Celebrations all round tonight as David turned 50 something and 101 on the same evening and that’s just three days after turning 100! I’ll leave it up to you guys to decide if he will be receiving a telegram from the queen or a new Goodgym winged t-shrt in the post this week!

We all wish David a very happy birthday and I for one am very thankful for all of his hard work and commitment to Goodgym over the past few years. I really hope you enjoyed the firework display we organised to celebrate!

A great task for us tonight with lots to do and lots of space for us to do it. - and ginger biscuits and chocolate chip cookies!!! Local councillor Kate has established a social supermarket in St George’s Hall in Moulsecoomb providing cheap food to local residents. But the grounds of the building are looking a little tatty and neglected so that’s where we came in.

Jobs included weeding the pathways around the building, cutting back some out of control clematis, weeding a herb garden, lopping back some big shrubs, scraping, sweeping, bagging up and generally giving the place a good spruce up.

Kate was astonished at how much we achieved. With 18 of us working hard for one hour, by my reckoning that’s 3 days labour once you take out all the tea breaks and head scratching! We left about 18 bags of weeds and cuttings to be collected and disposed of by the council, plus loads more that went through the chipper. The front entrance to the building looking much smarter, but still lots to do round the back so we will back soon!

A few of us rounded off the evening by heading to the Gladstone pub to finish the celebrrations. It was a a shame we couldn’t all sit together like in the old days but I can confirm that the inside table was where the party was at! Big thanks to Social Secretary Rosie for organising.

Tonight's mission was a matter of divide and conquer to cover as much ground as possible! We met with Cllr David Gibson at the bottom of Elm Grove to disperse with paint and rollers to cover as much tagging as we could. Tabitha and Amro joined local resident Francis to cover a wall further up the Lewes Road. Karla and Mathilde took on a large wall at the bottom of Elm Grove while Michael and I took on a few walls around Hannover. Being surprisingly mild this evening a few of us had to strip back to tshirts we were working that quickly!

As the photos show we got a lot covered, including some of ourselves!

Here's hoping to the weather remaining kind as the clocks go back and it gets darker earlier!

A warm welcome to Karla and Mathilde joining us for the first time and a big thanks to Laura for writing tonight's run report!

Once we located a few lost runners we tackled those trees with glee. We cut back unruly growth from the base of the trees on Palmeira Avenue thereby stopping their spread and helping the trees to grow big and strong 💪🏼 . We cleared any litter we came across and generally tidied up the area around the trees. Many of us also discovered the joy of using loppers! That feeling as you seamlessly glide through a bit of branch that had left everyone else stumped (get it?!) Tara’s Mum’s loppers in particular proved a hit. Thanks Tara’s Mum.