A gorgeous sunny day saw almost 30 people join us today for our tasks to Manor Woods Valley and Golden Hill community garden.

Liam kindly offered to take the Golden Hill group with Richard acting as backmarker and Clo and Charlie as photographers. There they were greeted with an amazing assortment of tasks - ranging from book stall sorting to sandwich making (pear chutney, hummus and nasturtium!) and laying out mint on the children's sensory trail!

The remaining folks joined me in our run along the Malago Greenway to meet Martin and a few other members of the Manor Valley Conservation Group (MVCG) at the secret orchard (which thanks to MVCGs hard work is not so secret any more).

We took shears to bramble risings and donned hard hats to cut down any elder trees that might be obstructing the fruit trees before doing a little harvesting of our own (picking from the trees rather than the floor to try and avoid sharing any half eaten specimens with badgers!). The elder was then cut down to size and used to build wildlife friendly deadwood hedges.

(Apologies for the gender bias of the title which was chosen purely in the interests of run title punnery)

Bit chilly outside this morning, but things soon heated up when the feisty parkrun peeps tried to stage a mini-mutiny during the warm-up! Thankfully the (fairly good-natured :-)) rebellion was quickly put down and and so we headed off for our tasks with smiles on faces and the sun on our backs - didn't need the running jacket after all!.

At St Werburghs we split into two groups (thanks everyone for being flexible on task choice!) and Mel and Dave led one team off to the community centre gardening day while I continued on with the others to meet Mina Road Park Group.

Bramble-geddon

If Goodgym are a Justice-League style band of super-heroes then brambles must be their arch-enemies and the evil Dr Bramble had certainly been busy here, with the lovely green space outside Better Food choked by his minions' thorny claws.

The Park Group had already done much to clear away the surface growth before we arrived so our job was to tackle the roots. After some instruction from our host Hugh, Liam skillfully wielded the mattock (much like Thor with his hammer) while everyone else armed themselves with spades and by the end of the session we had prepared most of the patch for some new planting in the Spring.

Hammer At-tack

Meanwhile, having already shifted a couple of lengths of timber, some of the gardening group were now hard at work preparing the frame for a new compost heap, attaching a liner to the back and sides with a hammer and some tacks.

With Clo helping to move an army of wheelie bins back into the shed space freed up by the timber, it only remained for David and Dec to prepare a hole for one of the wooden posts that was to form a play installation at the centre. This involved smashing down through the concrete with a heavy pole before digging down the 15cm required for the post.

All in all, we smashed two tasks and certainly earned our lunch today.

Just heard from Hugh and he wanted me to pass on his thanks today:

Thanks very much for all your hard work this morning. Your runners really put their backs into it ,and we were amazed how much got done. In addition ,they were a really nice lot ,and it was a pleasure to have you all there

A fantastic Saturday turnout saw the addition of a second task with half of us heading to Ashton Vale school to weed their rather overgrown allotment and the other half heading off to the Old Library in Eastville to help out their regular gardening club.

Fantastic to see three new runners today - two of whom had accepted the Caroline Shilling by agreeing to come along to Goodgym while under the influence of alcohol. Hopefully the morning was a little more fun than a life on the Ocean waves with the 19th century Royal Navy.

Old Library

After a rather wet start it had turned into a fantastic morning with some warming sunshine so an ideal opprotunity to take on two 4k runs (well I thought so). The Old Library group looked a little thin on the ground at first as I oversold Dave's Ashton Vale option as a steady/slow run but with a little encouragement we managed to split the group 50/50.

It's a nice route to the Old Library, up some unecessary park steps and through two parks (almost 3 as I also added an unecessary extension coming out of the underpass) and taking in the St Werburghs self build houses and Boiling Wells. By the time we got to the library we were properly warmed up.

This task had been a little last minute so I was a bit worried we'd arrive and find there wasn't much to do but I had no need to fear as our host Zoe had sorted out plenty of work for us. One group was to rake up all the leaves at the front of the library while the other was to clear an area of brambles and sycamore saplings (but NOT ash or hawthorn) so that a new forest-school style childrens play area can be established.

