Welcome to Vale, James, Amber and Andrea who joined us for the first time tonight! It was great to have you along and we hope to see you again soon. It was a big one as we celebrated...

The Centurijon

as Jon hit his 100th Good Deed! He was sorely mistaken in thinking he would let it slip under the radar. See the photos to see an up-close action shot of him actually doing his deed and pulling a notably unsightful weed out. Great deeding Jon!

The group split into two so we could help our two tasks for the night. Alice led half the group to Bramble Hill Farm where they got to work doing various tasks around the farm. Darren was soon running around with a wheelbarrow in tow while the rest of the group were filling the barrows, sorting netting, gardening and pretending to be the animals... All in an evening's work.

The rest of us went to Zion in Bishopsworth (with a few impressive folk doing some hill sprints on the way) where we were met by the ever-organised Jess who had written all of our tasks on a list. The group then spent the next 30 minutes crossing off as many of those as possible: Kait had her first run-in with a mop in over a year, Darren, Vale and Mel got into some therapeutic blackboard painting and Shreena got herself into a rabbit hutch while the rest of the group weeded and groomed the outside and scrubbed and cleaned the inside and all of the toys.

Jon with the wind

We filled up with oranges and almonds before starting the downhill run back. The two groups were reunited in Queen's Square where we watched Jon put on his centurion outfit. This centurion then headed to Chilli Daddy where the staff looked on as the warrior battled with a spicy noodle soup.

It was great to have Sarah, Karen, Elizabeth, Janine, Beanie, Claire, Genoveva and Zhang join us on their first Group Run tonight, several of whom were joining us as part of the Bristol SU Mind Your Head campaign. Welcome all!

We got warmed up (and I had to warm up my Maths due to Clem's demands) then split into two groups for the night with Liam leading a shorter-run group and the rest of us heading on a 5km loop.

Tool-tal wipeout

Liam's group (with impressive 2-day post marathon backmarking from Matt) headed to Faithspace where we were helping Hotwells and Redcliffe Development Group. This was a task planned a couple of months ago which we got distracted from by helping them with an emergency that night instead. By now, our planned gardening was desperately needed! The group set to work with gardening in the small park next to Faithspace, making a big difference to brightening up the local community. Another group were given the task of leafleting about the community happenings to the local houses, which turned into more of a challenge due to the extreme lack of residential houses in the area! They ventured further afield and managed to complete the task in no time.

Don't skip a beat

The rest of us set off to our regular session at Felix Road Adventure Playground. Thank you to Richard B for wonderful backmarking on our journey along the cycle path with chair, squat and sprint fitness stops and a cheer team of a several groups of local children on wheels. We soon arrived and were met by the usual overjoyed welcome from the team. The group were split into two: a skip team and gardening team.

Team Skip got to work with with smashing and bashing (technical term) to fit all the items into the skip. I must say, I have never seen such a neatly packed skip in all my life, neither have I witnessed someone saw a wheely bin in half (nice work Russ) or get quite so into hammering things to pieces (slightly worrying, really...) Team Gardening had the massive task of tackling all the nettles, brambles and sticky willy (I promise it's an innocent thing) to clear the land for planting and make it safe for the children to play.

In half an hour the team smashed through the tasks and once again left a very pleased Felix Road team with 6 bags of garden waste bagged, 2 bags of litter picked and a full skip waiting to be collected.

Tool-y, skip-y, sticky missions complete!

Suns out, run out

We had 7 new runners join us tonight and 52 people out Good Deeding on this sunny Tuesday night. Welcome to Bex, Molly, Jayne, Sangrita, Laura, Andreas and Hannah - it was great to have you!

After a mental warm-up, we split into two groups.

Alison led a small group of 15 to Dame Emily Park where they met Mel to add to their team and Ursula who runs the project. The boys (under the (quickly corrected) assumption that they were stronger) were handed spades and a pick axe to put some shrubs in to create a border between the border and the Caretaker's house. The rest of the group tackled the planters outside the swimming pool, planting new trees and small flowers in them. Another group were sent to seed wildflowers at the bottom edge of the park and two others filled watering cans to water everything in. Meanwhile, Darren was working especially hard by keeping Ursula's little boy entertained in a football game - someone's gotta do it, isn't that right Darren?!

An elephant of sand

The rest of us headed off in our hoards to St Paul's Adventure Playground. We were met by Guy who had three huge tasks for the group - good job who brought so many pairs of hands. Group 1 were set to work with moving hay to make a soft landing under the zipline and play areas. Group 2 were moving large logs to a log store on the other side of the playground, which involved impressive log-carrying coordination (I have seen groups doing it worse in Highland Games). Group 3 had the mammoth task of moving a massive pile of cement blocks and two tonnes of sand to clear a space for the bread oven arriving tomorrow. It was hefty work and the team made the longest GoodGym human chain ever to overcome the task. The last bag of sand was moved with seconds to spare before we had to head back and Guy was thrilled with how much we had got done.

Shell shock

The group were not getting away to feast on Lisa's amazing 200 celebration baking without finishing off the night with an egg and spoon race. With only 2 drops (and consequent burpees) it turns out this might be our calling. Then it was time to celebrate the wonderful [Lisa] hitting her 200th Good Deed last Saturday - well done Lisa! Still drooling over those cakes...

And at least I've not cracked all my best egg jokes before the end of the report.

It was brilliant to have Lauren and Phil join us for their first GoodGym Bristol run tonight! It was a big one, as Jack hit his 100th Good Deed - massive well done Jack! And what better way to celebrate it than with two of GG Bristol's favourite tasks, painting and Emmaus!

Emmaus-ing

Alice led the first group to meet Xanne at Emmaus. The group were set to work with various tasks. Some of them were on warehouse sorting which, as usual, may have ended up more of a warehouse-wide treasure hunt for the best hat (photo evidence shows Maria and Richard as key contestants). The rest of the group were outside taking apart unusable furniture to be recycled. They got to work with wood chopping, foam removing and more, making a great dent in the task.

A mauve-ing task

The rest of us headed to The Station, where two of our GoodGymers work (life outside GoodGym?!). We were met by our Taskforce member and the charity's Events Manager, Alice. She explained that the Creative Youth Network, based at The Station, are sprucing up their outdoor area for summer and the first way to do this was to repaint all of the picnic benches (you guessed it) mauve.

Through the Clo hole

While some had creative methods of avoiding getting paint on them (I'm looking at you, Shreena's tights over leggings), others went all in for the purple body-paint (Chris and Tom...). Despite this, the group still managed to get a large amount on the benches themselves and within 45 minutes they had painted the first coat on all of the benches left for us. Not forgetting that most of the group also managed a fitness blast in our sub-in, sub-out system. Thanks for having us Alice!

We jogged (/sprinted the Strava segment) the short route back and then got to watch Jack masterfully put on the Centurion outfit and indulge us with three different types of cake. What a baking comeback! We will be expecting a lot more from where that came from now...