Tonight a good 15 gymers got together to help out at a NEW project

Our newest start location was Chapter Arts Centre, making our total run a 7km distance today. Welcome back Adam, it's been so long but feels like you never left.

Michael made the promise of not throwing in extra workouts due to the distance, so we began our warm up over in a car park with the usual high knees, butt kicks etc.

The walk / jog group set off first then the speedy runners 5 minutes later, it was a nice simple straight route for the group session. We arrived just in the nick of time to see the organiser setting up everything that we would need, the tasks were to paint the front of the building to spruce it up, paint some tyres out in the back area to be used as planters once dry, to tidy up the grounds around the side of the building from weeding, hoeing to pruning back the larger vegetation and finally helping to pack up chairs and trestle tables ready for a local charity to borrow in the morning.

We split into teams and got to work, the painters getting busy throwing around the paint to help brighten the Church a bit and the tyres a lot.

Martin and Adam headed inside and began moving trestle tables and then folding chairs and putting them onto the trolley, it didn't take long to complete the work inside so they could then get out and join everyone in the sunshine.

The rest of the crew got busy in the grounds surrounding the building, it didn't take long before the green bin was full and it was all looking much more tidy and clean. We gathered the troop for our group photo, everyone was very chatty tonight but we finally managed a photo.

We made our way back to the start location for some food and a nice social. Next week we will be plogging so get signed up.

A new destination for GGC&V as a group headed out to St Timothy's Church, Caerau. After getting out of hand during the Covid lockdowns the group was there to help return the church garden back to its former glory, creating a pleasant, safe green space that can be enjoyed as a quiet space for the local community.

With little more than moments to catch their breath on arrival the group were handed shears, loppers, rakes and secateurs and set to work trimming down the front hedges and raking around the side of the church.

Nathan was left wondering what he'd done or said, as he was sent off on his own to the left while the rest of the group tackled the right, and chatted, and laughed and had a good catch up. He did however leave with a clear horticultural conscience avoiding the massacre of in bloom roses that was needed to level the hedge.

After an hour the group tucked into some well earned ice lollies and had a catch up about the return of group runs, drawing up a shortlist of suitable pubs for a start/finish location.