Suns out, run out

We had 7 new runners join us tonight and 52 people out Good Deeding on this sunny Tuesday night. Welcome to Bex, Molly, Jayne, Sangrita, Laura, Andreas and Hannah - it was great to have you!

After a mental warm-up, we split into two groups.

Alison led a small group of 15 to Dame Emily Park where they met Mel to add to their team and Ursula who runs the project. The boys (under the (quickly corrected) assumption that they were stronger) were handed spades and a pick axe to put some shrubs in to create a border between the border and the Caretaker's house. The rest of the group tackled the planters outside the swimming pool, planting new trees and small flowers in them. Another group were sent to seed wildflowers at the bottom edge of the park and two others filled watering cans to water everything in. Meanwhile, Darren was working especially hard by keeping Ursula's little boy entertained in a football game - someone's gotta do it, isn't that right Darren?!

An elephant of sand

The rest of us headed off in our hoards to St Paul's Adventure Playground. We were met by Guy who had three huge tasks for the group - good job who brought so many pairs of hands. Group 1 were set to work with moving hay to make a soft landing under the zipline and play areas. Group 2 were moving large logs to a log store on the other side of the playground, which involved impressive log-carrying coordination (I have seen groups doing it worse in Highland Games). Group 3 had the mammoth task of moving a massive pile of cement blocks and two tonnes of sand to clear a space for the bread oven arriving tomorrow. It was hefty work and the team made the longest GoodGym human chain ever to overcome the task. The last bag of sand was moved with seconds to spare before we had to head back and Guy was thrilled with how much we had got done.

Shell shock

The group were not getting away to feast on Lisa's amazing 200 celebration baking without finishing off the night with an egg and spoon race. With only 2 drops (and consequent burpees) it turns out this might be our calling. Then it was time to celebrate the wonderful [Lisa] hitting her 200th Good Deed last Saturday - well done Lisa! Still drooling over those cakes...

And at least I've not cracked all my best egg jokes before the end of the report.

It was brilliant to have Lauren and Phil join us for their first GoodGym Bristol run tonight! It was a big one, as Jack hit his 100th Good Deed - massive well done Jack! And what better way to celebrate it than with two of GG Bristol's favourite tasks, painting and Emmaus!

Emmaus-ing

Alice led the first group to meet Xanne at Emmaus. The group were set to work with various tasks. Some of them were on warehouse sorting which, as usual, may have ended up more of a warehouse-wide treasure hunt for the best hat (photo evidence shows Maria and Richard as key contestants). The rest of the group were outside taking apart unusable furniture to be recycled. They got to work with wood chopping, foam removing and more, making a great dent in the task.

A mauve-ing task

The rest of us headed to The Station, where two of our GoodGymers work (life outside GoodGym?!). We were met by our Taskforce member and the charity's Events Manager, Alice. She explained that the Creative Youth Network, based at The Station, are sprucing up their outdoor area for summer and the first way to do this was to repaint all of the picnic benches (you guessed it) mauve.

Through the Clo hole

While some had creative methods of avoiding getting paint on them (I'm looking at you, Shreena's tights over leggings), others went all in for the purple body-paint (Chris and Tom...). Despite this, the group still managed to get a large amount on the benches themselves and within 45 minutes they had painted the first coat on all of the benches left for us. Not forgetting that most of the group also managed a fitness blast in our sub-in, sub-out system. Thanks for having us Alice!

We jogged (/sprinted the Strava segment) the short route back and then got to watch Jack masterfully put on the Centurion outfit and indulge us with three different types of cake. What a baking comeback! We will be expecting a lot more from where that came from now...