After the parkrun in Preston Park, three wonder-"ING" women speeded up their way to St Paul Prestonwille Church for a weekend mission. To avoid the main roads, Nancy and I, Stefania, explored a shortcut through Lover’s walk to find ourselves hiking-a-bike up some steps – Wonder-FULL discovery and FUN!

There, we joined Rev. Martin, Sally and other lovely church wanders and volunteers to get busy in screening and sorting a fair amount of stuff that has been accumulated in years, since pre-pandemic. Much we saved for the toddlers entertaining sessions and other church events, more we diverted for reuse and recycling and …. more is yet to go or to do, ready for another future visit!

Nice to see you back Abi to enjoy the spring tasks in the church outdoor garden that is now ready to grow vegetables and become a complementary food supply for the Real Junk Food Project, cooking and serving the local community twice a week at this premise.

15 runners gathered tonight. All veterans of Goodgym so nobody new to welcome on a cold February night. We embarked on the steady climb up to St. Luke's Church in the Prestonville area and were tasked with distributing the 'Prestonville Friend' to the local parish. There was no scatter gun approach as we were provided with maps detailing the streets to target so we split into 4 groups with some staying closer by and others heading out into the hinterland with the words of Captain Oates ringing in their ears "I'm just going outside and maybe some time". Having successfully stuffed letter boxes and grappled with barking dogs we just about had time to do a quick synchronized steps routine with a partner as a brief fitness session and then all congregated at The Fountain Head for our monthly social where discussion ranged from all things corona to all things punk and goth with a bit of George Michael and Prince thrown in for good measure not forgetting that Tara had run her 200th park run the previous Saturday. Hurrah! Until next month... au revoir,adios and auf wiedersehn

Last night was definitely one of the colder nights we’ve had for Brighton Goodgym, but that didn’t deter our first timers Millie and Louis and the return of Tom who started with us last week. Welcome guys, sorry we can’t determine the weather, but we can determine the feel good factor of every Goodgym task.

Our task took place at St Luke’s, a working parish who host several community projects, most notably the Real Junk Food Project. Food that is destined to be dumped is collected and cooked by the Real Junk Food Project to provide great meals on a “pay as you feel” basis, meaning those who can afford pay the going rate and those who struggling financially can get a good meal at a price they can afford. All this cooking means the kitchen needed a good deep clean and with many hands made light work of it.

With so many of us to help out, Martin, Vicar at St Lukes had other jobs to keep us busy, including cleaning windows, carpets, a full on clean of the loos and the destruction of a sofa so that it could be disposed of. Tools in hand Katherine, Abi and Louis made quick work of pulling the sofa apart (they also looked like they enjoyed it a little too much… surly the week is too short to be stressful already?!)

Following on from our delivering task last week, Tara produced more copies of the Extinction Rebellion’s newsletter Hourglass. With guerrilla style tactics, we swarmed the Preston Ville area of Brighton. The scene looked like a group of ninjas spreading the Extinction Rebellion news.

With so much posting there was little time for a fitness session, however we used the stairs to the Brighton Greenway to “Quick Feet” up the steps, improving our leg strength.

Though many peeled off on the way back to base we managed to pick up Tristian, who is in training for the Brighton Marathon and looking for tips on his first attempt at the distance. Hopefully we’ve convinced Tristian to join our social running group from next week! We’ll be back at Hannover, with Brighton Goodgym favourite Cllr David Gibson, to help out with some community tasks for the residents and if you want your Goodgym fix before then, we'll be helping at Junior Park run this Sunday – see you there!

11 runners met up on Tuesday night. No newbies but 11 veterans of the Goodgym experience who had no PBs to report this week but were all in awe of Rosemary and Paul who completed the Seven Sisters 10k the previous Saturday in winds that must have almost blown them into the sea.

After our usual warm up we headed off to St. Luke's Church on Old Shoreham Road...about a 2k run....and met Jessie and his gorgeous dog Pearl there. She certainly was Jessie's Girl!

Our task this week was to clear the garden of waste, detritus and discarded bonfire material. Pearl was a lovely distraction but we cleared a lot of space and placed old doors up against the wall. Nobody could say it was like a jungle out there after we had finished with it.

