Welcome back to Tuesday night Group Runs! 2019 is already shaping up to be a big one... we got GoodGym's biggest numbers ever tonight - well done Bristol and your endless enthusiasm!

We were joined by 11 people new to GoodGym Bristol tonight - it was great having you Jayne, Jenny, Josie, Lee, Paul, Natasha, Jess, Amanda, Josephine, Louise and Saskia! Not only did we have lots of new GoodGymers and a new highest attendance to celebrate, it was also Tim's 50th Good Deed AND Alex's 100th Good Deed - well done!!

After we warmed up, we waved goodbye to the walking group then split into three running groups to get to the task. Thanks to Jack, Sally, Mel and Clo for your leading and back-marking to get the groups to the surprisingly-hidden task location... We arrived at St Thomas Church in Bristol and met Ed from the Churches Conservation Trust. Ed explained to us the importance of the church, which is no longer in use but dates back to the 17th Century, and of the work of the charity, which looks after non-used churches all across the country. Ed had organised a stack of jobs for us to do and we quickly split into different groups.

Group 1 - Waxing Lyrical

The first group were set the task of reviving the beautiful old tiles by scraping off all of the dripped candle-wax from the floor. This had to be done carefully to protect the tiles, so the group worked with their special wooden scrapers to get it all off and made a MASSIVE difference to the floor.

Group 2 - Working their Pew-ny Muscles

Group Two were set to work cleaning the two entrance hallways of the church. They swept, mopped, dusted and cleaned doors to make each entrance so much more inviting to passing visitors.

Group 3 - Aisle be Dusting

The third group conquered the aisles and pews of the church with their dustclothes and brushes. They then bagged all of the dirt and mopped down the entire church, what a job!

After half an hour, the group had given the entire church a thorough clean, and we regrouped and ran back just in time for some fiercely competitive relays.

It was then time for the first GoodGym Eats of the year, where 20 of us trooped to Three Brothers to eat burgers (Andy may or may not have eaten all of the burgers photographed) and for Alex to bemuse all of the other diners by looking very casual in a centurion outfit while going about her meal. As if the burgers weren't enough, we then had Alex's AMAZING lemon cake for pudding, setting high standards for the next Centurion!

Celebrations galore

Another massive night of celebrations at GoodGym Bristol - MASSIVE congratulations to our latest Centurion, Caroline, who earned her 100th Good Deed tonight! It was a pleasure getting to celebrate it with you (sorry, Sheffield!) and you sported the Centurion outfit with grace! Not only this, it was Danica and Mair's first day of celebrating a new year (Happy birthday both!), and it was Paul's first group run since he hit his 400th Good Deed at the weekend (what a hero)! Between all these celebrations, it is amazing that we managed to get a task done. But, do not despair, I have tales of not one, but two Good Deeds we successfully completed tonight...

Welcome to the new runners, Georgia, Lawrence, Jack and Deborah who joined us tonight! It was great to meet you all and we hope to see you all back soon.

A puzzling task

After a warm-up - which primarily got the GoodGym brains cooking but also managed to get their legs pumping - the Walking Group set off on their merry way and the remaining huge group of runners bunched our way across Castle Park with fab back-marking from Dave.

The team split into two and Alice led a bunch of 20 GoodGymers inside Emmaus. Emmaus help homeless people to get their lives back on track with housing and employment opportunities. Tonight, the group were helping sort out the warehouse. This largely included sorting the puzzles and games donations, which resulted in the GoodGymers brains being further exercised - what a mental workout of an evening!

Alice finally managed to pull the team away from their puzzles to say goodbye to Emmaus until next time (where there is some talk of smashing concrete, stay tuned...).

Don't leave any doors a-jar

Meanwhile, the rest of the group were being briefed on the brand new sport Marmalade Orienteering. The Marmalade Trust is a wonderful small charity in Bristol which puts on Christmas lunches for older people who would otherwise be alone on Christmas day. As they are a tiny charity, they rely on volunteers to help them as much as possible. Our Good Deed orienteers split into five teams to hunt down community hot-spots to post referral letters and posters to. Along the way, they dropped even more posters off at places in the community where older people might see the opportunity.

With points and prizes up for grabs, the teams ran quickly and worked fast. They chose different tactics - while the Green Team stayed close to get the first-back points, the Red Team went big on the additional community spots points. It was all to play for, and then some delayed returns and an incredibly questionable points system meant to Green Team won with a whopping 1150 points! The other teams ap-peeled the points system and the prizes were shared by everyone (apart from the marmalade, which will be fueling Dave's mornings for the comings weeks).

