On a warm Spring evening 10 runners took a very hilly route to help out at St Phillps and St James' Church in Odd Down, Bath. We scrubbed and cleared grouting between paving stones ahead of new grouting being laid later in the year. We managed to run nearly 8km and gain an elevation of over 170m!

Welcome Una!

We met outside the leisure centre and we welcomed a new runner, Una, to the group. Thanks for coming along to join us, Una, and we hope that you will come back and volunteer with us again! A note for everyone: we have new runners join us nearly every week and so if there is anyone you know that you think could benefit from what GoodGym has to offer then bring them down for a taster!

I shared the news about the awesome Community Missions (here and here) that were completed by some of our really outgoing runners at the weekend. I also shared news about the monthy pub-quiz that we took part in last week (we had lots of fun but we didn't exactly win....) at St James Wine Vaults.

After a brisk warm-up we were on our way!

A hill-ariously fun task!

We ran up Holloway, through Bear Flat and then up Bloomfield Drive. This is a very steep hill in Bath and we were very pleased with ourselves for pushing on and getting to the top. We were rewarded with some beautiful views of Bath in the Spring time.

We met our host, Andy, at the task. We have been helping out Andy and his team for the past few years and he was excited to have us back to give him a hand. He had kindly provided some drinks and refreshments for us to keep our energy levels up, and then we were on with the task.

Our n' aGrout in Bath!

Our challenge was to dig and scrape the mud and old grouting that was stuck between the paving slabs at the front and back of the church. As well as the regular services that are held at the Church there are also a multitude of community groups that use the various spaces there every night of the week! Because of this the paving stones are well-used and they need to be re-grouted to make sure they stay safe.

No time for mossing about!

We split into teams for this task, with half of us at the back of the church and half at the front, and chose our tools! Andy had provided us with kitchen knives, chisels and trowels and some tough brushes to remove the stuff stuck between the slabs.

No weeds here!

Time was up against us as there was a lot to do! Another challenge that meant things took longer than expected was that everytime we removed some stuff from betweent the slabs it kept falling back down the gaps as we tried to brush it away. We had to make sure we coordiated our actions and worked well as a team to be as effective as possible.

When it was time for us to leave Andy was really happy with what we had accomplished. Hopefully we can come back later in the summer to re-grout the paving stones now that they have been cleaned and prepared.

Thanks!

Thanks to Emily for backmarking for us this week on the run, thanks to Joe for the awesome double pun this week and thanks to Andy for hosting us for a fun outdoors task. We will return!

Upcoming runs:

• This Sunday (5th May) we are helping at the annual Larkhall Community Festival
• Next Sunday (12th May) we are volunteering with The National Trust to help on the Bath Skyline Walk
• In June there is an exciting race in Cheddar Gorge that some of GG Bath have already signed up for
• In June we are also helping at the Saltford Festival
• Next week: we have a really fun gardening task where we are helping with Bath Organic Group