It was a long weigh to go to our task tonight, 3km in each direction to get to St George's Hall in Moulsecomb to meet up with Cllr Kate Knight who helps run a Social Supermarket from the hall.

First a warm welcome to Mel joining us for the first time. It was great to chat about your very interesting job (enhancing the health of rivers) and great to have you along!

The weather was great for running, no wind and a cooling drizzle but not so great for outdoor weeding so Cllr Kate redeployed us to the inside of the hall to help get organised for the social supermarket which happens on Wednesdays. This is a great scheme where members pay £3.50 per week to shop from a bank of donated food and goods. Tasks tonight included breaking down bulk packeted goods into smaller parcels, for example weighing large 10kg bags of rice into 1kg bags, counting teabags and nappies into smaller parcels. There was a also a box of donated greetings cards to be sorted, a large pile of cardboard boxes to be broken up for recycling and some large rubbish bins to be painted to identify as belonging to the hall.

We got all the jobs done in about 20 minutes and headed back into the night for the 3km run back to base, although a significant part of the group decided the best weigh to go was to get the bus!!

Did it rain I was asked? No....it didn't rain...it was more than rain...it was an experiment in land irrigation using water balloons in the sky that were pricked with a giant pin. Bevendean Down Park Run was our first endeavour and the weather decided to test us. Horizontal rain, skies darker than a November day and cow pats to dodge. Then as we finished, the rain became seriously torrential, so much so that it caused the phones used for scanning to pack up. After some delay it was fixed and we made our way to the Bevy.....oh hang on...it was closed!! Onwards in Tara's Park Runmobile towards Stanmer and an underwhelming veggie breakfast served by the world's most fed up waitor! To the task... St.Georges Community Hall. We met Tracy(?) who provided us with tools aplenty and despite their only being 3 of us we managed to clear all the paths of weeds and edged away. Not only that but the rain held off too. Provided with flapjack, butternut squash and peppers we squelched off into the distance...well Tara's car. What a morning!

We returned to the welcoming St. Georges Hall in Moulscoomb for another round of weeding. We were meet by task owner Kate, who told us about all the fantastic donations she was receiving from food and cosmetic manufacturers to be part of their Social Supermarket - a supermarket for those who are low income families, where they can buy great produce with dignity and choice.

Tonight's task was a continuation of our previous visit to rid the hall's grounds of weeds that had sprouted in the parking bays and herb garden. With a variety of tools on hand Michael and Rosemary tackled buddleia and other overbearing weeds on one side of the site, with Nancy and Juliet giving the weeds a good seeing to on the other.

Jason and Susan had the unenviable task of identifying the herbs from the weeds in the herb garden which needed a bit of an overhaul to make room for the herbs to grow and be used in community cooking activities.

It was quite the transformation, and great to see the hall in daylight for the first time as our visits to St. Georges typically take place in winter. As always, Kate never likes to see us go empty handed and some Goodgymers ran home with apples and jalapeño sauce! Not that we need much of an incentive to visit St. George's Hall, but there was definitely pleased faces all round!

Tonight a group of Brighton Goodgymers ran to Moulsecoomb to help Kate at St George's Hall. The hall has had a paint job since our last visit making it so eye catching this Goodgymer thought the flags from Glastonbury were out! Armed with the Hall's gardening tools we attacked the weeds that have re-emerged since our last visit back in October. Despite the chilly wind we made quick work of the path ways and were rewarded with chocolate from Kate. Great fuel for the runs and cycles back home. Looking forward to returned to St George's Hall soon to help with the planting of their herb garden!

'Twas the chilliest night since winter began,

To St Georges Community Hall we ran.

Pruning and pulling and sweeping and hauling,

This is, after all, GoodGym's wintery calling.

Never mind frozen fingers and noses and toes,

Determined and focused, we gardened like pros.

After hot mugs of tea, for warming and sipping,

'Twas into the chipping with snippings and clippings.

May St Georges Hall welcome one, welcome all,

With just a little more warmth and community call.

Celebrations all round tonight as David turned 50 something and 101 on the same evening and that’s just three days after turning 100! I’ll leave it up to you guys to decide if he will be receiving a telegram from the queen or a new Goodgym winged t-shrt in the post this week!

We all wish David a very happy birthday and I for one am very thankful for all of his hard work and commitment to Goodgym over the past few years. I really hope you enjoyed the firework display we organised to celebrate!

A great task for us tonight with lots to do and lots of space for us to do it. - and ginger biscuits and chocolate chip cookies!!! Local councillor Kate has established a social supermarket in St George’s Hall in Moulsecoomb providing cheap food to local residents. But the grounds of the building are looking a little tatty and neglected so that’s where we came in.

Jobs included weeding the pathways around the building, cutting back some out of control clematis, weeding a herb garden, lopping back some big shrubs, scraping, sweeping, bagging up and generally giving the place a good spruce up.

Kate was astonished at how much we achieved. With 18 of us working hard for one hour, by my reckoning that’s 3 days labour once you take out all the tea breaks and head scratching! We left about 18 bags of weeds and cuttings to be collected and disposed of by the council, plus loads more that went through the chipper. The front entrance to the building looking much smarter, but still lots to do round the back so we will back soon!

A few of us rounded off the evening by heading to the Gladstone pub to finish the celebrrations. It was a a shame we couldn’t all sit together like in the old days but I can confirm that the inside table was where the party was at! Big thanks to Social Secretary Rosie for organising.