Making the most of the of the evening sun we headed to the Bevy. We welcomed back Kitty!

The Bevy Pub– More Than a Pub! The Bevy is the only community run pub on an estate sited in Moulsecoomb at the margins of Brighton & Hove city. As well as pouring a good pint they run events for the whole community including a Kids Club, Disability Disco and Seniors Club. They are struggling for funds but still providing support and activities for the local community, thanks to the support of everyone for More than a Good cause! 😉

We had a longer run of approx 7k with a sting in the tail with a hill at the end!

We were helping master gardener Dave, a very much-loved member of The Bevy community, with the community garden where the produce grown is used for feeding the Seniors Club. The GoodGym Brighton’s group got busy weeding the bushes of berries, under great coordination from Frances, Nicola, Jane and Stefania for tools provision and time keeping! Some of us dug out compost to use as mulch to renjuvinate the soil all around those well managed bushes that are still gifting The Bevy’s chef with succulent little fruits to make apple & berries crumbles. While others prepared soil beds with recycled cardboards and carried out buckets of green waste compost up the sloping garden to improve the fertility and health of the soil, so reducing weed growth in the future. A smaller team, including Pippa, Liam and Ben watered the upper flowery allotment and picked up the grown veg, including beans and squashes that I remember GoodGym volunteers planted here last spring.

In a short time, we made a bit difference to Dave’s garden and left him with a big indulged smile on his face. You, Dave, Warren and all The Bevy’s community volunteers are greatly contributing to the future resilience of such a Good pub!

The Bevy Pub– More Than a Pub! An engaged community of friends and volunteers believing in a shared social good purpose. GoodGym Brighton is proud to befriend you, and we will be happy to return in winter for some painting!

WHAT’s ON GoodGym calendar in Brighton & Hove? SIGN UP to JOIN US! - We're a community of people who get fit by doing good, and everybody is welcome!

Brrr! Yesterday was a cold and rainy evening – a shocking return to the English weather for Stefania but nicely warmed up by the greetings of a grand group of Brighton GoodGym-ers ready for action!

We conquered Victoria Gardens by running several loops and alternating running fitness exercises with speeding up legs to keep us warm before leading to our task. But, this was not there available to our surprise! Never minded, and freewheeling, this GoodGym session turned to be a great social gathering at Lord Nelson Pub, where Michelle organised a quiz night for us, thank you!

GoodGym Teams: ”Good-ER Gym-ERs” and ”Great Guys” quizzed the names of cakes and guessed colours by answering multiple (and more) questions, but there is never a black or white answer for everthing, isn’t here? (Tom’s quote 😉)

We welcomed Matthew to join the fun and return to our future group sessions!

On a humid September evening we ran and cycled down Lewes Road to Moulsecoomb Primary School to help them prepare their school field for the first day of term the following day.

However, this wasn’t just your bog-standard school field. Upon arrival Warren gave us a little tour and showed us the replica Iron Age Roundhouse, a Clay House, some beautiful flowers and a vegetable patch all covered in wild grass plus a new greenhouse. The students get to explore the buildings in their history classes and they help out (and sometimes even enjoy!) maintaining the vegetable patch too. We were joined on the task by first time Goodgymers Andy and Tom - welcome to both!

We were tasked with removing the Bindweed from the Vegetable patch, weeding and moving and bagging the ready-to-go compost from the compost patch. Fittingly, and much like a school disco, we split into a boys group and a girls group, and although we didn’t dance separately we did all roll our sleeves up and get going! Apart from a few vicious (and as yet unidentified) insects in the vegetable patch everything went swimmingly and we were able to leave Warren with a few manageable tasks for the children to finish on their return.

No pub for us afterwards, all the Brighton Goodgymers needed an early night before the first day of school the next day 🤓

One of the longer distances to a mission for much of the GoodGym Brighton crowd, we ran and wheeled our way out west to Vale Park in the beautiful late summer sunshine.

Main mission: removing a huge proliferation of dock plants and bindweed from the park’s beloved yellow rose bed, giving the roses space to really do their thing.