After all that sticky work, the group ran back with only one stop for squats and lunges and were soon settled in to a pile of 100-winged cakes baked by Caroline's fair hand.

Well done everyone and well done again to Caroline for her 100th Good Deed!

We were joined on our warm up today by Jennie from BBC Radio Bristol who has been presenting some pieces about fun new ways to get fit in Bristol. A few of us gave interviews and Jennie has promised she'll let me know when her recording is broadcast. What with this and our recent Facebook live stream for the evening post we're becoming hot property in the media world at the moment!

Of course its not all glamour and press conferences at Goodgym Bristol, there is also the small matter of getting-fit-by-doing-good so once we had satisfied our public we headed off for todays task to participate in the Great Bristol spring clean by tackling a couple of streets in the Barton Hill area of Bristol.

In order to cover as much ground as possible we split into three groups with one team tackling our allocated area round Maze Street while 'leading lights' Liam and Richard headed up teams to tackle areas alongside Barton Hill academy and a stretch under the railway tunnel on Silverthorne Lane.

We managed to amass a good haul of rubbish including a purse with a design which we felt was a little on the creepy side - judge for yourself from the photos! In all we managed 10 bags or recyclable rubbish and 8 of general rubbish so hopefully the local residents will wake up to slighltly cleaner streets tomorrow.

Back at base, Jack led some warm ups and we congratulated Sally on reaching 50 good deeds. Sally joined us from GG Wandsworth a few months ago but she's become such a lovely regular with us that its already hard to think of GG Bristol without her now!

We finished up with Eats at Burger Theory but Emma wasn't with us so there is sadly no selfie,

Three tasks tonight - and three explorers from Brent to join us in our endeavours; welcome to GG Bristol, GG Brent!

After a warm up we split into three groups and headed North with my group enjoying an extra lap and a half of Queen Square in order to put a bit more space between our 35 runners on the way through town.

Task One - The night Xanne says ni Shrubbery!

Our main task was to complete the removal of the shrubs outside our favourite charity warehouse at Emmaus. Thanks to Matt for supervising and leading this one while I dropped a group at Full Circle (see below!)

I'll be honest, I had completely underestimated how much was left on this task having missed the first session when we were here. The main shrub turned out to be a truly gargantuan specimen with some pretty savage thorns so it took a good while to chop it free and indeed at one stage it seemed to become sentient as it appeared to move of its own accord towards a nearby parked car - no doubt intending to take a spin around Bristol before branching off and making good its escape.

Special thanks to Tom for bringing along some extra tools and to the reinforcements from task two who pitched in at the end so we could hurriedly clear up after ourselves. The space looks quite a lot clearer now.

Task Two - Completing the Circle

Since we were in the vicinity with almost thirty pairs of hands, it seemed a shame not to drop a team at Full Circle to help Ann-Marie spruce up the outside courtyard. Charlie kindly led the effort, with the area looking completely transformed by the end - well done you guys!

Task Three - Helping Rita to organise the stock at North Bristol Community Project

Finally, Dave led a small group on the slightly longer run up to the NBCP to help locate some shelves and sort some of the items there. Sounds like there is still plenty to do so could be we'll have a few trips there over the next few months.

We ran out of time for Hill Reps again!

Just like last time, our last minute tidy up prevented us from getting in our hill reps up Spring Hill. I'm pleased to say that Matt did the notorious Strava segment on our behalf though - and as you can see from the photos, there is a change on the GG Bristol leaderboard!

A couple of weeks of loitering round cycle shop parking lots felt wholly worthwhile tonight as the accumulated boxes were once again turned into ingenious beds for the homeless by the massive throng of Goodgym runners who met together in Bristol tonight.

Almost 40 of us (welcome to our first timers Kara, Kathleen and Emma) ran up to our usual workshop location at the United Reformed Church on West Street to meet Elliot the card bed designer. Elliot quickly ran through the essentials of card bed construction - fold before you cut, orientate the templates correctly with the 'grain' of the cardboard for maximum strength .. and don't make too many C's (the template sections are all labeled with a letter and while only one C is required for a bed, we seem to have completed 10 of them in our last workshop!)

The beds are designed to fold flat so they can be easily carried around and stored during the day. At night they slot together to form a strong rigid structure that allows a homeless person to sleep raised above a concrete pavement and both maintain body warmth and benefit from a somewhat softer surface.

