Tonight was the night. The stars aligned, the figures added up, Matt's beady eyes on GoodGym stats came to great use and the five years of Bristol GoodGymers being jolly good people culminated in

GoodGym Bristol hitting 10,000 Good Deeds!!

Just two weeks after GoodGym hit a grand old total of 100,000 good deeds, you have shown what a massive contribution you have all been. You are all amazing!

But first, what Good Deed got us up to this big old milestone? We gathered in our usual spot to run out to Easton to return to Cafe Connect. It was great to have some new runners with us tonight - welcome to Gemma, Rhiannon and Teresa! Libby and her team at Cafe Connect are planning to do a grand reopening of the space as soon as they can, and had drawn up a big list of tasks to keep all 34 GoodGymers well and truly occupied. The team were quickly split into small teams each with their own tasks.

The Garden Group

The painting team gave the inside and outside walls a fresh lick of paint to finish off the job they had started last time. The gardening team got green-fingered by giving the tomato plants a helping hand and planting some new ones. The wood-chopping team got ferocious with saws and axes to split up wood into kindling.

The Kitchen Kids

In the kitchen, the group did a stellar job keeping their hands above their heads for half an hour, and had the added bonus of taking down lots of excess plastic and foam from the kitchen which will massively help the Cafe Connect team with their health and safety.

The Cafe Crew

Inside, Kait found her new passion for varnishing (if you need a varnisher, you know who to call) and Gary got reunited with the table he so lovingly sanded all those weeks ago. The magnetic board team spent a long time holding the board against the wall (shown beautifully by Alex and Freddie in the pictures). After 30 minutes, they realised that they couldn't actually stand there until the cafe opened, so the team eventually found some nails to keep it in place miraculously hands-free.

After a speedy half an hour, much to the group's disappointment, we had to pack up our toys and head back on our 3km run home. The group zoomed along, and we were soon stretching off our evening's antics. Little did we realise that Matt was going to be trumping his own birthday cake (but not his own face on his birthday bottle) with the 10,000 good deeds, showstopping, Carl the Caterpillar cake, topped by an impressive array of numbered sparklers. These were so decidedly hard to light that it led to a fantastic countdown from well...one to..zero. We very much appreciated each one though, Matt!

Feeling hot, hot, hot

On the hottest day of 2018 so far, our gaggle of GoodGymers were not intimidated by the sun which was still blasting as we gathered for our Tuesday evening run. It was great to have James and Nicole join us tonight for the first time - welcome both. And a massive congratulations to Chris and Caroline who both achieved their 200th Good Deeds tonight, fantastic!

Nailing it at Felix Road Adventure Playground

After we got even warmer through, well, warming up, the group split into two to spread our Good Deeds around Bristol. Sally did a great job of leading her first group run and took a group to Felix Road Adventure Playground. The group got stuck in with sorting the massive amounts of wood they have at the playground, removing nails so that it can be reused around the playground and in the pizza oven.

Planking at Emmaus

The rest of the group went to Emmaus, where we finally conquered the prickly bushes last month. Xanne introduced the new runners to the wonderful work Emmaus do to help people who have experienced homelessness or are currently suffering from homelessness in Bristol.

Following Xanne's warnings, the brave members of the group ventured to the mezzanine of the warehouse to forage a path through piles of furniture, Christmas decorations (much to the joy of Mr Christmas a.k.a. Richard), exercise balls and whatever else you could possibly think of. This will make the warehouse a much safer place to be again for the people using it. And we got to try on hats, so it was a double win.

The other half of the group put in a brilliant effort sanding, soap washing and painting planks which are going to be used to put up new shelfing. Cue a selection of fantastic NSFW puns by the group on wood and nails...

THE 1(.2 ) kilometre time trial of the year

On return from Emmaus and Felix Road Adventure Playground, Bristol GoodGym held their very own 1 kilometre time trial for the GoodGym Olympics. With some outstanding 1km efforts, including Patrick, Darren and Gary fighting a very close race to the finish - brilliant efforts by everyone who took part and fantastic cheering by the cheering squad!

It was another big group attendance tonight as our Bristol runners spread out across Bedminster to fix up some green spaces. Welcome to the new faces that joined us tonight - it was great to see you Anna, Beth, Cristina, Aga and Abigail! Also good to see some new but returning faces - good luck for the big one this weekend Stu!

Thanks to Charlie, who led the first group to Cherry Tree Garden. There, they were met by Julia who explained to them the momentous task of weeding and clearing nettles ahead of the bulb-planting they are planning in the future. After a slight delay followed by being rescued by the henceforth-named Glove Superman, Darren, the group were ready to enthusiastically set to work. Apparently, Chris decided to get in a fight with a Sycamore (as you do on a Tuesday night with GoodGym), while the rest of the group picked on something their size... Or at least, a whole lot of nettles slightly closer to their own size.

Meanwhile, the rest of the group met Laura from Bedminster Patchwork. They manage 12 patches of land across Bedminster, which they work on to make beautiful spaces for the local community. GoodGym had previously worked on this particular patch a couple of times and it is coming on leaps and bounds. The group set to work weeding and planting across the ground. Despite hitting a spider nest and finding surely the entire population of Bristol's hairy caterpillars, the group did a stellar job of making the patch weedless and freshly planted ready for summer. What a great job all round. Thank you to your brilliant back-marking Maria, which got us past all the envy-inducing pint-holding locals sipping in the evening sun, until we could get back for our own well-deserved pints.

Overall, a Tuesday night well spent, and Bedminster looking all the better for our green-fingered GoodGymers!