It was a lovely, dry evening to celebrate Ed's 50th good deed and imminent new t-shirt - congratulations!

Back at Dame Emily Park for emergency bulb planting, the tyres moved previously had been stacked as planters and filled most of the way with compost.

Our task was to get the bags of sprouting bulbs into the tyre-planters, right way up, then top-up with woodchip and hide some small bulbs in the top. Much carrying of buckets of woodchip and avoidance of buckets of manure (destined for the raised planters) getting mixed up - top science knowledge from Richard B.

Planters filled, we still had more bulbs so started planting around the wicker dome we lovingly tie new growth into - this time the bulbs were going into grass so some L-shaped lawn-lifting was deployed to hide a bulb each time. Or throw them at Richard G.

We saturated the grass with our bulbs and time was nearly up so it was time for Polish wafers from Ursula, end of task photos (we did enjoy it, honestly!) and off back to Queen Square for GoodGym Eats at Suyuan, stopping off at the off-licence for those who wanted to BYO alcohol.

Much food and after some flowering bulb knowledge shared with Harsheh, we were on our ways home, with one GoodGymmer declaring she was rushing to get home as she was on an early shift tomorrow, until Frances saw there was no queue at the Bristol Light Festival swings and she was off in a flash.

Special thanks to Vaguely Northern Darren for run leading (no-one mention bulbs), Caroline for back-marking and Jason for beating me to Workout to meet other GoodGymmers as they arrived.

Many red t-shirts make light work and 17 is definitely many!

Somehow the walkers beat the runners to the Children's Scrapstore and the ITV news rep beat us all to be waiting for us with the Scrapstore staff.

A bit of stage management and us all pretending we liked talking to each other as we walked to the far end of the warehouse, having stripped off our outer layers to be as on-brand as possible for the camera!

Those who were new to the phone task soon understood the process and methods were developed, adapted, abandoned and just ignored as the production line sped towards filling the two empty crates with newly matched up handsets to desk units, plus all the suspiciously "not phone" hits separated for recycling.

Gone are the days of top executives making important deals on these phones, or calling home that they'd be late AGAIN, instead they're off to children's playgrounds for some make believe games, calling home that they'd be late AGAIN and other storytelling...

Somehow, the kit at the bottom of the crates was even dirtier than the rest but we had time to wash hands before our successful end of task photo by two very full crates of matched phones, some of us having been interviewed and all of us keen to get back to Workout where cake was awaiting us to celebrate Alice's 10th anniversary of joining GoodGym and Tim's 200th good deed. It reminded us just how much we like cake, and friends. And cake.

Well done everyone - we smashed it (well, it sounded like we smashed it)!

January may be a time of New Year's Resolutions but whoever had donated all of their old office phones to the Children's Scrapstore had left a bit of a tangled mess, perfect for GoodGym to sort out!

The simple task of attaching a handset to a desktop unit sounded simple but we soon worked out it was MUCH more satisfying if the handset fitted properly into the desktop unit and made the job much harder for ourselves (as well as detangling the handset wires). We never did find the Berkshire 400 handset but we only finished half of the three huge crates, so maybe there's still hope?

Harsheh was the only GoodGymmer to take up the offer of gloves with the rest of us relying on handwashing at the end if the task - not realising quite how dusty the crates and contents were and Jo and Francesdeclaring aprons a good idea next tine were there.

The runners set off, led by Richard whilst the walkers consolidated the remaining phones to be matched ensuring wed emptied at least one of the crates (and found Mariannea Micro USB charger in the mix.

The Scrapstore staff had enjoyed having us back in the warehouse and we'd improved the 80s song knowledge of some of the younger GoodGymmers with Blondie classics "Hanging on the telephone" and "Call me" before descending into cannibalising phone sets and Fine Young Cannibals renditions. A great time all round.

With a lucky break in the weather (but a wee bit chilly), we welcomed Ramani to her first GoodGym task after she arrived for a documebt check and hadn't realised she could stay for the Group Run - hope it's the first of many!

