On a chilly January evening, 16 GoodGym volunteers ran to Ascension Church in Oldfield Park where we cleared and rearranged cupboards. The equipment stored in the cupboards all belongs to 51st Bath Scouts and our hard work will make it easier for them to provide more fun and enriching activities for young people.

Welcome Katie and Rozzi!

We welcomed Katie and Rozzi to their first Group Run with GoodGym Bath. They have both been along to help out with Community Missions and this was the first time they have helped us on a Tuesday. We are always welcoming new runners, so if you know someone who is interested then bring them along!

Eager Beavers!

When we made it to the church, our host, Ashley, gave us an overview of what 51st Bath Scouts do. Their group has around 50 young people of a variety of ages. The young people are assigned to sections, according to their age. There is a Beaver Colony (6-8 years), a Cub Pack (8-10yrs) and a Scout Troop (10-14yrs).

Each section uses the hall on a different night of the week. Ashley and the other volunteers lead activities, games and adventures to give the young people key skills to help them throughout their lives ... and also let them have lots of fun!

Cleaning the Cub-boards

One half of our team reorganised an equipment cupboard that stores all of the Group's supplies to support the activities that they run. It hadn't been sorted or decluttered for several years and needed a team of energetic GoodGymmers to help out! We formed a human chain to empty cupboards and then worked in small teams to throw away any rubbish, group items into similar boxes and re-stack the contents in a safe and accessible way.

Lacing the report with puns

There was an enormous variety of items that needed sorting, including: plastic bows and arrows, boxes of colouring pens (which some of our team patiently tested to make sure they worked - thanks!), a bag of rubber ducks, lots of navigation equipment and metres and metres and metres of shoelaces!

Cut(lery) us some slack, we're working hard!

The other half of the team worked hard completely reorganising the church kitchen. They emptied all of the cupboards in the kitchen and cleaned the cutlery and glasses. Other groups as well as the Scouts use this kitchen, so there was lots of items that needed a thorough clean and then putting back in the right place again.

This wasn't an easy task given the time constraint, the small amount of space to work in and the amount of kitchen equipment. But in classic GoodGym fashion, they left the kitchen so much tidier and more usable!

Thanks Ashley!

Ashley thanked us enormously on behalf of the Group for the results of our labour. We were pleased to help and thanked him for arranging this task for us. We shall return! We said goodbye and got back to Leisure Centre at exactly 8pm!

Ready for more?

51st Bath Scouts are always looking for more adult volunteers to help them out. Scouting provides an enormous amount of benefits for adult volunteers as well as young people. If you are interested in helping to improve the lives of young people in our area then please use this form on their website to get through to Ashley and his team.

Thanks!

Thanks to Emma for backmarking for us this week and thanks to Emily for the pun!

Coming up

• Join us for our monthly pub quiz this Thursday! More details here.
• Want some more running? Come along to our 12km run along the canal this Sunday.
• Next week: a deep clean at St Phillip and St James' Church. Sign up here!

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Great to see lots of people arrive at Mud Dock to help clean up the Gorge today - especially when there was the prospect of a community mission with goats elsewhere!

Our host Mark had asked for some help on the Leigh Woods side today so after a brisk run around the harbourside we found our way to the little lighthouse under the Suspension Bridge and got to work.

Clearly the most important objective was to avoid becoming human flotsam in the process and its pleasing to report that we still have yet to send anyone on an unplanned swim in the Severn. With that achievement in the bag we could concentrate fully on our other objective of clearing as much litter as possible from the banks.

As usual, there was plenty of unusual stuff to be found - though possibly not quite as weird as the coffin that David found previously (a theatrical prop we hope!). However, we did find a few small toys this time - a heart, necklace, baby and mouse among them. All of which looked rather eerie after being washed up on the mud.

In 45 mins we pretty much cleared the whole space and in doing so managed to fill a couple of bags of rubbish each. In fact Mark assured me that our highly trained GoodGym hands can do in hour what 100 SAS volunteers manage in two - praise indeed!

What a fun day of gardening, singing, and hanging pieces of toast on trees !

A very special welcome to new GoodGym runners Katy and Rozzi! It was also lovely to have Matt and Richard over from GoodGym Bristol :)

After a chilly run along the canal we arrived at the orchard and were put straight to work assembling a marquee and laying down a path so that guests at the Wassail could stay dry and safe. With half an hour to spare before lunch we were able to help chop up lots of branches from some elder trees - a task which would usually take a whole day - while our host, Keith, entertained us with myths about elder trees and witches!

A short jog over the canal took us to our well-deserved pub lunch.

We spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying all of the weird and wonderful traditions of the Wassail. Hopefully all our efforts banging saucepans, singing, and hanging up bread will pay off and there will be a bountiful harvest of apples this year!