We had a long run out to Action on Hearing Loss in Twerton to do some much-needed gardening. We ran 7.5km in total at a good pace and had a good workout. We had lots of fun and can't wait to go back and help Evan, our host, again.

Well done, Emma!

After meeting inside the Leisure Centre in our usual space, we congratulated Emma for smashing the Bath 10km Skyline Run at the weekend. This event was organised by Relish Running and they have lots of other events coming up soon, so if you are interested in entering a race then check out the listings here.

Welcome Chris!

We welcomed a new runner to the group, Chris. Chris quickly fitted in with the group and became one of the team on this task. We hope to see you again!

We ran through the town centre and along Lower Bristol Road. Unfortunately it is still too dark to run along the river, but we stayed safe by obeying the traffic lights, staying as a group, making sure that people with reflective clothing/lights were always visible and using a backmarker to make sure noone got lost.

We fork it was easy!

Evan welcomed us when we got to the task. Action on Hearing Loss is a shared living space for people with hearing difficulties. We regularly help Evan maintain the grounds on our Tuesday runs.

Last night we were tasked with removing a load of weeds and clearing a path of dead leaves and grass. This task was important because some one the residents have mobility and sight challenges so we made sure that the paths were safe and clear.

We didn't frog-get to clean up!

Chris discovered a frog (sadly not a new species), Chris/Kiran/Tim uncovered an animal bone (noone owned up to this because they didn't want me to think they had killed a poor animal!), Jane found a sparkly Christmas decoration lying in the weeds and a team of runners savagely conquered a large pesky bush!

A sign of our thanks!

At the end of the task Pascale taught us how to say "thank you" in sign language so we could thank Evan for his time. Thanks Evan! We shall return!

Thanks Chris, Emma and Pascale!

Thanks to Chris for backmarking and for Emma for the pun this week! And a special thanks to Pascale for interpreting for us.

Upcoming runs

• Running the Bath Half? We have a series of weekend training runs.
• Join us for a fun task to celebrate Wassail with other community groups at a Community Mission this Saturday (19th Jan)
• Next week we are cleaning toys at Oldfield Baptist Church (a super-super fun task!)

Social Media

Please like/follow us on social media and share/retweet our content! We are on Facebook and Twitter. Organisations are already getting in contact with us through these platforms and this means we are securing more varied tasks for you to enjoy!

9 GoodGym volunteers made it up the hill to Odd Down Sports Cafe for the last Group Run of 2018 to write Christmas cards for community meals. We ran a hilly 6.5km in total. We enjoyed ourselves and had a great workout!

January targets, sign-up to Strava!

We met at the Leisure Centre and shared our GoodGym news. As a group we have set ourself the ambitious challenge of running 500km and completing 100 good deeds in January. As long as you do at least one good deed in January every kilometre that you record on Strava (even if it isn't a GoodGym run!) still goes towards our target, so please sign up to Strava (it's free!) and link Strava to your GoodGym account (GoodGym Settings -> Strava/RunKeeper). Together we can do this and win the Golden Trowel!

Oh rein-deary me, that was hilly run!

We ran by the river, up Holloway and then up Bloomfield Drive. There were some amazingly decorated Christmas houses on the way up, including one mesmerising laser-light show! The hill is particularly steep but with typical GoodGym spirit we all made it up together! We always have at least one dedicated backmarker (thanks Alison and Emily!) to make sure that noone gets left behind and we all make it up together.

Volunteering the write way!

We arrived at Odd Down Sports Cafe and met our host Dave. He told us how over the next week the Cafe is hosting several Christmas meals for members of the Odd Down community. For most of us, Christmas is a time to enjoy time with friends and family. However, often the people that come to these meals are isolated and sadly don't have any visitors over Christmas. So our task was a really important way of helping avoid loneliness and fostering a sense of community.

Holly cow that was fun!

Our task was to write and decorate Christmas cards to make sure that everyone at the meals gets at least one Christmas card. This will help remind them that they are part of the Odd Down community and bring them some Christmas joy. We really enjoyed using our GoodGym creativity to create some festive illustrations: there was plenty of holly, lots of Christmas trees, several jingle bells, a fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-llama and at least one Christmas penguin. After stacking our pile of envelopes we headed back down the hill to the Leisure Centre.

Thanks to Alison and Emily for backmarking for us and thanks to Nicola for the pun this week!

As mentioned above, please sign up and link to Strava to help us meet our GoodGym January target!

Next runs

• There is no Group Run on Tuesday 25th December or Tuesday 1st January!
• We have a fun and really useful Community Mission on Saturday 5th January. Sign up here!
• We have already got group runs and socials booked in for whole of January (woo!). Sign up here!

Social Media

Please like/follow us on social media and share/retweet our content! We are on Facebook and Twitter.

Organisations are already getting in contact with us through these platforms and this means we are securing more varied tasks for you to enjoy!

Finally, thank you to all of our volunteers and all our partners for their tireless hard work and dedication improving our local community. We couldn't to this without you! Have a great Christmas and Emily and I are looking forward to seeing you out running in 2019!

We created some Christmas stockings and filled them with donated canine essentials like food and toys. These will be distributed to members of the homeless population at a free veterinary clinic run by The Together Project based in Bath. Some of us then headed to The Boater for some food and a Christmas drink to celebrate all we have achieved this year at GoodGym.

Some boot-iful stockings

After meeting at the Leisure Centre and a quick warm-up we headed to the Girlguiding headquarters on Walcott Street. They kindly offered to let us use their space as our workshop for this task. The task was organised through one of our longstanding GoodGym members, Nicola, who started and now runs The Together Project with other volunteer vets.

We helped Nicola carry supplies from the car and then she introduced the task to us and told us more about the project. The team run a free clinic for dogs every other Tuesday afternoon. They are based at Julian House on Manvers Street. The dogs that the project work with often live on the street and sadly don't get many treats or toys. Our hard work will bring some joy and happiness to these dogs and, in turn, their owners over Christmas.

Running stitches

The first part of the process was cutting the stockings from some thick red material. We then used our dexterity to sew up the stockings (remembering to stitch the inside and not the outside!) making sure that the gaps between the stitches wern't too large. One team had already sorted the variety of donated food and toys into small piles, so it was easy to turn our stockings outside-in and fill them with goodies.

Mary, Queen of Stocks

Some of the group then added some custom decorations to their stocking. There were lots of great and colourful designs on display. One particularly awesome one was the Christmas pudding made by Mary. Amazing!

Christmas social!

We the headed to The Boater for a Christmas meal. It was a fun way to end the evening and reflect back on all we have achieved this year. It was also great to see the array of Christmas jumpers and festive accessories on display!

Thanks! Thank you so much to Nicola for organising and facilitating this task for us! Thanks to Chris for volunteering to backmark (and with such enthusiasm!) and thanks to Emily for the pun this week!

Next Week

We are running to Odd Down to write some Christmas cards for a community Christmas meal. This is the last Group Run of 2018! Sign up here!

Socials

We are heading to The Brew House to watch one of our GoodGym team and her band play some Christmas tunes. More info here.

Sign up here for the first Boater pub quiz of 2019!

Social Media

Please like/follow us on social media and share/retweet our content! We are on Facebook and Twitter.

Organisations are already getting in contact with us through these platforms and this means we are securing more varied tasks for you to enjoy!