Yellow roses are aptly a symbol of friendship and we always welcome new friends at GoodGym Brighton! Tonight, we were joined by Harrison, Edward, and Nick on their first GoodGym community mission.

Working under the excellent direction of Lucy and other Friends of Vale Park we donned gardening gloves and spread ourselves around the rose beds. Moving between waves of excited chatter and meditative hush, we pulled up plants and unwound bind weed from branches and stems. At points we were all so hidden in the depths of the flowerbeds that only occasional flashes of red t-shirt gave us away.

Creating an ever-growing pyramid of leaves adjacent to the flower bed, we stacked our spoils higher and higher like a childhood game of dare until the pile eventually slumped. Then started all over again.

Roses freed, we ran off into the sunset like the subtle superheroes we all are.

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Ciao Ciao Carla, Bye Bye, lovely friend and GoodGym Brighton Hero.

Tonight, with a sightly tingled heart, GoodGym Brighton said GoodBye to you but we truly believe it is only a "Bye For Now" . Wherever you'll go you will be always shining, having fun and keep dancing💃. You are already a lovely and confident GoodGym Fitness Run Leader and, soon, so you will become for GoodGym Warwick & Leamington Spa. 'Lucky they are' :-), says Stefania

Be [GoodGym] always with you!

You might move elsewhere but our friendship stays forever, and we will be here waiting for your return ❤.

Five of us met at the Queen Victoria's statue and headed to the Brighton & Hove Food Partnership Community Kitchen, where we joined the rest of the GoodGymers. Jo, our task owner, told us about the family community cooking classes they’ve been running all summer to support Brighton & Hove's funded Holidays Activities and Food programmes to beneficiary children and young people who learned how to make simple, healthy and delicious homemade dishes.

Our job tonight was to clean up the kitchen and make it extra welcoming for the final class on the day after.

We were joined by Tabitha, who’s soon moving to Amsterdam, and Carla, who’s also leaving Brighton soon. It was great to have them with us, and they worked hard to make the kitchen shine. If this was our last time seeing Tabitha, we wish her all the best and thank her for everything she’s done with GoodGym ❤️. We look forward to seeing Carla again before she goes 😉.

After a good scrub, the kitchen was spotless and ready for the coming up grand finale of the family cookery class, happening the day after! We got to tick those tasks off the to-do list—a job well done! 🎂

Brighton GoodGym,Bravo!

Do you know that....

As GoodGym volunteer you can participate to cookery classes with a GoodGym discount code. Furthermore, we could attend a 6-week cookery course at the B&H Community Kitchen by accompanying people they support, as referred by TogetherCo. This is an exemplar GoodGym’s mission that could help isolated people to build up routine and feelings of confidence.

For more information, ask our GoodGym Area Lead, Stefania and email hello@togetherco.org.uk

Well this summer continues to evade us, with a lovely day turning into patchy rain by the time we set off to Vicarage Bowls club yesterday evening. Luckily the rain didn't last and we navigated our way through the streets of Brighton out to the bowls club.

We have been regular visitors to the bowls over the years but sadly our host informed that this will be the last season the club is in use. After ninety-six years the club can no longer get the support it needs to keep running so will be closing come September.

With this in mind we set to work to make the planting look its best for the club's final hurrah! The main task was clearing a huge bed of overgrown brambles and weeds. All nine of us set to work cutting and pruning out any unwanted intruders. We had soon created a huge mound of debris filling eight bin bags!

With all this hard work on a humid summer's evening our kind host brought us water and biscuits to keep us fueled up. We then continued on clearing the bed, whilst some of us refreshed the path, with Jane in particular wielding her own weeding knife to great effect.

With such a big task we stayed later to try make a larger dent in the bed, skipping the fitness session. After a few photos we all ran and walked back into Brighton. If this is to be the last time we help the Vicarage Bowls Club then it was a great session to go out on and maybe we'll be back in future to help with whatever replaces the club. Thanks for everything VBC!