Today we combined our October parkrun meet up at the Bevendean Downs parkrun with a community mission helping The Bevy pub’s gardener Dave with some autumnal gardening.

It’s that time of the year GoodGym is often called to help planting bulbs. We helped Dave to clear the big planters to be ready for some bulb-ACTION to spread colours and a little joy next spring in the outdoor lounge of the pub.

We love parkruns! Today was a lovely day for our 5K parkrun-ing up there, with Philippa & Rosie as time keepers and 10+ participating GoodGymers. It possibly goes without saying, but parkrun really isn’t about running at all - despite it’s name - it’s really about community cohesion, wellbeing and the coming together of the community. Pretty much like Good-Gym!

This week GoodGym Brighton returned to its annual appointment with a community mission at the Brighton Youth Centre in their shiny newly refurbished venue in Edward Street.

The rings under the eyes of our host, who welcomed 13 GoodGymers at the door, showed the clear signs of tiredness on his face due to the long working days of moving from 94 Gloucester Rd. But the arrival of our GoodGym volunteer-force turned those rings in a big smile of immense gratitude! We managed to move three massive cabinets, a wardrobe, a sofa, a fridge, 10 drums, and several heavy speakers in the record time of less than 30 minutes! It was ‘super cool’.

We love to visit and help Brighton Youth Centre. This partner organisation is one of Brighton & Hove’s longest running and best-used youth services in Brighton & Hove, helping Young People to thrive all their best creativity - from skateboarding to stand-up, dancing to D n D, street art, radio, music, theatre and more. B'fest is the Brighton Youth Arts Festival run by and for young people, 13-19 years old, and this Saturday 25th will open the doors for the first time in the new venue until the 1st of November during half term, bringing together young people from across southeast to celebrate all things creative and cultural. GoodGym is inspired by you!

We left the building with good vibes and in good terms, with the agreement of a return sometime again during the winter.

Welcome new GoodGymer Katie. I trust you will be back soon GoodGym-ing together with your new active friends in Brighton Area.

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The people at the Waterloo Street Community Garden are always pleased to see us, and last night was no different. They put us straight to work cleaning up the space, sweeping away leaves, deadheading, and weeding.

We were armed with sweeping brushes, secateurs, and a dustpan and brush (Tom was doing a brilliant job with that last one!). Charlotte and Sarah even brought their own weeding tools along and put them to great use. We even encouraged a local to join our efforts for a bit, and we gained some great local restaurant recommendations from him!

As the light levels dropped, foot traffic to the nearby Old Market started to increase (Chris Difford from Squeeze was playing, apparently), so we packed up and headed home.

From the Austrian Alps to a GoodGym’s 'green community mission' in the lovely garden of roses in Vale Park, with a grand group: 15 GoodGymers – a great return to Good Gym-ing, yesterday!

Less great was the daily news: "One of the lions has passed", as Out of Africa movie’s co-star Meryl Streep said about Robert Redford, the "true Hollywood legend" actor, director, Sundance film festival founder and decades-long environmental activist, who passed away yesterday, aged 89.

This news might be relatively less touching for most of my fellow GoodGymers in Brighton, but your Area Activator, Stefania, has been hiding a secret love for Robert since its early teenager years, when she fell in love for the actor after watching “Out of Africa”, considered by my mum as my first adult cinema experience. It was love at first sight, on-screen! When I turned 40, I also received a massive bouquet of roses with a lovely message from Robert, via Interflora - it was actually a lovely gift from my friend Manuela 😊

Nevertheless, I like to dedicate our GoodGym green action of caring for Vale Park’s roses to my favourite actor, and secret love 😉. Here are some other tribute quotes: "He was a beautiful person in every way", “One of his kind”, "He championed progressive values like protecting the environment and access to the arts while creating opportunities for new generations of activists and filmmakers."

Robert was a hero for a lot of us. I will keep alive my long-lasting love and administration for such a trueful star believing that what counts is the story that we tell from our Good actions. Then, Let’s!

Welcome Paolo, Nathan, Susie to GoodGym Brighton, doing positive stuff for the environment ... a little bit like my Robert 😉