Clo and Sam did an excellent job of the raking making the building look a lot more inviting - and the street outside a bit safer for passers by!

Meanwhile the bramble team were clearing a nice passage making good use of loppers secateurs and a hand saw (well done for not sawing any hands off, Caroline!). Our new team ecologist Rich even found a little frog in amongst the undergrowth. All in all, some great progress made.

Ashton Vale Primary School

The school allotment had been in need of some weeding for a few months so it was brilliant that we could finally send some people along. I have it on good authority that the school group (a class act no doubt) worked hard and succeeded in clearing all the pesky weeds, however I have to say that the photos I have received tell a very different story of scarecrows, chicken swings and rides on tiny bicycles so I'm not so sure?

There is evidence of a pitchfork though; Chris tells me it handled perfectly ... and ... cue pun.

Our plans had to be changed today as the early morning weather was not conducive to the second task that was planned - overnight and morning rain meant that our stencilling and painting task on the Bristol to Bath Railway Path had to be postponed.

No matter, as we knew that the A-maze-ing Malago Greenway Berry Maze project would be grateful of some extra pairs of hands as they try to get their project finished, so it was great that we had a good turnout today to support two tasks.

It was wonderful to welcome Gillian, the GoodGym Older People Operations Team Leader, who travelled over from London this morning and brought along Alasdair and Tom for their first GG experience and also Oliver, who had come along with Anna, for his first taste of the action too. Hope you all enjoyed doing things in Bristol fashion!

Our main task today was a completely new one organised at Narroways Hill - a little grassy & wooded ridge in the neighbourhood of St Werburghs. When British Rail threatened to sell it to developers in 1997 it caused such a reaction that 800 local people demonstrated to save it, thousands signed petitions & wrote letters and money was raised so it was purchased by Bristol City Council.

Nowadays, the site is looked after by Narroways Millennium Green Trust, the charity set up to administer and manage the site now that it has Millennium Green status. All the work needed to maintain the site and keep it available to be enjoyed by the local community (and wildlife!) is carried out by a small group of volunteers and enthusiasts.

A group of ten of us headed over to Narroways Hill and enjoyed a wonderful and varied task, including:

• Taking a railway sleeper up to Narroways Hill - we needed a few rest breaks for this as it was a particularly heavy sleeper!
• Gathering up Buddleia prunings in Church Field and using them to block a gap in the hedge of the Community Gardens - this looked amazing when it was done.
• A litter pick of the area - lots of trash, but the removal of old tents, cardboard, wooden pallets, plastic piping and the usual bottles and cans, had the place looking much tidier.
• Cutting back Ash seedlings and chopping out some of the brambles to stop these encroaching on the grassy area.

Looking down from the top of the hill, the red shirts looked like a particularly busy set of worker ants determined to get the job done before lunchtime.

Harry and the team of wonderful NMGT members seem delighted with what we managed to achieve and it would be great to be able to go back again soon to help some more - lots to do here in this green and very pleasant bit of land.

It’s a really nice flat run too along the Frome Valley Walkway, through Riverside Park.

Halo? Goodgym here!

Meanwhile over at the Berry Maze the team were hard at work removing the last of the brambles and berried rock so that mulch could be liberally applied to the paths and the way was clear for the berry plants to finally be installed. Tom and Alasdair worked at one of the toughest bramble sections while Davd and Gillian dug up and raked some of the neighbouring patches. Emma showed some particular versatility switching from digging to raking to stone lifting to wheelbarrowing at regular intervals (thanks for letting me have a go at the wheelbarrow, Emma).

All the while, Jack and Caroline offloaded rock and onloaded mulch, with Jack adding an old phone to the unusual finds accrued so far on the project!

Another fantastic Malago morning.

Back at Roll For The Soul, we wished good luck to our runners taking part in the Oxford Half Marathon on Sunday, chatted about the upcoming group runs and missions and congratulated Alex on becoming the latest GoodGym Bristol centurion - hitting 100 good deeds with today’s run. Nice one Alex!

It was a peach of a morning in more ways than one as the fourteen of us (every single one in a red GG shirt) gathered, warmed up and set off on our run.