Having completed our work we headed off to New England St. next to Sainsbury's and set about creating a unique 34...the reason being that the 50th Goodgym launches this week and Brighton were number 34. After much deliberation we created a 34 with bodies spread out in a digital fashion as people headed home from work. Hey....not an eyebrow was raised...this is Brighton after all!

We then had a fitness session to complete...everyone partnered up and set about sets of 34 (see what we did there) burpees, press ups and jumping squats divided between the pairs in a set time. Paul and Frances came out victors having completed two sets plus an extra 20 burpees...my legs are still grateful!

We headed back to base camp with a song in our hearts...oh...talking of songs see if you can spot the 80's songs referenced in this report!! Not many but they're there. Until next week.

12 Goodgym folk convened on an almost balmy evening...such a change from recent outings....and we all congratulated Juliet on her 50th good deed. A shiny new black t shirt will be winging its way to her soon.

Our task was to run the 2km to St. Luke's Church on the Old Shoreham Road. After a steady climb there ,dodging the commuters on their way home,we met the Reverend Martin there who proceeded to tell us all the good work that's done from hosting the Real Junk Food Project who obtain food from supermarkets that would otherwise be discarded to feed those who need it on a pay as you can basis to hosting choirs and many other great causes.

We split into two groups...one heading to the kitchen to give it a deep clean and rearrange the cupboards..the other sorting out the furniture in the meeting room,cleaning it and sprucing up the adjoining loos.

Once done we headed off to what I found out is called the Greenway and partnered up. While one ran up a set of steps and back the other did a series of one legged squats, holding squats and holding squats with a jump and vice versa. We then headed back,carried out what is usually our uneventful stretches but tonight was interrupted by some 'yoofs' who for some reason only known to themselves decided to throw a bottle of water at us from their boy racermobile. I took one for the team as it glanced off me just above the bum!

Then it was our monthly social and we headed to The Walrus where we were intrigued to see what Amro's plant based shepherds pie would taste and look like. After initial reservations I think he was pleased with it....and off we headed into the night wishing Tara a happy holiday. Hurrah!

#givingTuesday, the antidote to the rampant consumerism of Black Friday, is all about devoting a day to giving to charity, through donations or actions. Of course every Tuesday is a #givingTuesday when you run with Brighton Goodgym but this week it’s good to know we have the rest of the world along for the ride!

in the 76 group runs we’ve had since Brighton Goodgym launched back in July 17 its amazing how few we’ve had where we’ve had any rain. It’s like we had so much rain for our first ever task we’ve been given a free pass of fine weather for our weekly Tuesday run. But into each life a little rain must fall and tonight it was our turn. Numbers were unsurprisingly a little down as a result but once we got started the rain was actually nice and refreshing and as luck would have it we had an indoor task!

But before we set off we welcomed Sitara along for her first group run and congratulated Michael & Amro on completing a mission this weekend. I’ve had a head’s up from head office that the mission booking system will be changing soon to make it easier so watch this space!

After a nice undulating 2km run through town we arrived at our task destination of St Luke’s Church. Like many churches this is so much more than a church with lots of community groups using the space including the Real Junk Food Project. The church also does a big Sunday cook up once a month to feed the homeless, recently feeding 75 people in one day. So the church kitchen is very well used in need of some Goodgym deep cleaning. We tackled the fronts & insides of the cupboards, the extractor hood, the bin, the fridge, the walls & floors as well as the three toilet cubicles. On #giving Tuesday we certainly gave the church a good clean! Nipun & Damian also sorted out a box of about 5 partially used First Aid Kits to make them into 3 complete ones.

Task complete we headed back out into the not as bad as you think its going to be rain and squeezed in a couple of speedy 400m reps before heading back to base.

It’s a busy week for Brighton Goodgym next week with our usual weekly run on Tuesday, Christmas party on Thursday, and parkrun meet up Preston Park on Saturday.

And I finally figured out a way of sharing Nipun's Xmas party flyer with you all! Thanks Nipun!!