It was a surprisingly mild and sunny evening as we headed towards the historical church of St James with tools and gloves in hand.

The church, surrounded by so many old buildings in the Old Town, is set back from the Quay and is seeped in history.

The church, originally built in 1142, demolished and rebuilt starting from 1819, it hosts old historical flags, stained glass windows and even a font from around 1770.

We last visited St James pre Covid, so it was lovely to return to help with the ground maintenance.

We picked the side area near the office entrance and to the East of the main door to clear around the weeds and grass from the slabs and the gully. It was surprisingly difficult to get some of the weeds out and they took a lot of persuasion! Patricia had clearly remembered this as she had brought a special tool just for the job! Robert who had already walked down the road carrying a broom took a little while to straigten up at the end, just showing how engrossed in the task he was! Elizabeth and Christine had already ran in for over 2 miles down the Quay with their usual fresh faces, smiles and ready for hard graft.

After around 45 mins, we bagged up, downed tools and headed for the Quay. It was a delight to see people outside, enjoying eating and drinking with friends and family after seeing so many places closed up. The sound of laughter and chatting voices, many layers and coats and the smell of food cooking.

We ran down towards Baitor and into the park and back round along the Quay again. We are truly so blessed to have the beauty of the water so close to us, to run along, chat and admire the sky above us.

We are now slowly getting back into tasks so it is time to start gathering back up the old Goodgym members who joined us previously, hopefully welcome new ones and to keep on with the great tasks we have and keep up this great experience of Goodgym!

Wahoo - Great to have 3 newbies tonight! Jane, Fiona and Andrea all came to join us at Goodgym.

Fiona heard about us from a conversation with Ali at parkrun so love how the word is spreading.

Andrea, a previous couch graduate is fit, active and loves to walk / run where she can so it is great we have these local tasks coming up now with this option!

Tonight was the return to St James taking our new lights and thankfully not the rain (Brian said he had a word with the boss up there to keep it dry for us!). We started with our warm up in the park doing a bit of indian file to get the heart pumping - followed by the introduction of a couple of drills. It all remained highly serious and focused at the point of doing the A-Skips - well sort of - there was singing, dancing and far too much fun for a drill session! (I am sure it was all led by the ever so lovely Hilary!!!) Also another chance to crack those heel pulls - that part looked pretty pro!

Onto the Church it was and few bits of looping back gave us all a chance to pace as we wanted. Thanks to Andrea for being the back marker and Fiona gets kuddos for all the looping back she did! Richard had volunteered (sort of) to head up the front!

At the church Brian (Hence the title!) was found around the back, ready with a green bin and some tools! We had a new area to work on tonight, outside the back entrance, the paving was pretty overgrown in between all the stones. Lights up and gloves on, it was a matter of only 20 mins before the area was clear! We managed to do a few extras around the entrance as well and quite an impressive change could be seen!

We have already recieved an email from the office Admin, Sharon, who was very impressed by the amount of work achieved last night!

If you look closely, you will see which runner has the light shining out from within (no names - eh Richard!)

Great to welcome back Tim for the second time who quietly listens as the rest of us babble on the background! Elizabeth tan fortuately was limited in its ability to show off given the now dark nights! The rain held off the the entire task as predicted by Patricia after we got pretty wet last time on route to the church!

Well done to Nicola, Ali, Sarah and Jane for runs at the weekend including a 2 min PB for our Ali!

Great atmosphere again tonight - I came back home feeling incredibly energised from the postive vibes!

The weather is changing as we head towards the end of September - Sharon from the church office doubled checked if we needed to cancel due to the forecast that morning! But I reassured her we are a hardly bunch, us runners, and will be there as planned!

Sure enough there was a solid 6 tonight and a special guest appearance from Ali who had just come off boat from Isle of Wight and came just for the task!

We took the longer path around Baitor and down the quay on the way there - it was a pretty blustery journey, the type you love or hate! Something about wind, rain and sea however that is so powerful! We added in a few bench intervals but stuck together as a group - Sarah may just have made a big mistake by saying she was 'lazy' when avoiding one of the sprint sections - food for a running coach! Ann showed off her track work by blasting out these sections pretty easily along with Richard who I am soon to find some drills for!

St James church is a fantastic community church that puts on so many community events, ceremonies etc and is right in the heart of Poole Quay. I was married there 12 years ago last week and turns out Pat found a great aunt who had married there previously. The church is also seen by so many visitors and tourists so an important church to maintain and keep looking beautiful as well as safe on access.

We were met by Sharon and Brian - who is the church verger (and has a great laugh!) who gave us some tools and we got on with it. Turns out pulling weeds from the paving is a great squat workout - I know that Ann has felt it this morning after the night before! It is also pretty therapeutic especially seeing results so quickly! Light was quickly fading and by the time it was 30 minutes gone, the light had gone with it and we were all a bit damp from the drizzly rain but ready for a direct run home and stretch. Not a single complaint from Hilary who works quietly away in the background and love how in that 30 mins Hilary got to know a little about Brian too! Hope your new hair cut was not ruined by the rain Pat! :)

We hope we can come back to the church in the future - perhaps something indoors for the winter :)

Great to chat about task possibilities going forward, vision boards and our own life's - there is definitely something bonding over running and a physical task to give people chance to open up - Goodgym really is our therapy!