We had a great turnout of runners, with 10 of us meeting at the Peace Statue and running to the task. Two others cycled to the site, and three more met us directly there, making a fantastic group of 14 ready to get to work. We welcomed new member Susie, and Charli returning for her second session, to the team.

We were helping out at St Thomas Fund, a residential rehabilitation service in Brighton & Hove run by the charity Change Grow Live. They offer a safe space for adults on their journey to becoming free of drugs and alcohol. Sean, who welcomed us, gave a fantastic introduction to the organisation, the site and their mission, explaining that our task was to transform a bindweed-covered area into a usable space for yoga and meditation.

The area was completely carpeted in weeds. We even found a rake that the tenacious bindweed had tried to consume! We had a laugh wondering how long you'd have to sunbathe before it took you over, too. But the team, including Sean, with tools and gloves provided by St Thomas Fund, made short work of it.

Nicola and Sarah did a particularly fantastic job of rescuing a fig tree from the grip of the bindweed. By the end of the session, the whole area looked transformed. You could see the soil in the beds again, and we filled somewhere between 10 and 20 bags with weeds and rubbish.

Sean seemed to be really happy with what we achieved, emphasizing how the collective effort of so many volunteers can make a huge difference in a short amount of time. It was a great feeling to see the space ready for residents to use for peaceful activities. A big thank you to Sean and St Thomas Fund for having us.

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.

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! 🌈🎉🎂

On an evening that offered a blustery and overcast reprieve from the recent heatwave, the Brighton GoodGym gang again dialled up the kms to advance on one of Brighton's most celebrated woodland spaces Stanmer Park to offer assistance at a true hidden gem (including in that some have got lost finding it), the Centre for Ecotherapy.

Tonight's task menu offered two contrasting assignments. One group was allocated to clearing a clearing by hacking back buddleia (which can grow invasively fast), using hand saw and bare hands to expand a space large enough for a breathwork and art therapy tent to be pitched. The other contingent was assigned to weeding and laying down woodchips around a pond in an idyllic glade, bringing wheelbarrow loads from a nearby area with huge rolling mounds of woodchip, using eagle-eyed sifting to avoid damp, mouldy or green chips.

Afterwards the team rested on tree stumps under the Centre's shelter, built in 2016 with 8 wooden pillars and a reciprocal roof, a type of roof where interlinking bits of wood support each other to keep it standing, an apt visual metaphor for the power of teamwork. Liz, manager at the Centre for Ecotherapy, offered rewards to the group by way of chickpea stew and raita, chocolate cake and herbal tea using a trusty old Kelly Kettle, telling a tale of how at her auntie's 90th they had a four-way Kelly Kettle race to see whose would boil first (and one can only imagine the accompanying sports commentary).

Liz also relayed how the Centre for Ecotherapy aims to help vulnerable people in the local community, where they receive many referrals from health practitioners, for nature-based and horticultural therapies, meditation and practical activities. They also have an organic allotment garden and an "organic wilderness" area. While many find sanctuary at the centre (one moving testimonial on the website simply says "I felt alive today"), Liz explained that they are very reliant on donations and volunteering for support.

Liz invited GoodGym Brighton to return on 26th July to the Stanmer Organics Open Day which also coincides with the Maverick East Sussex trail races being held at Stanmer, an event already on the GoodGym running radar, so an imminent return to the woods is very much on.