Tuesday was incredibly warm but that didn't stop a group of GoodGym runners making their way down to Bath Organic Group for a Community Mission.

We helped the team of volunteers pick apples! Firstly we headed into their orchard and picked about 10 boxes of apples that are going to be used to make cider. When I say picked, what I really mean was 'we shook the tree as hard as we could'! It was really good fun. We caught the apples that fell out of the tree in a big ground sheet (those that didn't bounce off of our out heads!) and funneled them into crates.

After shaking the apples we took a completely different approach with the apples over the other side of the allotment. The apples from this tree are going to be sold 'to eat' at the Green Park Station market and so we had to delicately pluck the ripe ones from the branches. To get the ones that were especially high we uses a special apple picker (kind of like a snooker cue with a sock on top).

Our hosts very kindly offered us some apple juice that they pressed from the orchard last year which provided some much needed sugar for the journey home.

Overall it was a very mindful and enjoyable evening. I hope you felt the same.

[We will return to Bath Organic Group in a few weeks time])(https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/gardening-at-bath-organic-group-7241b5ba-7813-4ef6-b86d-2f9e045884b3).

On a very hot Sunday afternoon 5 GoodGym volunteers helped out the team at St James and St Phillips' church by delivering meals to members of the community.

Every month the church hosts a community meal which is open to everyone. It's a great way to get everyone together and, in particular, connect people who may be isolated or lonely. In the current social distancing climate it wasn't possible to host the meal at the church, so volunteers across Bath prepared roast dinners and desserts for delivery across Bath.

Ruth, a GoodGym runner who is also a part of the church's community force, picked up meal bags from the kitchens of Bath and dropped them off for us outside the church. We took a social-distancing selfie and then 4 of us delivered bags on foot while Ruth went further afield in her car.

The prize for the easiest delivery went to Mary - the first bag she was given was meant to be delivered to the house next door to the church!

It was a great way to use our running skills to help the community and we were glad to be doing good deeds again after an enforced break.

We ran to paint the communal spaces at a hostel for people facing homelessness in Oldfield Park in Bath. Our work brought some new life to the space and made it an even more inviting and comfortable room. As well as painting we even managed to find time to clean some children's toys and we ran 6km in total.

Welcome, Seb!

We welcomed Seb to his first run with GoodGym. Thanks for helping us out last night, Seb, and we hope to see you again soon!

GG News

Before we got going I shared some GG news with the group:

• At the weekend several of our runners completed the Dark Horse race. Despite the awful wind and the darkness they all made it round (mainly!) unscathed. Look out for more runs organised by Relish Running - they are always really fun!
• We have another social coming up on 3rd March after the run. It was really good fun last time, so please sign up and join us!
• The GoodGym 'Big 6' races have been announced. These are pre-organised events where GoodGym groups from across the counry get together to support each other during the race and there is often a GG task/social involved too. A great way to meet like-minded people and travel the country! See the listings here.

On with the task!

Curo provides emergency temporary accommodation to homeless single people and families. They offer supported accommodation and assist people with a very wide range of issues to access and maintain a permanent tenancy in the future with the aim of avoiding the system again. At the project on Dartmouth Avenue they have places for 23 households.

Our task was to paint the walls in their communal space. We worked as a team to make sure we covered all of the areas we needed to. We were so efficient that we managed to paint an extra wall that we hadn't planned on doing. A group of runners who had completed their painting mission spent some time cleaning boxes of plastic road and cars with disinfectant to keep them clean and safe to enjoy.

The hard work we put in made a really visible difference and we were pleased with what we achieved.

Thanks!

Thanks to Emily and her team at Curo for hosting us for a fun task. Thanks to Mark for backmarking for us and thanks to Rebecca for an awesome first GG 'pun for the run'!

Last night we were originally due to paint and reorganise a communal space at Pathways, but due to a change of plans we ran to Odd Down Sports Ground to paint the inside of their community cafe and clean their children's toys. The route we took was essentially one big hill and were all pleased to complete a steep 7km training run.

Welcome, Sophie, Luke and Stephen!

When we met at the leisure centre we welcomed three runners to their first run with GoodGym Bath. Sophie and Luke have run with other GoodGym groups before and it was Stephen's first ever GoodGym event. It was great to have you all along to join us and thanks for your help. I hope we see you again soon!

Latest GG News

• Thanks to Phoebe and Rachel for representing us at a Community Mission at the weekend with Dry Arch Growers. You can read about what they achieved and the interesting wassail ceremony here.
• Rachel has kindly set up a GoodGym social for next Tuesday after the run. Please sign up so we have an idea of numbers to book a table.
• There is still time to sign up to the Dark Horse, a fun nighttime 10km in Bath. Several GG runners have already signed up so there will be friendly faces to see there!
• Next week we are running to help The Nest.

A night of two tasks

The first main task was painting the walls around the room. The community space is used a lot by different sports groups and members of the public and so they get quite mucky. There were spills on the walls by the teas/coffee area and there were marks from where old posters have been removed. We split into teams to improve the walls: some of us covered the edges with frog tape, others cleaned the walls down, others used the big roller brushes to clean the main areas of the walls and finally other runners swept in behind to paint the edges and skirting board with finer brushes. It required a lot of team work and coordination to get it right in the short amount of time we had and we were really pleased to get it all done.

The second big task was to spray and wipe down as much as we could. The cafe has a large collection of plastic and wooden toys and there are lots of tables and high chairs. A group of runners put their gloves on and got to work. This was a really important job to keep the cafe clean and free from germs.

Finally, we thoroughly cleaned and tidied where we had been. We took a group picture and then ran back down the hill to the leisure centre.

Thanks!

Thanks to Ali and her team at the cafe for hosting us at such short notice. Thanks to everyone who turned out last night to make the task a success. It was a classic example of where we can make a huge difference in a short space of time. And also thanks in particular to Chris, Emily and Rachel for backmarking for us.