On a splendid summer evening over 30 smiling runners met to run to Bedminster to help the Patchwork Project to fix up some street gardens that were in weed of some attention.

The patchwork project are led by the ever welcoming Laura and Liz who met us after our 1 mile run from Vivo. They have several areas of ground in the area that they tend to planting bulbs and plants to make the street beautiful. Recently the beds on Stackpool Lane had been damaged really badly by what appeared to be a drunk gorilla wielding a strimmer while pretending it was a mic stand and performing a tribute to Freddy Mercury in full flow of rendition of I want to break free. So the task was simple. Stop, snip, chop, weed, and tidy the beds.

Runners new and regular set to work quickly choosing a patch of land to give their attention to and set to work. Alex and Neil took down some pretty big flora scalps while a couple of new runners set about planting bulbs in a patch that had been decimated by some recent waterworks. Not the crying kind hopefully, more the pipes and taps kind of palaver.

Soon it became apparent that due to our fantastic turn out we would have the job done well within time. This gave me the opportunity to take some energetic souls out for a trip around the harbour while the rest stayed on to finish the final few jobs. My gallant bunch performed sprint after sprint focusing on their form by staring at scaffolding. Hats off to you all for accepting the challenge every time I yelled "See that lampost? Sprint to it!". You were brilliant.

We all met back in Queen Square for a cool down and a stretch to round off what was a really fun evening. Shouts out to David for gaining his 50th deed on Saturday and therefore his coveted black GoodGym t-shirt, and to Alice (the) Whale for becoming our 15th centurion by completing her 100th good deed on her birthday no less! Well done Whale, we're so lucky to have you and your massive hair in our group, you fricking rock!

That left nothing more to do then to go and get some pizza and cider to celebrate so we all lived apply ever after...

Until next time,

Gary

Tuesday come good deeds be done, by loads of runners and then more some! This evening 30 runners came to help us take on unscheduled tasks litter picking and delivering flyers for Helpful Peeps in Lawrence Hill. Welcome back to all those faces we've seen before and a a massive hello to new runner Anna.

Our task to help Incredible Edible this evening was cancelled due to our host Hannah being ill (get well soon smiley lady!) so we put our legs and hands to good use helping elsewhere in the city. After meeting up at Vivo and warming up we split into two groups, one to litter pick around the Lawrence Hill roundabout and the other to deliver flyers for helpful peeps just down the road.

I led the litter lot followed Clo Slee by my reliable back marker. Paul led the leafleteers with excellent back marking from Alex. On arrival at the roundabout it was obvious to my group that we had arrived not a minute too soon. The whole place was litter-ally strewn with rubbish, so it was time to stop the trash talking and start picking our battles. The whole group went right to work grab and bagged as much as they could to brighten the area up. There were more Baggins than you would find in Bilbo's family tree. The best find of the day was most certainly a mug with a princess cat on it. Truly a treasure to behold. After around 30 minutes on the task we had filled 21 bags of rubbish. Not bad for an evenings work at all.

Meanwhile team flyer were going the distance to post as many leaflets for Helpful Peeps as they can. Promoting the great work their website does to promote a community where people share their time, skills and knowledge to help each other for free. They covered a large area and hopefully drummed up lots more support for such a giving community.

On the way back my group had a couple of relay races in Castle Park and Queen Square including a game of "Don't squat 'til you you get enough". My favourite moments being Lindsey's celebratory scaling of the steps despite running a longer route than required for her lap, and the strong performance by Liam and his team to win both races. As we were finishing up the other group arrived and put in lap of the square with a sprint leg. We then congregated for a stretch and sign off.

Thanks to everyone who came along, we really made a big difference tonight by cleaning up so much trash and hopefully uniting random strangers to help each other.

See you lot again soon!

An Emmaus-ing 38 runners turned out to run 2 miles to help a local charity sort through their donations.

This evening's task was to help our good friends at Emmaus sort out a room full of donations that they have recently received. These donations will then be sold in their stores or recycled. Every item funding the team to keep on doing the great work they do.

There is something about summer evenings that makes people keener to come out for a run, which we love because it means we can really let loose on a task. Our largest group of the year amassed this evening, 38 runners in total, which gave us volunteering superpowers. After introducing ourselves, splitting into two groups and running less than a mile to the task we were ready to go. Xanne from Emmaus was awestruck with our numbers and enthusiasm but knew exactly how she could harness the might of GoodGym Bristol.

