On a cloudy Saturday morning GoodGym Bath went back to St Martin's Garden School in Odd Down again to continue work developing their outdoor space. The school is undergoing lots of change at the moment and part of this is developing a small enclosure outside their classrooms to be a learning/playing/adventure area for the children.

The task involved digging out old disused grass beds so that, in a future task, bark chipping can be placed on top. This time we had the help of a rotavator and a pick ax which made things a lot easier (although we still had to use brute force and lots of heaving to remove some old reluctant roots!)

We have now managed to sort out 2 of the 4 beds and they will be ready for bark chipping to cover them at a future task!

A super six GoodGym Bath runners spent a socially distanced morning at St Martin’s Garden Primary School, where they are aiming to transform the outdoor spaces and community services provided by the time everyone is back to school in September!

We spent most of our time turning over and digging out earth in the forest space, where the children come to connect with nature. We were pulling out some enormous roots of trees and brambles and clearing the ground so that some bark chips and teepees can be installed!

It was sweaty work so halfway through we had a ‘break’ where we cleared some rubbish that had been collected in the outdoor play area, including books and old bookcases, flower pots and leaves. These were then wheeled around the building in our trusty barrows and thrown in a ginormous skip!!!

The school really is going to look a whole lot different for the new school year and we can see a few more GoodGym summer Community Missions heading our way to help them get there!

Thanks so much to Andy for hosting us - as you’re a true lover of all things GG and have run with us before, we thought you definitely deserved a good deed too! Hope to see you in a few weeks time!

Not letting the steep hills get in our way, 12 of us ran up Bloomfield Drive to clean and organise some of the community spaces at St Phillips and St James's Church. We cleaned children's toys and completely reorganised the youth sports cupboard. In total we ran a very hilly 7.5km!

Well done to everyone who ran the Bath Half!

Firstly, on Sunday it was the 2019 Bath Half Marathon where over 12,000 people took part. We got really lucky with the weather and it was a fantastic day! Well done to Emily, Sam P, Emma H, Chris L, Chris D, Tim, Mary, Dora and Lydia who took part in the race (apologies if I have missed anyone!).

If you missed out or want to run again, entries for the 2020 Bath Half marathon are now open with a small discount! See more information here.

Thanks GoodGym cheer squad!

It was great to see so many GoodGym members on the way round the course shouting encouragement and brandishing signs with messages of support. Thank you very much to everyone who came out to support us. It really helps!

Welcome Andy!

Andy was our host for the task last night, but instead of waiting for us to run up and meet him he joined us at the leisure centre and ran up the hill with us. What amazing commitment to volunteering! Thanks for joining us for the run as well as hosting us, Andy!

The task

When we got to the church Andy and his team had very kindly laid out some much-needed refreshments. This really helped us get going again after the long run!

St Phillips and St James' Church has several rooms that are used by a variety of community groups. They are used very frequently so the team of volunteers who manage the room always really appreciate some help with cleaning and organising. There were 2 tasks for us to do and we split into two teams to make sure we got everything done in the short time we had available.

Taming the Youth Sports cupboard!

I lead a team to tidy and completely reorganise the youth spots cupboards in Manna House, one of the community rooms at the church. First, we formed a human chain to completely empty the cupboard. It hadn't been decanted in a long time and there was lots of equipment in a disorderly state. We then put on our gloves and gave all of the sports equipment a thorough clean.

Some of the more interesting things we came across were: A VHS copy of The Office, several Guitar controllers used for video games and lots of shiny paper!

After sweeping the floors and shelves in the cupboard we filled it back up again in a neater and more organised fashion. Good job team!

Just playing around!

Emily lead a team into the 'play room' that is used by various toddler groups at the Church. There were lots of toys that needed a thorough clean and tidy up. Making sure the toys are clean and safe is a really important task, and the volunteers at the church really appreciate the hard work done by our runners here. Also, the painting of 'Dumbo' on the wall inspired this week's pun - thanks Alison!

Legs 11!

This week is the launch of the 50th GoodGym group in the UK. Every group is taking a picture with their runners aligned to be the number of their GoodGym community. Since we were the 11th group to open, we lined up in the shape of a number 11 in Manna House where we had been working. You can see the picture attached with the run report.

Thanks!

Thanks to Ollie for backmarking for us on the way there and the way back from the task last night. Thanks again to Andy for organising the task! We will return on the 30th April!

Next runs

• Alison is leading a Community Mission in Bristol on Sunday. Sign up here!
• Next week we are heading to our monthly pub quiz at St James Wine Vaults
• We have an awesome Community Mission on Sat 27th April at The Orchard
• We are also doing a Community Mission on Sun 28th April as part of the 2019 Worldwide City Nature Challenge
• Next week: Pascale is leading the run and we are raking sand and litter picking at Royal Victoria Park. Sign up here