Very well

Last night’s GoodGym mission was all about elbow grease and elevation as we set off for One Church on Florence Road to give their kitchen a seriously deep clean.

We kicked things off with a short but steep run up Ditchling Hill and arrived with hearts pumping and ready to scrub.

Our task for the evening: turn a hardworking community kitchen from grubby to gleaming. This kitchen supports amazing projects like Chomp, which runs free school holiday lunch clubs for families on low incomes.

Armed with an arsenal of sprays, cloths, scrubbing brushes, and determination, we tackled every surface from top to bottom.

Fridges? Sparkling. Worktops? Shining. That one mystery corner no one wanted to look at? Conquered.

By the end, the kitchen was gleaming, our arms were tired, and we had used enough cleaning product to register it as a new GoodGym member.

Massive kudos to the team for their hard work and good vibes. A top-notch effort all round.

What a great session to welcome Omolade, aka Molly, in our community!

On an evening of glorious (and, some might say, blinding) sunshine, this week's mission was at Wilding Waterhall, a former golf clubhouse turned in a multi-purpose community oasis perched on chalk grassland with knockout views of the South Downs, aka miles away from Brighton city centre up a not insignificant hill on the other side of the A27. Undeterred, the GoodGym team racked up the mileage by wheel or shoe to impress their Strava followers before tackling a menu of painting, window cleaning and weeding tasks with the usual combo of fired-up energy and miscellaneous chit-chat.

Rob, Events & Venues Officer from Brighton & Hove Food Partnership (BHFP), welcomed the group, served up glasses of orange squash (prompting a Proustian moment for some) and was duly impressed by the transformed walls, windows and paths at the end of the session. BFHP, who manage the venue, also run the Brighton & Hove Community Kitchen, another GoodGym regular destination due for another visit later in May.

As a poster fixed to a wall in the venue attested, Wilding Waterhall is part of the National Trust-led Changing Chalk partnership, which through rewilding aims to "restore lost landscapes and habitats, bring history and local cultures to life and provide new experiences in the outdoors".

This mission coincided with Mental Health Awareness Week, a cause very much allied to the ethos of GoodGym and the dual wellbeing boost that comes from volunteering and physical exercise, and to the work at Wilding Waterhall, promoting the restorative power of a spectacular natural environment 🐎🦗🌳

What a great GoodGym group session demonstrating once again the power of a community that cares!

WHAT's ON NEXT at GoodGym Brighton?
Plenty to amuse you to join us. EVERYBODY is welcome!

Sherman and I picked up the posters for the Paddle Out Protest and the next day Liam joined me to distribute them. We covered the Laines and nearby streets. We talked to people working in cafes, restaurants, clothes shops, art galleries and many more. Everyone we met was very warm and friendly and supportive of the cause. A lot of people in Brighton are concerned with the situation of sewage dumping in our beaches and the quality of the water. We hope that this task will help raise awareness regarding the upcoming protest and eventually a solution can be found. Photos of the business that’s accepted the posters are included in this report.

Marshalling at Hove Parkrun was another fun way to start the day. Cheering and hopefully motivating the walkers, joggers and runners on warm Saturday morning.

Mr. E is housebound due to a respiratory illness and relies on Co-op food deliveries for his groceries. Co-op is currently experiencing a nationwide system outage and aren't offering any delivery slots.

Due to this Mr. E has been unable to get fresh food. After going to meet him to collect the cash we visited the 2 Co-ops at Seven Dials to get the things he needed. Unfortunately the system issue impacts the stock in the stores too and we couldn't get everything.

Mr. E was still very grateful for the bits we could get to tide him over for a few more days.