On a humid April evening 16 volunteers ran to Donkey Lane near Perfect View in Bath. We did lots of useful cutting and weeding at the community gardening project there. We had lots of fun and did some great hill training!

Welcome!

We met outside the leisure centre and I shared the latest news and notices. We have organised 2 fantastic Community Missions for this weekend. See the bottom of the run for details! After a warm-up we were on our way.

"H'ill stop us running up hills one day..."

We ran up Walcott Street and up the steep steps in Hedgemead Park. This really burned the quadriceps and was a fantastic workout for us all! We paused at the top to catch our breath and (did some tricep dips in the meantime!) made it to Donkey Lane with plenty of time.

No foaling around!

Our host, Sue, was ready and waiting for us. Donkey Lane is a community garden that is managed by Transition Bath. The garden is run entirely by volunteers and anyone is welcome to come and help improve the garden and enjoy the produce. They grow an assortment of fruit and veg, including apples and kale!

There was lots of work for us to do and Sue split us into groups.

Nettle the devil you know!

Some of the runners were using shears to cut down nettles and large weeds on the side of the path. With all the good weather we have been enjoying recently they have started to run wild! This useful work helps keen the pathway clear and safe which is good for the gardeners and also other members of the public using the Donkey Lane foothpath.

We'ed never give up!

Another group spent the evening on their hands and knees with an assortment of tools to improve the path that runs inside the garden. The GoodGymmers were using trowels and even knives and forks to remove weeds from the path. To make sure we didn't damage the path, we made sure to use our tools to cut the weeds at their base instead of pulling them straight out from the root. Our hard work made a massive difference to the look of the path. The path is clearer and safer for gardeners to use and it also makes it clear to the public that the area is a tended community garden and not an overgrown patch of land.

A forkin' hard bit of work!

Other runners were using pitch forks to turn over some ground to make it more suitable for planting later in the year. This was tough work as the ground hasn't been worked for a while!

WELL DONE QUEEN MARY!!

We took a moment to honour a well-travelled member of our group. This task was Mary's 199th good deed and her coach run later this week will be her 200th. This is a massive achievement that we wanted to recognise, so Steph, in classic GoodGym spirit, presented Mary with an amazing '200' t-shirt complete with buttons and rubber gloves that she had made at home. And of course we insisted that Mary wore the top on the run back! What an inspiration to us all.

On our run back we paused to watch a group of Morris dancers in the centre of Bath. There was discussion about combining our cool-down into some kind of dance procession to match them as a rival group...

Thanks!

Thanks to Emily for backmarking for us last night and making sure no one got lost! Thanks to Joe for another brilliant pun! Thanks to Steph for helping me take pictures and thanks to Sue for hosting us at the task. We had lots of fun and we will be back soon (hopefully at harvest time!!!).

Upcoming runs

• We have a great Community Mission on Sat 27th April at The Orchard
• We are also doing a really fun Community Mission on Sun 28th April as part of the 2019 Worldwide City Nature Challenge
• Next week: we have a hilly run to help out at St Phillips and St James Church
• In June there is an exciting race in Cheddar Gorge that some of GG Bath have already signed up for
• In June we are also helping at the Saltford Festival

We ran to The Nest Project in Bath. We sorted and organised a whole mountain of baby clothes and then ran them up the stairs to put them in storage. This was a really fun task and we were thrilled to rack up a massive 8km of running! Good work everyone!

Welcome Michaela!

After meeting inside the Leisure Centre we formed a large circle outside in the forecourt. We welcomed a new runner, Michaela to the group. She is a keen runner and we were glad to have her enthusiasm to help us on this task! We hope you come back and join us again Michaela! I introduced the task to the group, ran through the risk assessment and then we headed on our way.

Be hoNEST, we were amazing!

The Nest Project is based in Brassmill Enterprise Centre in Lower Weston, near the Locksbrook Inn. Unfortunately it isn't light enough yet to run along the river so we took a route through the town centre, along Upper Bristol Road and then down onto Locksbrook Road. We made it there in good time, ready for our task!

