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!

Do you like the 5 times table? Well, here is a run report for you...

Lex give it up for 50!

50 runners came out tonight - one to celebrate each of Lexi's Good Deeds. Massive congratulations on hitting 50, Lexi! This included 5 new runners joining our crazy crew. Welcome to Francesca, Anna, Lauren, Cerys and Johan - it was great to have you.

For our celebration, the group split into three tasks.

Most of us started off by heading towards Emmaus, stopping for a quick game of Chicken Otter Badger led by Gary and leaving the group looking knackered before we were halfway to the task. Nevertheless, they powered through.

Those who thought they could face more Grit from Gary, went to do hill-running and leafleting for Penny Brohn's upcoming Stomp Sponsored Walk. Under Gary's watchful eye, they zoomed up the hills, around the houses and were back at base in no time. Impressive!

Meanwhile, the second group arrived at Emmaus, where Xanne talked to us about the brilliant work they do then set us to work sorting out the clothes stockroom and the bric-a-brac. The team meticulously sorted the items into piles to sell in store, online and recycle. Darren and Matt got very into pricing silverware, so now we all know where to go if we need some Bargain Hunt advice. Many crazy hats and lampshades later, we had sorted many rails, filled many bags and cleaned up a bunch of bric-a-brac ready to sell. The silverware remains to be confirmed whether it was valuable or not...

Dave led the third group to Bedminster, to plant some lavender bulbs with Urban Buzz. It is the perfect time for planting these, and it will really brighten up the area where we were planting in a few months' time. While Dave, being the good Run Leader he is, was keeping to time and getting the group to finish up ready for a leisurely, direct jog back, the group had other ideas. With Dave having reached his 500th Good Deed at the weekend, Operation Distract Dave was fully underway. Dave was thrown off being a Run Leader, and the group were soon directed on an extensive diversion scattered with as many squats, lunges and tricep dips as required to get 50 runners in the same place and ready for the ceremony of dreams.

King Dave of 500, Prince of Puns and Godfather of Good Deeds

With everything in place (almost), Dave and his group returned to a red carpet of GoodGym tshirts, arched by the friendly Bristol GG faces, leading to a red throne. To the crowds cheering, Dave was donned with a red cloak. Paul stepped to the helm and did a skillful job of anointing Dave as the official King Dave of 500, Prince of Puns and Godfather of Good Deeds (King of GoodGym for short).

Dave made a beautiful speech, but the ceremony was not over yet. Alex and Clo produced the most wonderful Ukulele Duet I have ever seen, to Dave-specials of '500 Good Deeds' (to the tune of 500 Miles) and 'I Want to Be Like Dave' (to the tune of the Jungle Book). Musical and lyrical genius, accompanied by the less musically-talented but incredibly enthusiastic rousing voices of GoodGym Bristol. All of this was followed by Claire's spectacular 500 cake and lots of pints. Well done again Dave and thanks for everything.

And with that, we will give one more Mexican Dave and say thank you very much for a lovely game of fives.

Painting and a shortish run. The GG equivalent of a perfect storm. No surprise then to see 23 eager faces lined up for our pre-run warm-up.

Originally listed as a double bill, a last minute cancellation of our scheduled visit to Ashley Street park meant that team Cube was to be expanded from the planned six to our entire group. Massive thanks then to our host Pete for rustling up plenty more rollers and paint brushes in the last couple of days.

The Cube is a small independent cinema and music venue run entirely by volunteers. Over the summer the venue closes down for essential maintenance but with many of the volunteers on holiday our help was very much appreciated to help with some of the painting.

We were to paint the outside walls with a special fire retardant paint and the gents toilet floor with a non slip version.

Toilet Team

Special thanks go to the volunteers for the toilet team particularly on such a hot day and especially in the presence of an 'unidentified liquid' (presumably water as the toilets had been thoroughly bleached and disinfected before our arrival).

