On this sunny eve in May, the GoodGymers of Bristol were once again on the hunt to help.

AU, get up that golden hill*

*science pun

A small group of adventurous volunteering-warriors were led by Paul (who thought he had got away from all this Run Leading malarky) on a 7.5km run (on a Tuesday!) up the quad-complaining hill to Golden Hill Community Allotments.

There, Pete from Golden Hill introduced them to their task: clearing a hefty pile of stuff from an area of the allotment, ready for a polytunnel to be built there in the future. As our hunters love to help in any way they can, they whipped up the area into order in no time, and set on their merry way on the quad-thanking downhill home.

Can you believe the amount of tins?

This left a larger group of help-hunters prowling central Bristol to find a good cause to get stuck into. Although it took three different routes of different lengths to get there (thank you Liam and Mel for opening my eyes to the many streets of Bristol!), we all eventually made it to the East Bristol Food Bank distribution centre.

Andy from the Foodbank had set up not one, but two, weighing stations, so we could double our speed and joy of using them scales. Amidst tinned-tomato proposals, the group did a brilliant job of sorting food donations, carting crates and emptying boxes to leave Andy's team with a lot of boxes of categorised and weighed food ready for distribution. Well done team!

Just in case everyone's arms had not been pumped up enough on their task, the run home saw us stop for a couple of joyous tricep dip and press up stations and I only got drowned out by complaints for half of that time, win!

It was brilliant to see lots of new faces out with us tonight, you all did a brilliant job and we are looking forward to seeing you again soon!

Well, I never. On the first day of May, we had *58 GoodGymers *come out to play! Breaking Bristol GoodGym (and - TBC - GoodGym) history, this massive group of helpful and fit peeps got dug in around Bristol tonight. A big welcome to all of the new runners who joined us tonight, and it was great to see the Bristol Uni Medical Students back again.

Fifty-great

The group split up to do two tasks. Charlie and Sally did a wonderful job taking 18 runners up to join forces with Bristol Waste and Streetscene. The group were handing out information to student accommodation in the area on how to recycle and properly dispose of their things before moving out at the end of the month. They did not stop there: while the group ran the streets of Redland and Cheltenham Road doing this, they got stuck in de-tagging lamposts and wheelie bins around the area.

Fifty- 'wait, how many?'

Meanwhile, the other 40 of us went to Emmaus for Round Three of the great tale of *GoodGym v. Prickly Bush. * Big thanks to Tom, Mel and Matt for their skillful run-leading and back-marking to get us all over there and back safely.

Xanne from Emmaus met us to greet the many new runners and tell us about the wonderful work they do at Emmaus to help homeless people rebuild their lives through their holistic approach. We then set to work - while some of the group did an exceptional litter picking job round the area, a group gave the two Emmaus vans a quick clean up and the rest of the team got down to the bushy business.

The prickly bush put up a very good fight, but with a 30-strong group working on it with all manner of tools, it finally gave way just as the clock struck the time to fit in our run home (strangely enough, it seemed to take just enough time for no-one to have to do a burpee this evening at all...).

Fifty-ate

Following all of this running around it was time for our monthly GoodGym Eats. We descended on Las Iguanas for burritos and cocktails ahoy. Thank you for organising a great night Liam!

A brave bunch of souls defied the returning April showers this evening as we ran to Victoria Park to help the Action Group fix up the willow tunnel that GoodGym Bristol helped put up two years ago. It was great to see several new faces in the crowd - we are looking forward to seeing you all again soon!

Fun fact: did you know 'Soy Sauce' means 'I am willow' in Spanish?

After Dave successfully found a bunch of short cuts (including some through the bushes...) to keep the groups neck and neck on the run there, everyone got (literally and figuratively) muddy with a very competitive game of Stuck in the Mud. The Bristol Medical Students almost got a full house of stuck GoodGymers, but the red t-shirts fought back at the very last minute.

Alex from the Victoria Park Action Group taught us about willow's wicked and wonderful ways. The willow keeps growing in all directions so the tunnel requires regular attention to keep it looking great. We were soon set to work weaving, knotting and rebuilding the willow. We even saw Paul showing us his task skills after stepping-down from Bristol Trainer! The group did a great job of fixing it up and even building some windows for the tunnel - I am sure you couldn't even feel the rain through that perfect structure at the end!

Well done to everyone for their great work tonight and thank you for welcoming me as the new Trainer for Bristol - I am looking forward to many (warmer) weeks to come!

Also, some fantastic inputs to Strava puns tonight... putting my newbie pun-attempts to shame (Matt, Darren, I am looking at you)!

The first truly light evening and doesn't it feel great! After a spot of antonym warm-up we headed straight out to Portland Square to help the Portland and Brunswick association give the space a good spring clean.

This involved picking up stray twigs and branches that had collected on the path during the Winter months and sherpening up the edges using shovels and brooms. We also took the opportunity to have a bit of a litter pick so by the end of the session the square was looking pretty sharp - with all the right angles.

There was just enough light left for a group photo before finishing with running train chase around the newly cleared path and a game of Squatopia in the middle.

Thanks to the association for coming so well prepared with brooms and shovels (and to Bristol Waste for litter pickers and bags) - we look forward to helping out again in the future. Also, nice to report plenty of residents coming up and thanking our runners for all their hard work tonight - top work folks!