight to get ready for the big day...

Happy Campers

After Klara getting us warmed-up, we split into two groups. Alice returned to her land legs after her weekend smashing the Swoosh and led half the group to Emmaus to get stuck in with a cush(ion)y task. This involved the group arranging all of the sofas in the warehouse into perfect formation (and then having a lie down for all of their hard work). The rest of the team were on tent duty. They erected all of the tents to ensure they were in good condition then took them back down and packed them neatly away to be sold. Alice gave the team the 5 minute challenge to take a four-person tent down in. Who knew Tuesday nights were full of so much skills training?

Here we go round the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush

Which is what the rest of us did once we had met Laura from Bedminster Patchwork. This community group own patches of green space around the area which they manage. The Myrtle Street Orchard is now not open to the public but the local school looks onto it. It has become overgrown in the hot weather, so we armed ourselves with gloves and tools and went round and round the mulberry bush but did it while hacking, chopping and pulling out as much as we could to bring the orchard back to life. All the while avoiding the wasps and ants nest which we had brought to the surface in this wildlife haven and - for a couple of our poor more allergic GoodGymers - avoiding the grass completely by sticking to some litter and fruit picking (separately, don't worry).

That was mint

After getting some goodie bags of mint and fruit to take back home with us, we headed back to Queen Square for Klara to put us through our paces with some circuit training. Exeter GoodGymers are definitely going to become a fit bunch! After all of that, we were ready for a well-earned sit-down and drink, as we waved Klara goodbye and good luck for next month.

Thanks to Matt, Tim and Julie for the puns!

It was another big group attendance tonight as our Bristol runners spread out across Bedminster to fix up some green spaces. Welcome to the new faces that joined us tonight - it was great to see you Anna, Beth, Cristina, Aga and Abigail! Also good to see some new but returning faces - good luck for the big one this weekend Stu!

Thanks to Charlie, who led the first group to Cherry Tree Garden. There, they were met by Julia who explained to them the momentous task of weeding and clearing nettles ahead of the bulb-planting they are planning in the future. After a slight delay followed by being rescued by the henceforth-named Glove Superman, Darren, the group were ready to enthusiastically set to work. Apparently, Chris decided to get in a fight with a Sycamore (as you do on a Tuesday night with GoodGym), while the rest of the group picked on something their size... Or at least, a whole lot of nettles slightly closer to their own size.

Meanwhile, the rest of the group met Laura from Bedminster Patchwork. They manage 12 patches of land across Bedminster, which they work on to make beautiful spaces for the local community. GoodGym had previously worked on this particular patch a couple of times and it is coming on leaps and bounds. The group set to work weeding and planting across the ground. Despite hitting a spider nest and finding surely the entire population of Bristol's hairy caterpillars, the group did a stellar job of making the patch weedless and freshly planted ready for summer. What a great job all round. Thank you to your brilliant back-marking Maria, which got us past all the envy-inducing pint-holding locals sipping in the evening sun, until we could get back for our own well-deserved pints.

Overall, a Tuesday night well spent, and Bedminster looking all the better for our green-fingered GoodGymers!