On a very smirry*, rainy morning, a bunch of GoodGymmers joined the VI Runners Bristol takeover at Ashton Court parkrun. The takeover was planned to spread the word about British blind sport and so what better motivation to leave the house on a wet Saturday!

Maria, James C, Alice, Lexi, Melanie and Tom were all guide runners amid the brilliant turnout of 13 (or more!) VI runners and guides.

A big gaggle of 11 more GGers joined the rest of the amazing parkrun volunteers split up other parkrun tasks between us, with shivering marshals, tailwalkers, parkwalkers, timekeepers, and finish token hander-outers - all enjoying great smiling runners despite the soggy weather and blowing winds!

We also got to see and catch up with some GoodGym faces from afar volunteering ahead of our 10th birthday party later on: so good to see you Gary, DrAlex and Ivo who managed to catch up the parkrun from a late start!

Meanwhile, it was a game of spotting some more GGers in the parkrun, including Fi and Vaguely Northern Darren (many others likely to have been running and missed by run report writer as they tried to not be blown away).

And what could possibly make a Saturday morning at parkrun with GoodGymmers better? CAKE of course! Tom had saved the day with a last minute gazebo and a feasting table of cake awaited parkrunners and volunteers as they crossed the line, parkwalkers Mel and Jenny plus tailwalkers Sarah and DrAlex very relieved there was still cake when they finished!

But there's more: Tom not only brought a gazebo but he managed to reach his elusive 100th good deed and (I think) even somehow managed to avoid dressing up?! WELL DONE TOM!

*Scottish vocab education from Shona who sneakily completed her 200th good deed and didn't mention it in the run report

The sun was shining down on us for a lovely hour this morning as we got to work on the jobs Barney had planned. One group did lots of weeding and edging to get some of the beds looking brand new, while the rest of the group were set to transplant hundreds of strawberry plants ready for new homes for next year.

The hour whizzed by, we managed to gorge on some very late raspberries, then we went on our merry ways.

The British Heart Foundation in Broadmead received more than 6,000 bags of donations from the students leaving Bristol at the start of the summer. Unsurprisingly, they are still sorting them!

We arrived to donate some human power this Saturday morning. We were greeted with 7 floor to ceiling metal crates filled with bags of donations. Our task? To go through as many of them as we could and decide whether it was sellable or for recycling.

It was a treasure trove of finds, with several witch outfits, several Harry Potter outfits and memorabilia, and who could forget the dentist polo neck?! Of course, there were lots of great donations as well, which will hopefully raise some much needed funds for the BHF.

Two hours later, we had hammered through six of the crates! We were pleased with that and headed home, much dustier than when we arrived and having gained a few items we just had to buy.

Until next time!