We got to quickly down to work, but there were just too many of us to all work on the cutting and folding at the same time so we split into two groups, with one group litter picking around the church while the other assembled beds. Half way through we swapped and managed to also complete some weeding around the church car park. Its great that we were able to help out our hosts in this way as they regularly give us the use of the church free of charge - including turning the heating on for us before we arrive!

As we neared the end of our time in the hall, Elliot assembled a bed for us from the parts we had made. And as is now traditional, we tried it out for size!

After a very busy last few minutes packing the beds and used cardboard away in the car, we ran back to base and celebrated our latest milestone achievements. Liam has reached 50 good deeds and is now the proud owner of a black T shirt, while Matt'erhorn has reached 200 and receives his own personalised shirt as is the custom here in Bristol.

Sarah, our new 100 deeder from Saturday kindly bought vegan cakes and Matt brought pink wafers, so pretty much a perfect evening from my point of view!

A double task tonight so after a bit of a warm-up, we split into two with Charlie taking a smaller tactical team all the way up Gloucester Road to the new Sofa project shop while the remainder joined me on a much shorter run to the nearby Redcliffe parish office just outside St Mary Redcliff church.

Newsletters and Biscuits

My group arrived at the office to find plenty of newsletters waiting for us all ready sorted into bundles for the various local tower blocks and residential streets. Marky did his usual sterling job of leading off teams of runners to climb each of the blocks while Kat worked out routes for everyone else. I quickly worked out that on a cold night like tonight it is vital that the trainer remains in the warm with the biscuits in order that they can assist with logistics and direct returning runners to new sites, so thanks to Tim for navigating his group across to Merchants Quay, to Sarah for heading up the party tackling the streets around the Colosseum pub, and to Mel for helping gain access to the Customs House. Great teamwork everyone :)

Of course the consequence of a short run is there will be plenty of time left at the end so after a few more biscuits and a couple of anxious head counts we headed off to Queen Square for some running arm drills and a game of musical runners.

A very warm welcome to Tim and Katie on their first runs with us tonight!

Secateurs and Brambles

Charlie and her team met up with Nicci from the SOFA project to clear the yard behind their new shop. Apparently SOFA stands for Shift Old Furniture Around but today it was all about shifting brambles. As is usually the case, the brambles were not entirely co-operative and indeed made sure they wound around each other in the most inconvenient ways possible to create a challenge for the group which I have no doubt they relished especially on the evidence of Charlie's action-packed photographs.

Another warm welcome to Patrick on his first run tonight!

Great work today to everyone on both teams, and don't forget to sign up for our last eats of the year on Tuesday 12th December.

(Ps Thanks to Tom for his support with running arm geometry and for helping me find my phone in Queen Square after the run, it having slipped from my pocket during the stretches in a very 'my-precious' manner presumably to find a new short person to corrupt. And thanks also to Clo for her lovely phone-locating voice mail)

And thanks to Dave and Charlie for the pun!

Bed up? Well, let me tell you a story ...

One damp night in November, a massive number of Goodgymmers assembled for a brilliant task at the brand new Bristol YMCA (thanks Emma for sending me this one!)

After a highly unconventional follow-my-leader warm-up around Queen Square the group headed off on a short run to the old Police station where the hostel was to be situated. The hostel is to combine both conventional accommodation and a number of beds for young people who have become homeless with one providing financial support for the other.

The builders were due to finish in a week or so all that remained was to move a trifling 99 flat packed bunk beds from the ground floor into the various dormitories ready to be assembled. After a quick intro from our host Ben, mattresses and bed frames quickly starting disappearing from their respective piles as an eager army of red GG worker ants busily ferried them up two floors and distributed them amongst the rooms.

This was fairly physical work as the frames were pretty heavy so it was all the more impressive to have completely cleared the ground floor area after 40 minutes on the task.

Of course, now all that remains is the the trifling matter of assembling 99 beds -so do join us on Saturday for part two if you can!

Goodgym York - challenge accepted

Having bumped into GG York trainer Egg over the weekend and been filmed taking part in the November press-up challenge I was keen for the rest of GG Bristol to show GG York what they were made of. And even after carting all those beds around, I am proud to say that everyone still had some energy to complete the 14 press ups that were due today! Top work everyone!!

Mel - GG Bristol Centurion

And finally, congratulations to Mel for reaching 100 good deeds today. This was celebrated in some style with a GG Bristol arch through which she duly ran - along with Clo who was celebrating 3rd placed female in the 10k last weekend ... and a few other random people who happened to be walking through Queen Square

Mel then duly donned the GG Centurion outfit and happily had brought plenty of cake to celebrate!

