What a perfect way to come back from the sunshine to the dreary, dark nights of a British October than to be welcomed by 43 shining GoodGym faces! Included in those faces were Neil, Fred and Catherine, who joined us for the first time tonight - thank you for joining us, it was great to meet you all. Also a big welcome to Chris, who has just moved to Bristol from Wandsworth GoodGym - welcome on board with the South West!

After some fantastic examples of how not to skip, the group split up to conquer two tasks tonight. The first group (including the impressive 2-day-post-marathon not-even-hobblers) set off towards Hamilton House, a well known community centre in Bristol but our first time helping them.

Hamil-tonne of cleaning products

Maria led half of the group to Hamilton House to do some cleaning of their event space and kitchen. The group did a brilliant job of finding any sneaky dirt lurking in the space - if it was looking good when they started, it is looking amazing now!

Eas-tonne of leaflets

The rest of the group ran to Easton to do leafleting for Felix Road Adventure Playground's upcoming programme of October break events. While Chris and co. took a suspiciously long time to do their section (which passed by several pubs...), the rest of the group conquered tonight's squat challenge and lunge challenge with ease (or, at least, few complaints). The group distributed 300 leaflets in no time and soon our 4 mile leafleting loop was complete.

A celebration involving cake? Who, us?

Once the groups reconvened with perfect timing, we stretched off and settled in to a post-run delayed celebration. Lexi got her 50th Good Deed a couple of weeks' ago and had baked delicious vegan cakes for us all to celebrate with her. Last week, Kait achieved her 100th Good Deed, but got the joy of saving the Centurion outfit for this week. Please see said joy in Kait's face in the photos above... Well done both of you!

When you're leading a GoodGym run for the first time, it's really lovely (very scary) to have Ivo, the illustrious founder of GoodGym, along for the ride. We're sure Shona is enjoying her holiday whilst we keep up the good deeds in Bristol. My Shona impression went down very well, and we were very efficient at shooing the baby starfish.

Although the run was advertised as 9K, I reassured everyone it was more like 0.9K, and it was actually only 0.6K when we'd crossed all three zebra crossings to safely arrive at FaithSpace. The lovely organisers wanted some help with gardening, mainly turning over some huge compost heaps, and some leaflet distributing for their upcoming Autumn Extravaganza. WIth 37 GooodGymmers we soon made short shrift of the leafleting and were able to head off for some extra fitness training by running around the Harbour Loop with a few challenges thrown in by the run leaders - thanks Paul, Dave, Gary and everyone else who took off around the harbour, and to our gardening run leaders Alison, Jack, Patrick and Maria. We have left another organisation utterly impressed with what we can achieve. And had a surprising 5K extra run on a lovely evening in Bristol.

A big Bristol GG welcome to Robin and João who joined us for the first time, we hope to see you again very soon.

Celebration time back at Queens Square after cool down and stretches, Mair has reached the great milestone of 50 good deeds and introduced the alternative and VERY popular celebration treat of chocolate buttons. They were perfect with a pot of tea.

Thanks for being kind to me as I was being Fake Shona I. Fake Shona II takes over next week...

You've got the tools but have you got the touch?

With some stiff legs and sore throats from Bristol Half Marathon running and cheering at the weekend, a big group of runners still stumbled together to show Shania Twain what her lyrics should really be. It was great to see lots of new faces tonight - welcome Hannah, Stefano and Nia!

With the dark nights drawing in, the group did me proud with a great array of hi-viz and head torches on show. I am looking forward to seeing much more of this over the coming months! In our red and fluoro-clad group, we hopped off to the south side of the river to help two different tasks.

Dave took a group to Cherry Tree Garden, where they were helping Julie give the garden a big cut-back and weed for the Autumn. With all hands on deck, the 15-strong group made a massive dent in it and left the area neat and ready to be enjoyed by all the Bedminster locals. The group even had time to do a Beatles reenactment on their way home...

What the fork

Meanwhile, the rest of the group went to help Urban Buzz at Gores Marsh Park. Hayley from Urban Buzz explained to us that after a summer with a drought, followed by the recent rainy weather, the meadows in the park have now been left with a thick layer of mulch on them. We needed to remove this and then reseed it. Thirty pairs of hands got a hold of whatever tools they could find, and here started a competition between mulching with a fork, spade, rake, shovel or hoe was the best method. Meanwhile, our expert Mulch Movers skirted back and forth, getting rid of the piles of mulch being dragged up. With a quick reseed under the darkening sky, the group waved goodbye to the meadow and headed home.

Well done to everyone who helped make Bedminster beautiful tonight!

Do you like the 5 times table? Well, here is a run report for you...

Lex give it up for 50!

50 runners came out tonight - one to celebrate each of Lexi's Good Deeds. Massive congratulations on hitting 50, Lexi! This included 5 new runners joining our crazy crew. Welcome to Francesca, Anna, Lauren, Cerys and Johan - it was great to have you.

For our celebration, the group split into three tasks.

Most of us started off by heading towards Emmaus, stopping for a quick game of Chicken Otter Badger led by Gary and leaving the group looking knackered before we were halfway to the task. Nevertheless, they powered through.

Those who thought they could face more Grit from Gary, went to do hill-running and leafleting for Penny Brohn's upcoming Stomp Sponsored Walk. Under Gary's watchful eye, they zoomed up the hills, around the houses and were back at base in no time. Impressive!

Meanwhile, the second group arrived at Emmaus, where Xanne talked to us about the brilliant work they do then set us to work sorting out the clothes stockroom and the bric-a-brac. The team meticulously sorted the items into piles to sell in store, online and recycle. Darren and Matt got very into pricing silverware, so now we all know where to go if we need some Bargain Hunt advice. Many crazy hats and lampshades later, we had sorted many rails, filled many bags and cleaned up a bunch of bric-a-brac ready to sell. The silverware remains to be confirmed whether it was valuable or not...

Dave led the third group to Bedminster, to plant some lavender bulbs with Urban Buzz. It is the perfect time for planting these, and it will really brighten up the area where we were planting in a few months' time. While Dave, being the good Run Leader he is, was keeping to time and getting the group to finish up ready for a leisurely, direct jog back, the group had other ideas. With Dave having reached his 500th Good Deed at the weekend, Operation Distract Dave was fully underway. Dave was thrown off being a Run Leader, and the group were soon directed on an extensive diversion scattered with as many squats, lunges and tricep dips as required to get 50 runners in the same place and ready for the ceremony of dreams.

King Dave of 500, Prince of Puns and Godfather of Good Deeds

With everything in place (almost), Dave and his group returned to a red carpet of GoodGym tshirts, arched by the friendly Bristol GG faces, leading to a red throne. To the crowds cheering, Dave was donned with a red cloak. Paul stepped to the helm and did a skillful job of anointing Dave as the official King Dave of 500, Prince of Puns and Godfather of Good Deeds (King of GoodGym for short).

Dave made a beautiful speech, but the ceremony was not over yet. Alex and Clo produced the most wonderful Ukulele Duet I have ever seen, to Dave-specials of '500 Good Deeds' (to the tune of 500 Miles) and 'I Want to Be Like Dave' (to the tune of the Jungle Book). Musical and lyrical genius, accompanied by the less musically-talented but incredibly enthusiastic rousing voices of GoodGym Bristol. All of this was followed by Claire's spectacular 500 cake and lots of pints. Well done again Dave and thanks for everything.

And with that, we will give one more Mexican Dave and say thank you very much for a lovely game of fives.