14 goodgymers met tonight, in the misty dark evening for a lovely quick walk / jog / run to the Samye Foundation in Canton.

But First

Welcome Abbie89 to goodgym Cardiff, and for the second time welcome Ashley.

Good to have you back again Mike, it's been great to see all the coach visits going on with you, great to have you at a group task again too though.

Just a short 3km out and back tonight to Samye, but plenty to do whilst we are there. The dry wipe boards were out in force again already with the tasks at hand,

• Sweeping up the leaves from around the building,
• Cutting down the bushes at the back of the building,
• Moving some bottle of drink from the storage area outside to inside,
• Vacuuming, mopping the floors in the three buildings,
• Cleaning down the windowsills,
• Painting a gold stripe in the one of the rooms.

We separated into our groups as we decided who was doing which tasks and got to work. Michael had the lights ready in his Mary Poppins bag, so popped these up ready for the bush cutter trial. With everyone hard at work it was slightly more difficult to get the photos tonight but was a great opportunity to have a run around the building. The 30 minutes flew by and before we knew it the dinner bell was ringing, the wonderful Lorraine had made us soup, which on a night like this was very welcomed.

7 awesome GoodGymers got a great work-out helping Whipton Barton Infant School prepare an outdoor classroom!

It was a stunning afternoon, blue sky and booming sunshine! I think we all felt very happy to escape our offices to come out and get stuck in with this great task- preparing the building of a new outdoor area at the infant school in Whipton.

For an hour and a half we worked super hard, transporting logs, wooden structures and A LOT of bricks away from the school ground in wheel barrows. It sure worked out those muscles we rarely get to in a regular gym session!

It was great to see Ashley and Abbie89 again for the first time since before lockdown and a bog shout out to everyone for working so hard- we really made a big difference!

We have a lot of new tasks being listed shortly so remember to check the website and I can't wait to see you soon again for more doing good and getting fit!

This weekend Exeter Phoenix kick-started Mental Health Awareness Week with Bloom, an online festival of Mental Health Awareness. We were super excited to be part of this with a GG fitness challenge, a talk about the GoodGym and some little tips on how to stay motivated when training at home!

There was a great collection of at-home-activity throughout the weekend and 20 GoodGymers took part in the GG Fitness session which consisted of some HIIT style cardio exercises, some toning exercises and some core work. It was fantastic to have Denise and Linda joining us for the first time! I really hope I get to meet you in person when things are back to normal and we can go out on our usual group runs again!

Training at home is not always so easy... A big cheer to Sarah who persevered with the training session even though she had to pause and sort out snacks for her kids multiple times. I think a lot of us know exactly what thats like! Lisa was quite exhausted after having been up multiple times in the night with the new addition in her house, a suuuuper cute puppy, but still made the session! Great stuff! Also, a huge cheer to Rosie who completed the training session 3 times! Brilliant effort!

A very special thank you to Lizzie who had made the spoken word poetry film about running that was added to the talk about the GoodGym!

Finally a very big shout out to the Phoenix who rather than canceling the Bloom weekend due to the Covid-19 adapted it so that it could take place online. Mental Health Awareness is more important than ever in these strange times and it was awesome that the Bloom went ahead. We totally loved being part of it!