We were all soon being let into the loading bay of Sparks and being let loose on taking down their communal area Christmas decorations, many of which we'd tied into the ceiling back in November. They'd stayed up much better than expected!

Spread over three floors, there was strategic lift manoeuvring and stair climbiing having found cardboard boxes to pack away decorations for use next year (if they survive!) and carefully squished paper lantern decorations to their flat state.

A quick team sport of small LUSH box collapsing and a human chain to over-fill a cupboard and our job was done.

Indoors again next week for our Group Run, in case that tempts you back!

What a night for Harsheh to decide to join in the fun with Bristol GoodGym!

We were spreading cheer throughout the city as three teams set about a Taskmaster-style scavenger hunt to create three photos, which had to include a team member, one for each of three Bristol categories * Brunel * Cabot * Concorde (not a Bristol person, clarified on the night)

Most of you will have heard of Brunel (top engineering bloke, designed railway gubbins, a ship and a bridge or two, see one of the his best. Cabot is well known to people who grew up in Bristol but is just a shopping centre/circus and tower to some later arrivals, is John Cabot, actually an Italian explorer who went to Canada in 1497 even though they didn't have parkrun then. Lots of Concorde was designed in Bristol, with the help of some other people. Concorde Alpha-Foxtrot now lives at [Aerospace Bristol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerospace_Bristol0, which is actaully in South Glos, not Bristol.

Anyway, three teams each of 5 intrepid GoodGymmers set about town, running and walking and using local knowledge or creative crafting, thanks to the Task Bags provided by Richard B who came up with the whole idea, armed with a trusty GG Bristol rechargeable light to enable better photo lighting on a gloomy and, it turned out, soggy night.

So much creativity, the teams were buzzing (or dripping, I can't remember which) when they returned to base, specifically Workout as it was so wet Melanie didn't have to stand outside to judge the team's amazing entries. Setting aside the task was to create three photos, they had so many brilliant creations it would be wrong to not upload them all for everyone to enjoy.

Stars of the show (as well as Richard B for designing the task) are * Jason for coming up with the idea that the Lego store might have a Lego Concorde, which they didn't but the bloke instore happened to have an actual model out the back which he was more than happy^ to bring onto the shop flower and be photographed with it and Jason * Vaguely Northern Darren lying on a cold, wet bench, dressed as Santa, to be a human Concorde * Paul (who hadn't signed up to the run, surprisingly, so I'm now going back to the register to add him and tag him), Jason and Richard also being human Concordes, at a bus stop with a Concorde sign * Alexis boldly wearing a crafted Brunel top hat in the dark, holding up Cabot's ship, The Matthew * A whole family of Brunels/friends of Brunel down at the SS Great Britain (two of them have beards, not sure of all IDs, I think Darren, Ed, Alexis, Matt and Richard B?) * Tim giving John Cabot a reassuring arm hug (is that a thing?), John also sporting a GoodGym t-shirt and Santa hat in another photo, and a Concorde paper plane in a third * A googly eyed Brunel being looked at by another set of googly eyes (there aren't enough googly eyes in the world, and they're not single use plastic they're reusable) * Googly eyes also featuring on a stylish Cabot rendition with some photo-bombing tourists * The Bristol insitution that is Brunel's Buttery, Brunel being famous for his love of doorstep bacon sarnies, which was up for sale in summer and I don't know if it sold, introducing Harsheh to an important Bristol landmark * A photo of Cabot at Brunel House (the hand holding the phone being the GoodGymmer in the photo?! * Clo, Freya, Roddy and Frances successfully avoiding all photos?

And then time for pizza, chips, snacks, chocolate Christmas Pudding prizes, pink wafers and party rings (GG Bristol staple foods) and few mince pies and festive bakewells for good measure.

Thanks for making it a fabulous GoodGym 2024, here's to 2025 being just as good if not even better!

^he might or might not have been bribed