What a task - or should I say tasks? Two big groups of Saturday runners took a hilly route up to St. Alban's Church, led by Alice and backmarked by Gary and Dave. Before we set out, we gave a big welcome to Ruth and David who were completing their first run with GoodGym and Zdeni who was completing her 50th. Upon arrival, we got stuck in to not just 1 but 4-5 tasks - depending on how you count.

One group headed out with fliers and seemed to really be working up a sweat heading to all the surrounding streets. A second group set about raking and gathering leaves to tidy up the church grounds. A third, very crafty, group made christmas tree ornaments out of old christmas cards. Clo and Ruth hung the shooting star. Finally a fifth group helped to put up the Christmas tree, decorate it and trim the leftover branches for wreath-making. Needless to say, watching the tree go up and be slid across the floor was a bit nerve- wracking!

Technically a sixth tasks seemed to be enjoying the nice hot Ribena and biscuits provided by the church. They way back was thankfully mostly downhill and we ended with a run through a human tunnel of GoodGymers.

Thank you to all the runners for their efforts. All in all, it was a very festive start to December!

It's been a while since we last helped NSI (Northern Slopes Initiative) up at Novers Hill - though we've spent a lot of time just next door at the Berry maze. Really good then to run up the Malago Greenway and find scythes, slashers and loppers waiting for us once more

Over the years we've cut back a lot of the brambles on the top of the grass slope so today was all about clearing a path to make the liberated space accessible and making sure it was kept under control. We had five scythers laying waste to brambles, and - perhaps fittingly in the week before Halloween - a lone slasher, with Dave in full flow taking out anything that didn't move.

Others found themselves trimming the areas either side of the path and David managed a bit of pruning with one of the saws.

With all these blades slashing about it was good to have Julia, our host around to give a bit of scythe training and watch out for everyone's safety!

The steps going up the hill have always been a bit of a hot spot for litter and our two teams of litter pickers were able to collect 5 or 6 bags of rubbish, making one or two unpleasant discoveries in the process. Thanks to Lauren, Rich, Matt, Julie, Darren and Shreena for taking on this rather less glamorous but much appreciated task!

With Julia having provided tea and biscuits and some puzzle solving required to fit all the tools back in Julia's can we were a little late leaving but made up a little time with an impressive and pacey run back!

Congratulations to Darren for completing his 200th parkrun today and also to Sion for completing 100 good deeds in Sheffield a few days ago. Always lovely to see you back Sion and thanks for being such a good sport with the obligatory Centurion outfit photo.

And for the record, it turns out the old style pink wafers aren't actually as nice as the new ones. Though being a year out of date might have just had some influence on that (sorry everyone!!)

We stretched our Tuesday evening to the absolute limit tonight as we took on a hilly 8k round trip to Westbury to help sort donations that had been collected for the Samara's Aid charity to support refugees in Syria.

With run leaders a bit thin on the ground there was no option but to stay together in one large group for the long run up Park Street and Whiteladies Road - so I was super-impressed that everyone worked so hard to stay together over the whole journey. The evening had been billed as a #runandtalk event so I hope that everyone managed to have a bit of chat too - even if it was just at the odd traffic light along the way!

Once at the church we were greeted with a mountain of boxes of donated items and several heaps of garments that hadn't quite made the cut. Samara's Aid aim to aim to send only the best possible quality items to show the utmost care and respect for those who have lost everything.

With only 20 minutes or so it was great to see everyone picking a task and taking the initiative to work out what needed to be done and working so brilliantly as a team. I must admit I was a little concerned about how much we would be able to get done at the start of the evening but I needn't have worried - you are all donation sorting heros!

One group marked up completed boxes to indicate their contents while another formed a human chain to move the completed boxes out of the church to the porch for collection. And others helped pack up nappies and bedding or boxed up the remaining heaps of garments into boxes for men, women or children. We even managed to get a bit of pruning done outside the church!

The weather being so awful over the weekend we had been unable to deliver our leaflets for Above and Beyond so a small group of leafleters kindly volunteered to help out here as well.

With the room completely transformed, there was time for a group photo by the church organ pipes and even a little vocal performance - which I have to say really wasn't half bad - Bristol GoodGym choir anyone?

It was all downhill on the way back and after some stretching in Queen Square we congratulated Kait on hitting 100 good deeds tonight - well done Kait!!

Thanks to Charlie and Mel for the photos - and also to Mel for organising GoodGym Eats tonight