The sun was shining for our special event in Bristol today as we partnered with I Am Team GB for the Nations Biggest Sports day!

Welcome and congratulations to the many of you who braved the heat and the long run for their very first GoodGym session. Give a huge cheer to Caroline, Katherine, Cathryn, Hannah, Matthew, Anna, Sam, Nadia, Louise, Nora, Abby, Caroline and Emma ! It was also so great to see some lovely GoodGym tourism, with runners from Cardiff, Bath, Hounslow and even as far as York visiting for the day!

At GoodGym there are three main ways we do good – group runs, which happen in Bristol every Tuesday at 6:30 from the gym we met at today, coach runs, where an individual runner visits an elderly or isolated person every week, and missions, where two or more runners will go on a one-off visit to do a job at an elderly person’s house. It all started almost 10 years ago with one man, our founder Ivo, running to deliver a paper to an older gentleman, and now we’re in over 50 locations across the UK..it’s the best way to get fit and do good going!

The idea behind today’s special I am Team GB event is to get people more active and take part in local sporting and community activities and we had the honour of being joined at the run by GB superstar and skeleton pro Jack Thomas. What a treat! Dreams were later made real when we had the once in a lifetime chance (for most of us!) to be presented a medal by a member of our Olympic team. Oooh!

After lots of photos we did a warm up which got our heart rates up, and had a quick poll to determine which was our favourite biscuit. Well, the results are in, and the survey says: custard creams by a landslide! But the discussion continued into our run as we debated whether jaffa cakes were indeed a biscuit or a cake – the eternal conundrum.

Nice and hot Nissen Hut

Our task today was to support the Friends of Eastville Park, and after a very hot and sweaty 5km, we arrived at the park and faced the big old hill at the end of the run. Luckily there was cordial and ice cubes waiting for us and we cooled off in the beautiful WW2 Nissen Hut while organiser Andrew told us about the various jobs we had to do.

While the first group headed off to the gorgeous old (and unfortunately empty) Victorian swimming pool to help spruce it up, pulling up weeds and clearing rubbish, the second group tackled the graffiti at the loos, while the third lot worked on the pesky dock leaves outside the hut. It was hot work, but nothing could stop the 36 of of you who worked hard for 30 minutes. Luckily there was a tasty reward in the shape of some vanilla ice cream, so after a sweet cool down, we headed down to the shady bottom part of the park for a sort fitness session.

In honour of the Nation’s Biggest Sports Day, we went back to our youth and did a themed session which started off with a quick warm up (with forfeits!) and included a relay featuring skipping, sack race jumps, a three legged race and even wheelbarrows. Perhaps it was no surprise that the team with the GB athlete ran away with the win, but it was close!

We took the second half of the run at a steady pace, and regrouped near the end to finish all together – all with the backdrop of some very good smelling BBQs and tunes from the local jazz festival to see us in!

We finished off the session with some stretches and a medal ceremony with Jack handing out the well-earned prizes. Even our doggo mascot for the day got one! There was also the ceremonial handing over of the Golden Trowel from Bristol to York, the current winners who take the crown for doing the most good deeds in January. As you can see from the photos Bristol wasn’t totally ready to give up their trophy!

Fantastic work today everybody. We got loads done for a community organisation that relies on volunteers to keep a much loved public space open and welcoming, and we even smashed a good 10km run in the process. Happy National Sports Day gang!

Two groups today with Liam kindly stepping up to take a group to Café Connect in Easton (no painting - but sounds like they had fun!)

Westbury Park Fete at St Alban's Church

A second hilly GG adventure for the week as my group took the rather hilly route up Christmas Steps and St Michael's Hill to reach out destination at St Alban's church in Westbury Park. Have to say that we must have had some strong hill climbers today though as everyone managed to stay in a tight group and tough it out together. The drink of water (and cake) supplied on our arrival was still very welcome though!

Our task today was to put out some tables and hang bunting in the hall and garden areas around the church ready for the fête. Using the supplied map we were able to arrange the furniture and also to get a tantalising glimpse of their future roles, the Pimms table sounding particularly appealing (see authentic Pimms ordering reconstruction in the photos)

We were also able to give the whole outside area a little polish with Charlie taking on a quick litter pick (finding three balls and what I believe to be an Ankylosaurus in the process) and several of us doing a spot of weeding and brushing.

