Delighted by the lovely warm and sunny evening, yesterday’s Brighton GoodGym group session helped the Waterloo Street Community Garden, a secret beauty and well used community space between The Old Market and the Waterloo Street Arch. The Old Market opened in 1828 as a covered marketplace for sales of meat, fish and vegetables, supplying the residential development of Brunswick, which was originally independent from Brighton and Hove village. Now it is an independent mixed-arts venue under the name "TOM – The Old Market".

Last year we helped the Friends of Waterloo Street Community Garden to win an outstanding award from the Royal Horticultural Society in the Britain In Bloom competition. And this year, 11 of us were here again to timely help our friends to maintain the royal title! So, we moved all the pots to clear the area and reach every hidden corner to then join a sweeping fest with brooms and dustpans!

Best of luck, dear friends!

Today the GoodGym gang ran 7 km to Wellsbourne Community Garden and back.

We welcomed new members Paul, Paul and Paul.

Stalwart member Rosie was running her 50th session!

We met Lucy, our task owner, at the Wellsbourne Healthcare Centre. She explained they had a volunteer gardening day tomorrow. Our task was to dig holes to plant wild flowers and plants to attract pollinators. We readied our destructive green fingers and shovels and got to work. Others made swift work of tidying and weeding the garden.

Stefania did a fitness exercise session to work on all those muscles we had neglected while running and digging.

To thank us, lovely Lucy kindly gave us cooking herbs from the garden and chocolate. How nice 🙂!

9 shorter goodgymers, and 1 tall goodgymer jogged to the new premises of Brighton Youth Centre which is in a building that used to house an entertainment venue based around optical illusions- cue a migrane inducing spotted carpet and deep purple walls!

The GoodGym-ers got to work clearing a back storage room of fun games such as table football and space invader machines. We took the job very seriously, ensuring the table football worked after being reassembled by having a quick kick about! ;-)

We then donned our 'people at work' overalls and transformed the back room from dark purple, adding the first coat of white paint, and the office area from blood red to clean white. The one tall GoodGym-er amongst us (thanks Rob!) was designated ceiling cutter inner.

An awful lot was accomplished in a short time, leaving time for the more hardened amongst us to join Pippa for a quick fitness session around the Queen Victoria Gardens.

We always have a great fun at the Brighton Youth Centre and we will be soon back!

This past weekend, Brighton GoodGym-ers have been running or volunteering while engaging their heart with their friends Susan and Joel in Mind.

Four Brighton GoodGm-ers attended Preston Park parkrun on Sunday in order to volunteer at Junior parkrun. The parkrun was lacking volunteers due to many of the core team running the Brighton Half marathon. So four goodgymers attended and assisted today - 2 as Marshalls, 1 as tailwalker and one as barcode scanner.

It was a cold and dreary day but the sight of all the little ones dashing about with rosy cheeks and big smiles brightened the day a great deal.

We then headed to the course of the half marathon to cheer our fellow mates running and faithing the strong wind, and to bring them some homemade muffins. Thanks Rebecca, your delights were much appreciated.

GoodGym sessions, parkruns and races like the Brighton Half are not just great ways to challenge ourselves and support our fitness goals, but also provide an opportunity to come together and remember friends like Susan and Joel, GoodGym-ers who sadly lost their lives.

Massive thank you to everyone who supported the fundraiser for Mind.

We’re fundraising for Mind because their work supports people like Susan and Joel, providing mental health information, advocacy, and peer support. Since the pandemic, the demand for mental health services has been increasingly overwhelming, and charities like Mind are doing essential work to help keep up.

If you’d like to donate, you can still do so here: https://www.justgiving.com/page/brightongoodgym-halfmarathon2024?utm_term=MqPB5rDjy