That’s three consecutive weeks of Star Wars puns!

It was our first indoor task for a while tonight as we helped out the Scope charity shop. Scope are a charity that increase opportunities for disabled people and their shops are a big source of income.

It was quite an eye opener seeing behind the scenes and all the work that needs to be done sorting through donations. Heather, the shop manager, and her team are doing a fine job working in a very small area but the donations keep coming in so they can always do with more help. Our jobs included sorting through boxes of shoes to make sure they were all pairs (a surprising amount weren’t) and in a reasonable condition to sell. Helena & Laura had a fantastic time sorting through a huge pile of handbags and Laura declared she would be happy to do the same task every week!

Everybody else worked on bar coding, tagging donations and taking the rubbish out to the bins. There is a clever barcoding system to track who donated what so they can get an email letting them know how much their donation raised. Another system marks how long the items have been on the shop floor, if they haven’t sold within 14 days it gets sent to another store and sold for £1 per item. Charity shops are not only a great way to raise money they are also a fantastic recycling facility!

After 45 minutes we wrapped things up to head out into the drizzle for a fitness session. We did descending ladders of paired exercises starting at 10 dropping by 2 each time to 2 of squats/press ups then lunges/tricep dips and finally the leg destroying burpees/squat jumps.

Well done people. More good done, more runs run!

Oh what a big hill to get to tonight’s task! All the way to the top of Elm Grove! But we made easy work of it especially Laura who claims that prior to her first Goodgym run 2 weeks ago she’d never been for a run! And yet she was right at the front of the group, chatting comfortably all the way, despite revealing that she’s not too many years away from being eligible for a mission! Great work!

Our task was helping the residents of May Road reclaim a neglected area behind some flats that had become a target for anti-social behaviour. A local resident told us it had got really bad so the neighbours had got together and organised a clean up. They’d made massive progress and one end of the area was clear and ready for planting spring bulbs. So that was the task for half the group whilst the other half continued with clearing dense brambles and generally tidying up. Perhaps the trickiest job was getting the long, tangled mess of brambles into bags but we persevered and by the end all the brambles were cut back and bagged up.

A few suggestions for the pun were made before previous pun of the month nominee Lydia suggested sticking with the Star Wars theme from last week and the pun was done!

See you next week for an indoor task and a big fitness session!

Tonight the force was truly with us as we formed an alliance with our fellow ‘get fit and volunteer’ force for good Hove Prom parkrun!

Much of Brighton and Hove’s pebble beach was last week deposited onto the prom by force of nature Storm Eleanor. This meant that Hove Prom parkrun had to cancel the run last Saturday as the course was deemed too dangerous. But tonight Goodgym Brighton came to the rescue and swept vast quantities of pebbles back onto the beach where they belong.

As there weren’t enough brooms and shovels for you all to work together we paired you up with ‘A’ sweeping hard for 3 minutes whilst ‘B’ completed a minute of exercise and then had a bit of a rest before swapping over. We did this for 8 rounds so each of you had a full 24 minutes of hard sweeping and shovelling and 8 minutes of strength and conditioning to add to your 4.5km run!

For anyone reading this who doesn’t know about parkrun then check it out here.It’s a free 5km timed run that happens at parks all the across the country and the rest of the world at 9am on Saturday morning. It’s very friendly and inclusive and is for everybody regardless of fitness levels. It’s the best way to start your weekend and I for one hate to miss it.

This Saturday 13th Jan we will be having our monthly Goodgym Brighton parkrun meet up at Hove Prom so we can feel great seeing all the runners enjoying the course that we swept free of pebbles tonight. Let us know if you are coming hereand don’t forget your barcode! And there is a Goodgym starter session after that you can sign up for here.

Tonight we welcomed Adamand Lee for the first time. Great to have you on board and hope to see you again!

You all worked incredibly hard tonight, you are fitter than you were yesterday and the world is a slightly better place! Be proud!