As we prepared to leave for the descent homeward we took one last look around and I think we were all impressed by how much much more appealing the space looked after all our hard work (see authentic cream tea reconstruction in the photos)

Cafe Connect

The second group headed off on a mercifully flat run to help Cafe Connect, a social enterprise that uses its profits to fund local charities. Once there we separated into groups and got stuck into multiple different tasks. We dismantled an ailing Gazebo held together by tape and cable ties and in its place we erected a glorious new one, we cleaned out various fridges and freezers, gave the windows and surfaces a good clean, hefted a bag full of clay and finished up with a mopping and sweeping of the floors. Once we'd finished we were rewarded with some lovely soft drinks from the fridge. Hopefully our efforts help the cafe to attract more customers and in turn help supply local charities with more funding.

A longer run today with an earlier start time - so Kudos to our two new recruits who chose this as their first run with us today. We seem to be over in East Bristol for a lot of our tasks at the moment so the route along the Feeder road has become familiar but well done to all of those who took in an extra sprint through Netham park (no surprise to see Andy involved on his return to the fold - welcome back Andy!)

Our regular task contact (another Andy) couldn't make it today but he had deputised well and Naomi and Jim had lots of jobs lined up for us.

Initially we split into two groups with one occupied on topping up the bark mulch (with added pine freshness) around the trees and along the bottom path. The other group worked to clear brambles from a corner by the entrance so it could also be barked up and made into a more usable space.

Our hard working runners soon had these jobs under control so we were able to progress to the 'if there's still time' list, managing to completely weed the three raised vegetable beds and begin tackling more brambles round the pond.

A very productive morning and there was an added bonus on the way back as Clo successfully navigated us back through the woods - a far more picturesque route!

17 GoodGymmers ran 9 km to the Bristol Children’s Playhouse to tidy, build, plant and weave in a variety of tasks.

A new task for us today, organised by fellow GoodGymmer, Cathy, and you can generally tell as soon as you arrive how good a task is going to be. On arrival at the task today, we just knew that this was going to be a great one.

A big welcome to our newcomer, Jane, for today’s run and to Steph, our awesome GG Bath trainer and welcome back to Bris to Sion, who has recently moved up to Sheffield (almost perfect timing with the fairly recent launch of GG Sheffield).

Our run, on a lovely, sunny Spring morning took us up the Bristol Bath Railway Path through Easton towards Eastville, to the Bristol Children’s Playhouse, a voluntary pre-school which provides a supportive and stimulating environment for the whole family. It’s aim is to safeguard and promote the welfare of children within the family and provide quality preschool education allowing children to gain positive experiences to improve their confidence and self-esteem.

Cathy welcomed us in to the outdoor play area on a piece of land that had kindly been donated by the school next door and outlined a variety of tasks, set to test the versatility of the group:

David, Sarah, Steph and Fi set about building a compost storage pen out of pallets, using their collective know-how to wire this together and make it sturdy using tree branches as stakes and reinforced with a wooden block.

Caroline, Becky and Sion were tasked with creating an area in which to then design and build a planting box from wooden planks – with expert sawing advice from Sion, sterling organisational direction from Mel, and a bit of expert drilling from Cathy.

The appearance of a wheelbarrow (along with it’s very little brother) allowed Paul (naturally!) and Maddy to transport two apple trees into the play area, where they, Dave and Mel, dug holes to plant them in – some stubborn roots to get through here.

Chloe, Nick and Jane were busy collecting leaves that had been blown into the play area, and moving these to the compost pen, ready for storage. I don’t think Paul noticed that Jane had swiped the wheelbarrow for this task :-)

Last, but very definitely not least, Lisa and Will coppiced a tree, then using the thinner branches that they had liberated to weave through the railings at the entrance to the play area, which not only looked fantastic, but would apparently stop one particular young fellow from getting his head stuck between the railings!

The sun shone throughout, which just added to everyone’s enjoyment of the task – the only sad part was having to leave after a very productive hour.

Huge thanks to Cathy for arranging such a wonderful set of tasks for us, requiring as much brain power as muscle. We very much hope that we can come and visit again soon!

Also big thanks to multi-tasking Mel for not only coming up with some great suggestions on the task but also for getting Steph safely back to base as injury struck – very much appreciated. And to David for backmarking today, ensuring that we all got back safely, particularly through the protest marches, police and dogs – it was all going down in Bris today!

Finally, very many thanks to everyone for making this such a fun and rewarding morning and also for looping back on the run from time to time so that we could all stick together. Teamwork throughout!

All the best

Dave