It never rains at Goodgym. (Well apart from that one time with the HelpfulPeeps leaflets, oh and that Stackpool road job with the Patchwork project ..)

It almost never rains at Goodgym.

And tonight was no exception. After raining continuously all day, it stopped for us tonight

So after welcoming our new recruits (fantastic to meet you!) we split into two groups and headed off to St Paul's Adventure playground. Guy and Rachel of the APE project are doing an amazing job of making this brilliant playground shine again - and had enlisted our help.

Rachel had promised there would be lots to do for all 30 of us - and she was true to her word!

Team one were set to work raking up leaves in the ball court.

Team two had to scrub the main gate with wire brushes, sand paper and sugar soap to prepare them for painting (they'll look brilliant when they're done!)

Team three were tasked with moving the contents of the downstairs room into the mezzanine above for storage. Unfortunately the hoist is broken so it would have taken Rachel a long time to carry each item up the ladder!

After 30 minutes ...

Team one had not only swept the ball court, they had gone rogue, sweeping up leaves wherever they could find them, amassing 5 or 6 bags full of them and making the paths a lot less slippery in the process.

Team two had done loads on the gates and were quite hard to entice back inside when it was time to go, they were so intent on finishing the whole gate!

And team three managed to finish moving all the items so that the room space was all clear.

You're all brilliant.

Fourteen of us headed off to monthly eats where Caroline took on social photo duties (thanks for the potatoes!) and I realized I had forgotten to promote our social on Friday - do go along if you can!

Thanks to Tim for the pun.

The rain stopped just in time for us this evening as we met up to play our part in Bristol Waste's "Autumn Blitz" on litter.

Our assigned area tonight was pretty much on our doorstep, so we offered the option of a couple of runs before we got started. Most people signed up for a longer 5k version around the harbourside so Charlie and Alice led two different pace groups - thanks both of you! The remainder joined me on a shorter run 2.5k option around Spike Island with some bonus walking lunges and squats to keep us busy until the other two groups returned.

The runs completed, we again split into groups - this time so we could cover the areas we had been assigned for litter picking. Richard led his team around King Street and Queen Square, while Charlie and Jack took on Victoria Street. Emma took a third group up Prince Street towards Anchor Road. So much street name royalty in one place!

Employing their "Street Master" litter pickers (other brands may be available ... but probably not with such a cool name) with considerable skill the teams quickly bagged up large quantities of rubbish to be left at the allocated pick up points for Bristol Waste.

All that remained was to wish Jack congratulations on completing his 50th good deed tonight - and celebrate with the fine selection of cakes and party rings he had brought with him. Well done Jack!

Thirty lovely GG Bristolians assembled at Vivo for what is now our 4th card bed workshop - run as ever by our good friend, Elliot Lord. It seems like only yesterday that we did our first in that rather cosy workshop at the Island.

Clo got the warm up off to a great start, initiating a beautifully executed semi-promenade into the centre and back again - undoubtedly a move we'll repeat in the future - before we progressed to a few high knees and a Mexican shooting star. We then split into two groups - the unloading-the-car pace group and the not-unloading-the-car pace group and set off pretty sharpish so we could get to our venue at the United Reformed Church as soon as possible.

Time was of the essence tonight; we needed to be out on the dot of 7:30 to make way for a meeting that had been scheduled. Consequently, as soon as Elliot had give us a quick introduction to the basic concepts we divided into six tables and got to work on copying the templates to make bed sections from the available bike box card.

As always it was an impressive sight to see so many people become productive within seconds of their arrival. And great to see everyone working so well together - our new members and more seasoned runners as one seamless whole.

Big shout out once again to my clean-up team who constantly ferried the offcuts back to the car so we could be sure of leaving on time. And amazingly, we were completely cleared up and ready to go with 5 minutes to spare - enough time for Elliot to demonstrate constructing a bed and for Vicki to perform the traditional trial.

But wait, there's more! While all this was going on, a tatical paint team managed to complete a coat of sky blue around the side of the raised stage - thus helping out our lovely hosts at the same time. Top work painters!

The other benefit of leaving so promptly was we got back to base in good time. And at the special request of Lexi, our new recruit from Cardiff, we got cracking on a bit of fitness with a couple of stride sets along Queen Square - being sure to focus on good running form!

There wasn't time to pack up the completed card for distribution so I'm not sure how many beds we made tonight but I'll be sure to update the report once I've unloaded the car!

Thank you to Jack for leading the second group tonight - and to Alice and Charlie for backmarking!

Thanks also to Alice for the pun - two out of the last three, Alice!