After a last minute request we dropped off Irena, Hannah and Andrew in Victoria Park, to help Gav of the Victoria Park Action Group carry out some running repairs to the Willow Tunnel, which we had helped to build last year. Big thanks to Will for locating the tunnel for us!

The rest of us headed across the park and out onto the Malago Greenway down to the Novers Hill end where we were greeted by lovely Raluca and her band of volunteers who continue to develop the area with the aim of building a Berry Maze - an unique maze made out of berry plants, from the humble blackberry to the exciting jostaberry, designed by the children from the local school, built solely by volunteers, ready for the whole community to pick and use instead of an overgrown field of weeds. A natural hub for community events and an awesome play area. All in one!

Today's job was to pick litter where the brambles had been cleared, including the removal of slabs and rocks embedded in the ground, these being placed on a giant slab before being taken away in wheelbarrows. This is so that the area can be ploughed next week.

We hi-vizzed up, armed ourselves with litter pickers and off we went, scouring the area for anything that might clog up the plough.

Along the way we were assisted by a plump little dog who couldn't quite make up his mind if he wanted to lick us or eat us, but he was enthusiastic to say the least!

Needless to say, we cleared lots, filled loads of rubbish sacks and helped get the area ready for the next phase. We'll be back again soon to help with some mulch spreading (yay!) in a couple of weeks and may also come back again after that to place and fill some planters (double yay!).

We were fantastically looked after by Raluca who had provided bottles of water and an array of fruit, including some fabulous looking donut peaches, plums and bananas - yum!yum!

Then it was bye to Raluca and all the slabs, great and small, and we headed back to the park to pick up the "Willow Three" who had done a brilliant job on the tunnel, before trotting back for a warm down and lunch (although cake seemed to be a very popular choice this week).

It was great that we were able to help out Gav in Victoria Park, as well as being able to do justice to the main task, so thanks to all of you for coming along.

Big thanks to Charlene for backmarking today too.

See you soon!

A lovely warm and sunny morning greeted us as we convened at Roll For The Soul for a longer run for today's task.

It was great that we were joined by two belles from Bath, Steph and Mary, fabulous to have you both along! Wanting to get involved we also had Alice, Caroline and Lydia joining us on their bikes to boost our numbers.

With a longer run and plenty to do on the task, we were off at 11 am sharp after the briefest of warm ups, opting instead for a gentle run out of Bristol to Brislington for a brand new task today.

We had been asked by the Project Rainbow to help clear a garden for a group of young people with special needs who are moving in very soon. Five disabled students are moving into a house owned by Bristol city council, as part of a new scheme called Project Rainbow and while the house is pretty much done finished and ready, the grounds need quite a lot of work and the council are quoting a huge amount of money to clear it, which is beyond the project’s budget.

After a 3 mile run, with a hilly twist in the tail, out to the site we armed ourselves with forks, spades, hoes, rakes and a wheelbarrow and got stuck straight into the task.

The grass had recently been cut and so Harriet and Chloe made a fantastic job of raking up the cuttings.

Steph, Mary, Richard, David, Declan, Alice and Lydia headed to one side of the garden and demolished a patch of stinging nettles and weeds, while Neil, Liam and Paul headed to the other side of the garden to tackle more weeds and liberate some lovely sunflowers in the process.

In the meantime, Caroline and myself manned the wheelbarrow and ferried the huge amounts of green waste being uprooted by our fearless gang over to the green waste bin which we managed to completely fill in the 50 minutes or so that we were on site!

Caroline was also doing a wonderful job of liberating several caterpillars and spiders from the waste so that they could be allowed to roam free in the green space around them - bless!

Whilst trying to round up the group, it was no surprise to see Paul shnuck into wheelbarrow duties towards the end (can't believe he allowed us to use it in the first place but he seemed distracted by the sunflowers!), and we eventually persuaded Declan to stop digging and headed back for base.

This was a more challenging run today, particularly given the very warm conditions but everyone did brilliantly both on the run and the task.

Big thanks to you all for coming along to this, to Paul for backmarking, to Steph for leading the stretches whilst I headed inside to do a document check, and bearing with me in my more stressful moments! A nice new task and a job well done!

Cheers all!