A brand new location for our task tonight as we visited the Phoenix Art Gallery for the first time.

There’s a lot going on in this massive building including loads of affordable artists studios, exhibition spaces, family workshops and community art therapy groups. It’s run on a not for profit basis and has the core mission to create the conditions through which art can flourish.

After welcoming Ajil for his first group run and congratulating PB machines Michael & Roy on their progress at parkrun we headed north, negotiating the improvement works of the Valley Gardens Scheme. Premises manager Jon welcomed us and set us to work. Katie & Paul took on the outside task of litter picking and weeding the parking area at the back of the centre. This is an area we visited a few weeks ago to paint over graffiti and it was good to see that the area is still mostly graffiti free. And now it's litter and weed free too, thanks to our efforts.

Meanwhile indoors our other task was to sweep and mop the two main staircases. It seemed like it had been quite some time since this had been done and much dust was swept and mopped and we left the area much improved.

We then headed south for our fitness session featuring speedy laps of our 400m ish ‘track’ . There were some fantastic times and it was great to see you working off each other and pushing each other on. The laps alternated with a butt busting sequence of moves designed to strengthen those 'all important for running, but a bit knackered by sitting' gluteal muscles.

There was some discussion during the evening of the best night for our Christmas social, and social sec Nipun suggested a ‘doodle poll’ where we can vote on our preferred evening, 5th or 6th December. More details in this weeks newsletter.

Next week we’ll be back in the Hanover area but until then hope to see you some of you at parkrun on Saturday.