This Tuesday, GoodGym Brighton had a double bill.

Frances, Sarah, Ruth run 13 km from Worthing to Portslade holding the baton at stage 245 of the Relay Your Way - Celebra's nationwide relay travelling 2500km from Glasgow to Windsor and celebrating inclusive sport, movement and play. This epic journey across the UK kicked off at the beginning of June to champion the 1.5 million UK children with disabilities by running, cycling, or wheeling for inclusive sport and play. GoodGym was invited to participate, and so our tree wonder women responded to the contest, facing a challenging hot weather.

Meanwhile, other five GoodGymers gathered at Wellsbourne Health Care Centre to help Lucy to maintain the community and therapeutic garden, located between the Wellsbourne Hub and the Library and growing flowers, plants, trees, vegetables, herbs and fruit, for everyone to pick and eat. Wellsbourne Health Care CIC (Community Interest Company), is a community-run, non-profit GP surgery in East Brighton where hands-on relationship-based care is delivered by people who know well the area, reflective and responsive to the local needs. Wellsbourne Health Care is currently facing a challenging time as at risk to be overtaken by a distant private provider. GoodGym Brighton wished Good Luck with their appeal.

Double Bill, and Double Good, with oranges, cakes and lots of water for our (and plants) refreshment.

Today, aspirant new GoodGymer Rachel took part to our session as part of the Brighton & Hove TAKE PART festival of active living. We wish to meet her again to get active together at our next sessions.

Today the GoodGym gang ran 7 km to Wellsbourne Community Garden and back.

We welcomed new members Paul, Paul and Paul.

Stalwart member Rosie was running her 50th session!

We met Lucy, our task owner, at the Wellsbourne Healthcare Centre. She explained they had a volunteer gardening day tomorrow. Our task was to dig holes to plant wild flowers and plants to attract pollinators. We readied our destructive green fingers and shovels and got to work. Others made swift work of tidying and weeding the garden.

Stefania did a fitness exercise session to work on all those muscles we had neglected while running and digging.

To thank us, lovely Lucy kindly gave us cooking herbs from the garden and chocolate. How nice 🙂!

As runners, we tend to neglect working our upper bodies. Our arms help propel us forward when we run, help pull the bike up those climbs. This weekend's mission challenged this neglect and I'm sure we'll all be knowing about it soon, if not already!

We met Lucy, our task owner, at the Wellsbourne Healthcare Centre to help re-home Terry the Cherry tree. Terry has been chilling in a pretty big pot but getting a little bit too cosy. Jason and Thomas coaxed Terry from their pot while Paul, Stefania and I dug through the chalk to make a hole big enough.

Thanks to Lucy for getting stuck in and fueling us with snacks!

The Community Garden at Wellsbourne is an area for all local residents to enjoy and improve health through contact with nature. The team want a space that is welcoming and that local people feel belongs to them. They have lots more plants and plans to grow in the garden and, as with every garden, there is a need for ongoing maintenance. Lucy from the Centre, asked us to come and help clear some brambles which had been smothering a cherry tree.

As it was a Saturday, we began with Parkrun; East Brighton to be precise, where our task owner Lucy, was Run Director! Having competed the deceptively challenging course and a cup of coffee, we made our way to the Centre and tackled the brambles. We filled a huge "Hippo" bag and encountered many snails and spiders, who were rehomed (but not always ceremonially 🤭).