...Oh, light

It was great to have Catherine and Ingrid join us for the first time tonight - welcome both of you! We headed back to Holy Trinity Church tonight who were lending us their space to help The Marmalade Trust to prepare their hampers which each of their guests attending a Christmas lunch will receive.

When we arrived (with Maria's brilliant back marking safely getting the whole group there), Amy told us a bit about the incredible work they do: some of the people they speak to when arranging the lunches have not spoken to anyone in 3 months, and the hampers they get on Christmas day are the only present any of their guests have received on the years they have been running. The lunches can spark a change in the older people's lives and the charity direct them to social routes in the new year.

Crafty bunch

Our task for the evening was creating wrapped candles to add to the hampers. We divided ourselves into Very Crafty, A Little Bit Crafty and Not Crafty and got to work with distributing and wrapping candles and making labels to add to them. As time went on, the Not Crafty group even got a bit more crafty! (or at least gave it a shot and put the tables away very well...). 40 minutes later and we had a table full of beautifully wrapped candles ready for the hampers. We pretended to be candles for the group photo (see evidence above), then wished Amy from Marmalade Trust and Maria from Holy Trinity goodbye and ran back (with a short stop for planks, of course!).

What better way to finish off the night than with a candle-based joke?

When is a candle not a candle? When it's a-light!

Thanks Tim 😉

We avoided today's windy weather and dark clouds and gathered for a Double Leaf Whammy, running to help Hotwells and Redcliffe Development Group clearing leaves at Holy Trinity Church and Penny Brohn with leafleting for their Christmas Concert on 6th December.

Penny for your thoughts

Alice D headed off with a group of 9 hardy runners to battle the hills of Clifton to distribute 1 million (or probably 500) leaflets in just 45 minutes around the area. Penny Brohn will be so pleased with this increased advertising. I will give them a head's up about booking out the stadium...

Unbeleafable

Meanwhile, the rest of the group headed to Holy Trinity Church and were split into groups for various jobs. The Leaf Team were armed with brushes, rakes and recycling bags to tackle the mounds of leaves on the pathways and grass. Of course this couldn't be done without throwing and kicking a good load around before getting down to business.

The Loppers got to work clipping back bushes to clear an entrance to.... a telephone box. We marvelled at the idea that people were still using the telephone box, and marvelled further when we realised that we were in fact clearing the window to the box rather than the entrance. Meanwhile, Liam and Dhanesh casually sawed down a tree in approximately 8 minutes, showing their future careers as tree surgeons.

Finally, The Leafleters were kitted out with their maps and their target destinations and split into three teams to distribute as many hundreds of leaflets for Christmas events as they could.

Not mulch left

By 7.30, nothing was leaf-left, including the digestive biscuits. We regrouped and ran back to the Queen Square, stopping for some cheeky sprints and squat jumps along the way.

Thanks to Lexi, Richard, Gary and Jack for tonight's puns

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

We had a big group with us tonight and it was great to have Sian, Lizzie and Alice join us for the first time - welcome! It was also lovely to have Alice D back from her mega-ultra last weekend, and she led a walking group on a litter-pick for Bristol Waste with Martha.

Putting our eggs in one basket

The rest of us played a game of Star Jump Tig to warm-up then headed to The Matthew Tree Project distribution centre, where we were helping for the first time. We met Amy there who had lots of tasks for us to get stuck into. These were:

• Sorting donations into the donation boxes
• Checking sorted donations and weighing them
• Loading the van with all of weighed trays
• Cleaning a big pile of trays ready to be re-used
• Sorting eggs into egg boxes

The group split into teams and got started. Clem and Russ felt confident with the technical skills required for the checking and weighing, "because they had SAT level Maths" so claimed that they were the pros for the job. Hopefully they have lived up to their strong claims...

While the team got to work, half of the us headed outside for a tough 10 minute fitness session (still 10 minutes, despite Dave trying to sidetrack me...). They swapped over and the rest of the group got their heartrates up, admiring Russ's speedy jump lunges as they went.

The team worked efficiently (all without dropping any eggs) and 30 minutes later, all of the jobs were complete and the warehouse was looking spic-and-span. Amy was delighted with the outcome and said it would make tomorrow so much easier for her team. Great work!