The railings along St Marks Community Centre needed a re-shine so we started the task by brushing off the old flakey paint, before we started to paint the railings to give it a re-shine with new black sticky paint and we were offered some short breads to keep us going and so we maybe doing some more in the coming months?

The garden was giving a bit of a taming (like the shrew) Cow parsley and Carex were hoisted out of the ground and ready for green wasting. Messy compost bed with much debris was sieved to hopefully a fine tilth for a small compost bed and new vegetable bed. The garden scene was slightly calmer after physical efforts should be slightly less overwhelming to wonder through due to some of the big plants losing their place in the sun.

Composting area will decompose more efficiently and the new vegetable bed is ready to go.

A group of GoodGymmers made their way to St Marks Church in Widcome. We have been back to help their team of volunteers maintain their garden area (used by a variety of community groups).

The wider piece of work at the church is to rebuild a wall that has fallen into disrepair over time.

We split into two groups again. Emily J and I helped the two lead volunteers gather rocks and build a more stable platform to walk along near the wall. We found some awesome beetles amongst the rocks as well as a few big spiders! And Jer, Rob and Emily K toiled away digging the top layers of soil to make an area for the builders to work on the top of the wall.

We saw an impressive variety of wildlife in the forest and we even treated ourselves to a cake from the bake sale being run by a local school (purely for the sugar boost, of course!)

Today we were helping out the St Marks Community Centre in their garden area. A section of retaining wall in the deepest darkest part of the garden was crumbling and they needed help digging out the soil behind the wall to allow for easier repair. This was a Herculean task with all the garden weapons, whilst also trying to avoid maiming each other with forks, spades and mattocks.

Rachel, Aaron, Emily K, and David started attacking the section - pulling back ivy and thick roots to try and get to the soil underneath. We finally got a good rhythm going, breaking up the soil, shoveling into a wheelbarrow and wheeling off to a growing pile. Particularly satisfying was digging down and around an embedded metal fencing stake with Aaron finally being able to pull it out like King Arthur and the sword in the stone.

Meanwhile as there wasn't enough room for us all near the wall Sam and Emily J pulled back ivy from a fence in another part of the garden, and cleared a fresh section of path to make it easier to get access.

Whilst we didn't finish our task today we helped clear the area to make it easier to continue and let the organisers see how much soil they still need to shift.

4 runners spent a sunny morning at St Mark's Community Centre in Widcombe reclaiming a space long lost to brambles!

The community centre has a fantastic garden which is regularly used by the local play group and forest school. There is a retaining wall on the site which has seen better days and some stone masons are coming to repair it. owever, they need a safe space to store their tools and materials away from the young people who come and use the garden.

At first, the task looked very daunting (of course we forgot to take a 'before' picture to show you the transformation!) - there were lots of brambles, ivy and nettles and some strange items of rubbish, including a selection of plastic dinosaurs and lizards?! We even managed to reclaim some old Victorian garden edging stones!

However, 2 hours later, the space was transformed. Emily, Emily, Dora and Sam got to work with spades, shovels and mattocks to break up the ground remove the weeds and redistribute the soil to create a clear, flat space that can now be used by the stone masons.

Sweaty work - we are hoping once the stone masons are done, the area might be transformed further into a nice patio area for enjoying an ice cold beverage or two!

On a dark and cold Tuesday evening, 19 volunteers ran to St Mark’s Church in Widcombe to paint the railings that surround the building. This importance maintenance work needs doing regularly, so GoodGym were called in to do the job! We worked hard in teams to cover all of the railings were were assigned. Our host, Phillipa, was incredibly happy with our work and we hope to come back soon to help out again!

Welcome to Abbey and Cameron!

We welcomed two new runners tonight, Abbey and Cameron. We were delighted to welcome them to the group at the beginning of the session. Both of them heard about GoodGym through a friend so if you know anyone that would be interested make sure to invite them along to join us!

After a quick warm-up we ran along the River Avon, across Widcombe Parade and met Phillipa outside the church.

Don’t paint on my parade!

This Group Run followed on from our task last week where we visited the church to scrub the old paint off of the railings. Phillipa and Alex, our hosts, kindly had all the paint and brushes set up for us. We donned some gloves and broke off into teams of 2-3 people to paint sections of the railings.

The church is frequently used by a variety of community groups for all-manner of activities. There are dog training classes, a children’s pre-school group and ballet classes. This task was important as we helped make sure the railings are insulated against the weather conditions so that the church can remain open and safe for all to benefit from.

Paint-ron saints of volunteering!

With our classic GoodGym enthusiasm and work ethic we finished most of the task earlier than expected. This meant there was time for more running for those that wanted it! At GoodGym we cater for all abilities and so when some of the group asked to do some more training Emma volunteered to take them up to Holloway to do some Hill Reps. This is a great technique to efficiently get some good exercise; especially if you live in hilly Bath!

After thanking Phillipa for hosting us, some of us ran back a longer route via Pultney Road, Great Pultney Street and then along the river back to the Leisure Centre.

Walk Leader

Thanks to Emily for very kindly volunteering to be our Walk Leader tonight. We had some takers who appreciated this new element of the Group Runs. This is a new feature of the Group Runs where members of Taskforce will lead a walking group to the task and back from the task. Members of Taskforce can sign up as a Walk Leader online when they sign up to a task.

Thanks to Chris for backmarking for us and thanks to Emma for leading the Hill Rep running session. And thanks to Joe for this week's pun!

Next week

Next week we are flyering for Send a Cow. They are to advertise their places in the Bath Half marathon. Sign up here!

Community Missions

• On Saturday 24th November we are flyering for Age UK. Sign up here!

We have organised a really fun pair of Christmas-themed Community Missions:

• On Saturday 1st December we will be helping set up the Saltford Santa Dash. Sign up here!
• We also be helping to marshall the event the following day on Sunday 2nd December. Sign up here!

Social Media

Please like/follow us on social media and share/retweet our content! We are on Facebook and Twitter

Organisations are already getting in contact with us through these platforms and this means we are securing more varied tasks for you to enjoy!