On an evening where a sea fret had drifted in to take the edge off a scorching day, half a dozen GoodGymers coasted up Lewes Road to the FareShare warehouse in Moulsecoomb, the Sussex branch of the national organisation tackling food waste.

The team was welcomed by Steven, Partnerships Coordinator at FareShare Sussex & Surrey, who gave an outline of the organisation's breadth of activity and engagement in the region (it works with around 250 charities and community groups) and a thorough briefing on the assignment of sorting donated items into crates to give to those homes most in need of support. He explained that the current summer school holidays (along with Christmas) was one of the main pinch points of the year for those households experiencing food insecurity. Steven was already familiar to some, having completed this year's Brighton Marathon weekend 10k in 1hr 20 by dancing the route in a gold onesie, and he shared experiences as a choreographer and dancer including 15 years with Ballet Rambert.

Steven masterfully choreographed the GoodGym team, who all donned hi-vis jackets and steel capped boots, as they sorted a variety of long-lasting tinned and dry food items evenly between crates, including a lot of pasta, cereals and rice, and many cans of fruit, vegetables, curries, meatballs, ham and fish. Food had to be inspected to ensure it was still in date; the record out-of-date discovery was a Loyd Grossman bolognese sauce jar with a 'best before' in 2016.

Steven applauded the flurry of activity that saw the team complete 70 filled crates of food (a total 700kg) to be delivered to help some of the local struggling households; 28,000 people at risk of food poverty access food every week from FareShare in the region. With an estimated 1 in 7 households in the UK experiencing food insecurity (1) against the backdrop of the UK having the sixth highest GDP in the world, the need for more fairness and more sharing is high. FareShare are reliant on different streams of volunteer support, and GoodGym Brighton vowed to return soon to support this essential local organisation.

(1) https://foodfoundation.org.uk/initiatives/food-insecurity-tracking#tabs/Round-16

16 Goodgymmers made the short jog over to Brighton Community Kitchen on Queens Road for our regular clean-up mission. We welcomed new Goodgymmer Charli, who has recently made the big move from Worthing over to Brighton, for her first task.

The Brighton Community Kitchen does vital work in the community to teach valuable cooking skills to those who might otherwise might not have access. Recently they have been working with the Marcus Rashford-backed project to provide meals over the holidays to children who are eligible for free school dinners. They have hosted classes for both the children and their parents to impart practical day-to-day cooking skills.

We were excited to see that the Kitchen has recently been upgraded with new sinks and a Food Dehydrator. The dehydrator particularly allows them to preserve vegetables that wouldn't otherwise by used, store them and later use them as ingredients. There was a big batch of Tomatoes, Onions and Carrots in the dehyradator during our clean.

Jo greeted us with her usual enthusiasm and gratitude, along with her famous todo list on the wall. This time we cleaned all the windows both inside and out, transformed the drawers from chaos to order, gave all the stools and work surfaces a good cleandown, scrubbed the ovens and of course sorted the cheese graters! Our extra large turnout meant we were able to knock-off all the tasks in no time.

With our tasks finished and everything ticked off of Jo's list we sauntered off into the summer night back to our own (slightly less sparkly clean) kitchens.

This week's maxi challenge was a Brighton Pride weekend tradition: the Sunday morning beach clean 🌊🌈

Accessorised with blue bags and litter pickers, we sashayed along the shoreline picking up an assortment of plastic wrappers, cigarette butts, and tired old coffee cups 😬 Litter? we don't know her.

Goodgymers, although your outfit choices were more pedestrian than pavilion, your collective effort helped restore our beloved beach from trashy to classy, and for that you are all queens 👸

Happy Pride everyone! 🌈✨️

On a gusty evening with glorious clouds, GoodGym Brighton saw a large turnout to celebrate eight incredible years of community missions, group runs and races. To mark the occasion, the group was split into two teams, one meeting at the Queen Victoria statue in Brighton and one meeting at the Peace Statue in Hove, the usual starting points for weekly GoodGym group runs, for a scavenger hunt, tracking down locations (including the odd GoodGym task venue) and numerical answers from a set of tricksy clues devised by GoodGym's ownLiam (for the Brighton hunt route) and Ben (for the Hove one).

Showing their mental acuity is as sharp as their Strava stats, the GoodGym teams bounded through all the required cryptic hoops to successfully deduce the answers, and the teams came together near the twin local icons of the Brighton i360 and the Upside Down House. The sum of all the clues for both teams unlocked a padlock to a golden litter picker, the evening's team captains Philippa and Rosie high-fiving with the collaborative spirit that typifies GoodGym Brighton.

The event was rounded off with a swift beach litter clearance and a lavish picnic sheltered near the shore, featuring a wide variety of drinks, fruit, crisps, falafel, salads, home-made cake and even GoodGym biscuits. All against the backdrop sound of the GoodGym banner flapping in the wind. Or was it applauding?

Sample scavenger hunt clues

Pinocchio's, Brighton (answer = 22)

Meander on down to Brighton's very own West End and catch a show if you have time. Performers might take the odd artistic liberty, but at what number do you find one who has bit more trouble fibbing?

Palmeira Square Floral Clock, Hove (answer = 9)

By no means a limp area! In the middle of traffic time works differently. When the time is next on the hour what would the time o'clock be then?

It's always happy times o' clock at GoodGym! Further afield, Carla and Stefania were getting involved in another hunt, of alpacas 🦙😊.

Thanks Juliet for pulling together this amazing group session and all for the great team work.

Happy birthday GoodGym Brighton! 🌈🎉🎂