She showed us a room that had been stuffed like a pinata of donations ready to be bashed by the GoodGym stick of organisation. She also realised that with our powers combined we could tackle weeds and litter accumulating outside the building. After a short discussion teams were built and chains were linked to get the jobs done.

Inside the pinata were a crack team of sorters and lifters led by stalwarts Alice and Charlie who directed the donations out and along the chain to such destinations as bric-a-brac bungalow, electronic island, the book shelf and the clothes cave. It was a joy to behold the organisation of such a energetic team getting the job done.

Meanwhile outside our weeding and litter team were making the place look more presentable than Jon Snow wearing his smartest hand-painted tie as part of an immaculate outfit while visiting his in-laws for dinner and displaying the finest table manners seen since the Victorian era. Weeds were dug from paving, cigarette butts were swept from gutters and floors were swept. It was a thing of beauty.

After 30 minutes the room had been cleared, the grounds had been tidied and the donations had been mostly sorted (nobody could sort all of those clothes in that time, except maybe quicksilver from x-men). An amazing effort by everyone involved. We all amassed outside for a group shot before running back to Queen Square.

On arrival I treated the group to a new game, called get your COB on. COB standing for (chicken, otter and badger). I'm not going to go into details about how it works but everyone got a great workout and enjoyed themselves. If you need to know more then get yourself along to a Bristol GoodGym and we can teach you. Pinata Charlie won the game in a sprint finish.

Thanks to everyone who came along today, newbies and old guard. You and you're wonderful spirit enable us to really achieve something worthwhile every run and I know Xanne was blown away by what we achieved tonight.

See you next time,

Gary

Tonight's objective was to deliver leaflets for Helpful Peeps and in doing so to break the previous documented GG Bristol record of 1000 leaflets set in 10 minutes flat for the same organisation a couple of months ago.

Helpful Peeps is a local startup that aims to create an online community where the members 'pay it forward'; offering their skills and knowledge for free to help others. They're good friends of GG Bristol having given us a couple of mission leads in the past. They were even featured on the local news this week.

GG Bristol you are the best!

With a record up for grabs it was encouraging to see 15+ sign-ups by lunch time. When the drizzle started at 1pm it was nice to see that grow to almost 20. But as the heavens opened and the rain properly set in just an hour or two before the run it was just incredible to see the number GROW once again to reach 22.

The conditions tonight were quite frankly awful and the fact that everyone rocked up and got stuck in, smiling and joking as they did so is why GG Bristol is such a special place to be.

Welcome!

We even had new Bristol members. Tilly, Nina and Maria take a well deserved bow (and give them a cheer!). I promise that (apart from tonight) it never ever rains at Goodgym and it will be great to see all you again in sunnier conditions soon.

Also kudos to Kait, coming along on her second run just days after her first outing on Saturday. So great to see all you new people - I hope you'll enjoy being part of our Bristol family for many deeds to come.

Team Efforts

As to the task, well each person was give a plastic wallet containg 200 leaflets and asked to team up with 3 or 4 others to distribute these leaflets in accordance with the team map. The idea was that in addition to the record attempt we would have a team competition where we would count up the remaining leaflets and find the team who delivered the most leaflets per person per minute. In the end it turned out to be a challenge just to keep the leaflet dry long enough to make it from the wallet into the letterbox and after a solid 40 minutes of working hard in our respective teams the remaining leaflets seemed to end up in one large pile so I think we will re-visit the team competition another day.

Massive respect to all the teams - you did Bristol proud today.

Kingsdown Massive - Tom, Dom, David, Cristian

Cotham Peaks - Matt, Ceri, Maria, Caroline

Crofters - Alice, Clo, Emma, Kait

St Pauls Pioneers - Gary, Nina, Charlie, Nik

Cotham Slopes - Mel, Darren, Richard, Tilli, Mair

Record Breaker?

And the record? Well, the final count is yet to be completed - I will update the report (and twitter) when I have the number!

Finally, credit to Richard for the pun (sorry I don't know my Adele!) and to Cristian for some of the photos. Thanks chaps!