What a night! To join us for the first time in this even-more-crazy-than-normal addition of GoodGym Bristol were Toby, Charlie, Dulcie and Rory. It was great having you and we hope to see you very soon when we (probably) won't make you sing. Tonight's craziness was due to the very special occasion of the amazing Paul Becker having joined the 500 Good Deed Club.

Our celebrations for him included: * A giant running, litter-picking Pink Panther in the shape of Chris ft. a weird lump carried around the whole night which was, in fact, 500 pink wafers * An amazing PINK SEQUIN CAPE, now known as the Cape of Good Hope, crafted from scratch by the talented Mel (and suffered the sequin aftermaths of by Darren) * The YMCA and Macarena with Clo and Matt's incredibly crafted new lyrics to fit PB Senior, sung (and danced) beautifully by our crew * An incredible massive pink wafer cake baked by the talented Richard B * Pink Panther masks for the masses made by Julie

Phwoar! What a load of Pink Panther Goodness for our very own PB. However, this is GoodGym, so there is never too much good to be had. Before all of this got appreciated, we had 40+ GoodGymers to do two Good Deeds before all of this could be appreciated.

Dave did a last-minute lead of the first group to Emmaus where they were met by Xanne and set to work with a bunch of tasks in the huge warehouse. The group got lifting, shifting, donation sorting and, most importantly, top photo-shoot shot finding. As usual, they were met with a plethora of weird and wonderful goods around the warehouse, and had to be torn away to get back to Queen Square in time.

Paul-uted

Meanwhile, the rest of us headed to Riverside Park to do a litter-pick for Bristol Waste. We split into four litter-picker teams and tackled different sections of the area, managing to gather a massive 10 bags of litter in just 15 minutes. We then ran on to get a litter-pick, running relay in at - you guessed it - St Paul's Park.

A wonderful Sequin-ce

Following all this hard work, we headed back to Queen Square to have a (very long) stretch off and regroup to perform our incredibly well-rehearsed Paul songs, eat lots of cake and, not forgetting, celebrate the wonderful Mel who reached her 400th Good Deed earlier today. Well done Mel!

Pun Credit to Richard G!

We had a last minute change of plan tonight as our planned task couldn't get into the building we were helping in. Never fear, it was the perfect time to finish off leafleting for Penny Brohn's Christmas Concert on 6th December, which we started last week. Mel also stepped up to lead a walking litter-picking group around the local area to clean up the space.

Welcome to Amy, who joined us for the first time tonight - it was great having you!

While Mel's group set-off to litter-pick, the rest of us headed to Hotwells, where we started our zig-zagging long climb up to Clifton (with a lot of back and forth leafleting on the way), with Clo taking some blurry photos to prove just how speedy we were running. Our four teams covered the area and delivered 400 leaflets in no time, as well as having lots of time for wall-sits and partner arms workouts in between.

Merry Crouch-mas

With all of the leaflets safely delivered, we headed on a gratefully-received downhill run back to Queen Square. Here we got to test out our four teams one more time with a hotly contested sprint-into-crouch relay. After that excitement, it was time to cool down, head back into the warm, and wonder where on earth the key is.

46 GoodGymers braved the cold and the first dark, dark night of the winter to come and get fit and do good. We got warmed up (revealing some shocking facts along the way, including who eats dinner before they come to GoodGym) and then split into our three groups for the night.

Alice led the first group to Fry Court to finish off a Community Mission from last month, Richard was leading a team of rubble movers to help Up Our Street and the rest of us headed to St Paul's Adventure Playground.

Frytonight

Alice's group were tasked with finishing weeding a raised bed at Fry Court sheltered housing and adding some fresh compost ready for the residents to plant. The gentleman who lived closest to the plot was absolutely delighted, and came to thank the team specially. Not satisfied with just one set of good in a night, the team then did some leafleting relays down Stackpool road to get seasonal with the Christmas Santa Dash happening in just 5 weeks' time!

GoodGym causing t'rubble

Richard's team were also set to work on the raised beds. They met Melissa from Up Our Streetwho showed them the area to clear, which was three beds with lots of rubble on top. The group got to work clearing this area and wheelbarrowing the debris away (with Gary and Darren fitting in some 90 metre sprints along the way) and made a massive dent in the work. A local resident even stopped to say thank you to the group :)

Insane in the membrane

Meanwhile the rest of the group was at St Paul's Adventure Playground where we had three tasks: to clear all of the leaves from the playground from the London Plane Tree, which become slippy and dangerous; to continue digging the trench we started last month for a tyre barrier next to the flying fox swing; and to help the team from Monkey Do who are building a brand new swing with digging a big hole for it. The leaves were soon cleared, the trench was well on it's way to housing the final two tyres and the giant hole was not quite a giant hole, but the team made a jolly good crack at it (intermingled with conducting their own archaeological dig to find a giant membrane from the ground which was not, as at first wondered, a long-lost fossil). With very muddy trainers, we headed back to Queen Square.

Centuri-darr-en

Once everyone had reconvened from their tasks, it was time to celebrate the amazing Darren achieving his 100th Good Deed tonight - massive well done Darren!! He donned the centurion outfit, did the Gallop of the 100s, and then treated us all to his incredible vegan carrot cake and millionaire's shortbread bakes. Who needs the Bake Off final?!

Tonight's pun kudos goes to Alice, Lexi and Richard

What do you get if you (zebra)cross GoodGymers with a leaflet? Black, white and re(a)d all over!

And with that 'pun', we set the tone for this evening's tales of odd puns, odd games and a shoeless GoodGymer in Clifton... (I would like to blame me being sleep-deprived, but I think we might just be this odd).

It was great to welcome so many new people on this damp, windy night: thanks for joining us Sarah, Orphee, Eric, Edita, Elena and Caitlin!

After an impressive marathon-in-a-cape effort by Liam on Saturday, he joined Melanie, Maria, Roz and Lisa on a walking group litter-pick of the local area, and managed to get back in time for tea! Great work walkers.

The rest of us had a quick maritime lesson to warm up (mainly for me) then headed up Constitution Hill (which handily had a bench at the top for a cheeky rest) to Clifton, where we were going to be distributing leaflets for Penny Brohn's Stomp walk next weekend. We set up a base camp and our four teams set off with 250 leaflets each and 25 minutes to distribute them, get a team photo and come up with their best pun.

Team A (or 'The A Team') set the pace and returned home in just 20 minutes, with all leaflets successfully delivered.

Getting Brohnus points

Team D stormed home soon after, and although they hadn't grabbed the winning points for returning back first, their impressive pun and team pic had them hot on the heels of The A Team.

Team C cut in with 2 minutes to spare and spent the next two minutes crafting the impressive opening joke.

STOMP right now, thank you very much, you need some leaflets in your letterbox

The group waited with anticipation for Team B to make it back before the 7.30pm deadline, but as the clock ticked on, there was no sign of Darren and his team. 34 seconds after the cut-off for losing all potential points, they sprinted in, and got a bonus point after all for their impressive pun and sprint finishes.

With all runners back, two Abbey Road pics and a tonne of puns, it was time to head back down the hill to the harbourside, where we stopped for some partner sprints and then cooled down before wishing the racers for this weekend good luck and sending a group off to warm-up with pies for this month's GoodGym Eats.