We had a last minute change of plan tonight as our planned task couldn't get into the building we were helping in. Never fear, it was the perfect time to finish off leafleting for Penny Brohn's Christmas Concert on 6th December, which we started last week. Mel also stepped up to lead a walking litter-picking group around the local area to clean up the space.

Welcome to Amy, who joined us for the first time tonight - it was great having you!

While Mel's group set-off to litter-pick, the rest of us headed to Hotwells, where we started our zig-zagging long climb up to Clifton (with a lot of back and forth leafleting on the way), with Clo taking some blurry photos to prove just how speedy we were running. Our four teams covered the area and delivered 400 leaflets in no time, as well as having lots of time for wall-sits and partner arms workouts in between.

Merry Crouch-mas

With all of the leaflets safely delivered, we headed on a gratefully-received downhill run back to Queen Square. Here we got to test out our four teams one more time with a hotly contested sprint-into-crouch relay. After that excitement, it was time to cool down, head back into the warm, and wonder where on earth the key is.

We avoided today's windy weather and dark clouds and gathered for a Double Leaf Whammy, running to help Hotwells and Redcliffe Development Group clearing leaves at Holy Trinity Church and Penny Brohn with leafleting for their Christmas Concert on 6th December.

Penny for your thoughts

Alice D headed off with a group of 9 hardy runners to battle the hills of Clifton to distribute 1 million (or probably 500) leaflets in just 45 minutes around the area. Penny Brohn will be so pleased with this increased advertising. I will give them a head's up about booking out the stadium...

Unbeleafable

Meanwhile, the rest of the group headed to Holy Trinity Church and were split into groups for various jobs. The Leaf Team were armed with brushes, rakes and recycling bags to tackle the mounds of leaves on the pathways and grass. Of course this couldn't be done without throwing and kicking a good load around before getting down to business.

The Loppers got to work clipping back bushes to clear an entrance to.... a telephone box. We marvelled at the idea that people were still using the telephone box, and marvelled further when we realised that we were in fact clearing the window to the box rather than the entrance. Meanwhile, Liam and Dhanesh casually sawed down a tree in approximately 8 minutes, showing their future careers as tree surgeons.

Finally, The Leafleters were kitted out with their maps and their target destinations and split into three teams to distribute as many hundreds of leaflets for Christmas events as they could.

Not mulch left

By 7.30, nothing was leaf-left, including the digestive biscuits. We regrouped and ran back to the Queen Square, stopping for some cheeky sprints and squat jumps along the way.

Thanks to Lexi, Richard, Gary and Jack for tonight's puns

Zdeni, Caroline and I met the rest of the Penny Brohn STOMP volunteers bright and early this morning (especially Caroline). We got assigned our stations along the marshal route and donned our hi-viz vests (easier than it sounds - see photo reel of Caroline's trouble with this) ready to cheer on the walkers at the start of their sponsored walk from the centre of town to Pill.

With facepaint, balloons and t-shirts, everyone was getting into the swing of it and we got to do a lot of cute dog oggling along with our cheering.

An hour later, the walkers were off on their route and we headed back to auction off our cheese and onion crisps around Bristol.

What do you get if you (zebra)cross GoodGymers with a leaflet? Black, white and re(a)d all over!

And with that 'pun', we set the tone for this evening's tales of odd puns, odd games and a shoeless GoodGymer in Clifton... (I would like to blame me being sleep-deprived, but I think we might just be this odd).

It was great to welcome so many new people on this damp, windy night: thanks for joining us Sarah, Orphee, Eric, Edita, Elena and Caitlin!

After an impressive marathon-in-a-cape effort by Liam on Saturday, he joined Melanie, Maria, Roz and Lisa on a walking group litter-pick of the local area, and managed to get back in time for tea! Great work walkers.

The rest of us had a quick maritime lesson to warm up (mainly for me) then headed up Constitution Hill (which handily had a bench at the top for a cheeky rest) to Clifton, where we were going to be distributing leaflets for Penny Brohn's Stomp walk next weekend. We set up a base camp and our four teams set off with 250 leaflets each and 25 minutes to distribute them, get a team photo and come up with their best pun.

Team A (or 'The A Team') set the pace and returned home in just 20 minutes, with all leaflets successfully delivered.

Getting Brohnus points

Team D stormed home soon after, and although they hadn't grabbed the winning points for returning back first, their impressive pun and team pic had them hot on the heels of The A Team.

Team C cut in with 2 minutes to spare and spent the next two minutes crafting the impressive opening joke.

STOMP right now, thank you very much, you need some leaflets in your letterbox

The group waited with anticipation for Team B to make it back before the 7.30pm deadline, but as the clock ticked on, there was no sign of Darren and his team. 34 seconds after the cut-off for losing all potential points, they sprinted in, and got a bonus point after all for their impressive pun and sprint finishes.

With all runners back, two Abbey Road pics and a tonne of puns, it was time to head back down the hill to the harbourside, where we stopped for some partner sprints and then cooled down before wishing the racers for this weekend good luck and sending a group off to warm-up with pies for this month's GoodGym Eats.

The missing ingredient

Unfortunately, the weekend left things in a bit of a pickle at Baggator (water + electricity is not a good mix and they had to shut the Pickle Factory for a few days to make everything safe again). Therefore, we will be rearranging to go and help them on a new date.

Over the hill

Not to fear! GoodGym Bristol are never short of a Tuesday night way to do good. Penny Brohn are organising their annual Stomp fundraising walk from Bristol to Pill and they are spreading the word about the opportunity to take part in this beautiful walk while raising money for such a good cause on 13th October. Ian from Penny Brohn delivered me leaflets by the boxful for this and the GoodGymers of Bristol are more than happy to get their legs moving between the letterboxes to help.

They were less happy about the hills I introduced into the session to spice up the run between the letterboxes. After the continued hilarity of GoodGymers not managing to warm-up by rotating their arms in different directions simultaneously, we started off on a lovely traffic-free run along the harbourside to get to our first hill. Here began an hour's zig-zagging run of letterboxes, hills, leaflets and the additional good deed task of finding over-zealous leafleters who are so dedicated to Penny Brohn's cause (or confused by Bristol's twisting streets) that they become 'temporarily misplaced'.

Hobble-nob

Nevertheless, all of the members of the group had soon managed to hand out hundreds of leaflets around the area, and clocked up their miles and elevation while they did so. They also did an impressive hill sprint up Constitution Hill (with it's 1:6 gradient) with only the promise of it having deserved a chocolate-covered hob-nob.

What an impressive effort by everyone who joined us tonight, especially Freddie, Hannah and Fiona who joined us for the first time. I know Ian and his team at Penny Brohn will be delighted with all of your work!