Wall Team

Everyone else got to work on the outside walls. Amazingly we got 17 people in action in a fairly small space and as a result we managed to finish the whole space in just over 25 minutes. I have to say it looked pretty smart by the end (as evidenced by the much happier 'after' group shot)

With the task finished in such a short time there was plenty of time for some tricep dips in the Bearpit and a quick round of Grandmothers triple extension footsteps and Squatopia on the way back.

Well done everyone - and thanks to Sarah for helping to set this one up!

It was trowelly spadetacular night at GoodGym Bristol. (Out-punning yourself even when you aren't here Jack)

Richard joined the elusive GoodGym Centurion club with tonight being his** 100th Good Deed**. Massive congratulations to you Richard! We couldn't let this momentous occasion pass without Richard getting the joy or embarrassment (depending on your attitude) through the opportunity to squeeze into the Centurion outfit on one of the hottest days of the year to sweat out the glory of all those years of hard work. And he made the most spectacular cakes to match his spectacular achievement, which we promptly demolished and placed orders for more, ASAP.

At last weekend's GoodGym Shindig, Bristol were awarded a very special prize for winning the January GoodGym Challenge. We are now the proud owners of a bronze engraved trowel, which will be displayed on mantelpieces around Bristol with pride. A big well done once again to all the GoodGymers that contributed to our Good Deeds in January and to Paul for aptly leading the group to victory.

Amid all this excitement, we welcomed five new runners and completed two tasks. It was great to have you Louise, Phil, Becky, Joanna and Flora and we hope to see you soon!

Eleven keen weeders succumbed to Gary's coos of an easy, 8 kilometre run and were soon engrossed in a hilly epic around the steep climbs of Bristol. They arrived at St Alban's Church in Westbury Park to get stuck in to a huge amount of weeding to get under control. Luckily, they were fueled with refreshments from Sue and Paul, and they had the *Golden Trowel * to help them with any tricky bits. The group did a great job and they were soon flying back along the hills to get stuck into as much cake as they could before the crowds got home.

The rest of the group finally, after 9 months of trying, managed to treat the fences at St Werburgh's Primary. The fences around their playground need a treatment to keep them strong in the rain. Unfortunately, the first three times we tried to do this, it ironically rained so we couldn't do this. If this heatwave has been good for anything then it is the fact that a big chunk of their fences are now treated and ready for action.

What an eventful night and an impressively Good bunch of GoodGymers.

On this adventurous Tuesday, we ventured our way (on a quick-paced, bike dodging, cycle path route) to Felix Road Adventure Playground to whip it up ahead of the looming summer holidays this weekend.

The playground is a safe space for all of the children in the local area. All of the children who attend during the holidays receive a hot meal, which is not always something they can access at home. The playground has been owned as a charity for the past 5 years and, over that time, the group has united different communities from across this varied area over the playground gates.

Zoe and Mandy from Felix Road met us and were delighted to set us into tasks across the huge playground. One group set off on a special leafleting mission to spread the word as far and wide as they could about the range of activities coming up for children over the summer holidays. They did a wonderful job - not only did they get rid of a weighty bag of leaflets, they had their own adventure, venturing their way through the high rises of Easton.

After the hot spell we have had over the past months, the playground's grass was looking pretty dead. A team of expert water-ers got on the task, and managed to water all of the masses of grass and plants across the whole playground to coax it back to life (putting on some impressive gun shows while they did so (ahem, Caroline)).

Meanwhile, the rest of the group armed themselves with gloves and various levels of sharp and blunt equipment to try and get rid of the nettles and brambles invading the Conservation Area and the back of the playground. With minimal blades to hep, the group still did a very impressive job of clearing the areas, and really helped get the grounds ready for the children to use.

Last but not least, Gary proved himself on a one-man mowing mission, featuring lawnmower hill-reps.

The time went too quickly (especially the part when we could climb on the playground), but the team were really pleased with the work we got done and have asked us to come back and help again when the summer programme finishes. And next time, we will spend more time on the climbing frame...

Big thanks to Alex for her pun of the week! Kudos to you.