The FunNEST task we have done in ages!

We met our host Pip. She is one of the volunteers who helps coordinate the project and gave us an overview of what the team there do. They receive donations of children's clothes and equipment for ages 0-5years. Anyone from the community can come and ask for clothes, completely free of charge. This is a fantastic charity and a great community asset that we love going back to help.

A new experience for us - we are branching out!

Our task for the evening was to sort a small mountain of donated clothes into different sections, based on gender and age. There were about 10 different categories in the end and we made sure to stay organised with signs on the floor and by placing boy's clothes in front of the plastic tubs and girl's clothes inside the tubs.

We run for dress relief!

Some of the best finds were a pair of purple 'monster-faced' trousers (which Chris wore so well!), a cute Pooh t-shirt modelled by Emily, a very fetching purple sleeveless jacket (attempted to be) worn by Tim and a very colourful dress!

We then ran up the stairs to their storage area to fill their containers with the organised clothes. There are lots of boxes of clothes up there and our hard work will make it even easier for local people to access clothes and equipment for their young ones.

This was a really fun task and we enjoyed looking at how small and cute some of the toddler clothes were! And lots of them are incredibly high quality, so if you know anyone that is looking for children's clothes or equipment (like buggies) then head along to The Nest Project!

Thanks!

Thanks to Chris for very kindly volunteering to backmark for us again this week. And thanks to Emily for the pun!

Upcoming runs

• This Saturday we are running 16km along the canal path. Note: This isn't a traditional GoodGym task but is a training run at a particular pace. Sign up here.
• On Sunday we are going to be gardening with some National Trust volunteers on the Bath Skyline Walk. This will be awesome, so sign up here!
• Next week we are flyering for a charity cèilidh run by The Together Project. An fantastic charity - make sure to sign up here!

Not letting the hills put us off, 15 of us ran up Bloomfield Drive to do a 'deep clean' of a community space at St Phillips and St James's Church. We managed to achieve a massive amount and, despite the rain, we ran a huge 7.2km!

Welcome Emily, Emma and Kathryn!

At our usual meeting spot at the Leisure Centre we welcomed three new runners: Emily, Emma and Kathryn. They had heard about GoodGym through a friend and were keen to come and try our fantastic combination of keeping fit while doing good in the community. It was great to have you join us and we hope you will return!

Bloom(field)-in' heck, that was hilly!

After a thorough warm-up we made our way along the river path, up Holloway and then all the way up Bloomfield Drive. This is one of our longer routes and is definitely the hilliest one we do and so I am really happy with how everyone kept on going and didn't give up on this one!

We met out host Andy at the church and he brought us round to 'Manna House' which is one of the rooms owned and run by the Church. This room is frequently rented out to community groups and gets a lot of wear and tear! Andy explained that although his team regularly clean the room after use, it rarely gets a thorough 'deep clean'. It sounded like exactly the kind of task that we GoodGym runners are awesome at doing!

We were done in a Flash!

We broke into small teams for this task. Andy had kindly set out some cleaning equipment like gloves, Flash cleaning fluid and bowls of warm water.

Some of us were down on our hands and knees scrubbing the floors with brushes and Flash to give it a really good clean. There was lots of dirt ingrained into the floor that doesn't come off with a standard wipe over, so we really had to work hard!

Other teams took everything (and I mean everything!) out of the cupboards and drawers and gave all the shelves and inner surfaces a thorough clean. Some were wiping, others were drying and another group was re-filling. Good teamwork everyone!

We all came back together at the end to make sure we left everything clean and tidy once again. We got so much done and Andy really appreciated the hard work we did for him and his team. We shall return soon!

Thanks!

Thanks to Ollie and Emma H for backmarking for us. And thanks to Andy for this week's cleaning-related pun!

Next runs

• This Sunday: Training run along the canal, lead by Emma H.
• Next week: Flyering around Bear Flat for charity places in RideLondon