A pair of wings, a Park Run magistrate and a vegan chocolate brownie walk into a bar...

Not a joke, just another night of celebrations at GoodGym Bristol, as we had a triple celebration tonight. But before we could dig straight into our three reasons to eat cake, we had some running, squatting and a task to complete. It was great to be joined by first-timers Laurence and Latoria tonight - welcome!

The group warmed up and quickly split into two. Maria led half of the group through two parks to where we reconvened at Easton Salvation Army. Mark, the Corps Officer at Easton Salvation Army, quickly showed us the overgrown area behind the building, which hadn't been worked on in a long time. The group chose their piece of equipment and quickly set to work cutting back the bushes, nettles and brambles, as well as doing an impressive job of litter-picking and leaf-raking.

Brambling around

Art crowned himself the Bramble King, but Alice soon whipped out a huge bramble with her bare hands to give him a run for his money. Meanwhile, Zdeni wasted no time in getting into the skip which the Salvation Army had got in for us to fill. Luckily, she had a plan, and we soon managed to squeeze even more garden waste into it.

After the team had successfully made a huge dent in the overgrown area and filled several bags of rubbish, it was soon time for a good old cup of tea and biscuit to build up the strength to run back. This led to two teams being created: the tea-sippers and The Rest. As we left the tea-sippers to sip, The Rest of the group split into two groups who had a hotly contested race back to Queen's Square.

Squat Squad

While we squatted our way to our own Centurions, we celebrated Liam reaching his 100th Good Deed! This meant that, not long since it's last parade, the Centurion outfit was dusted off for Liam to wear with pride. Well done Liam!

Not only had we this to celebrate, but also Mel's incredible achievement of her 200th (and 201st - in one day) Good Deed(s). Massive congratulations to you Mel, and we look forward to you sporting your new t-shirt with the same amount of glamour you show while stretching off at the same time as receiving it in the photos.

And as if two sets of delicious cookies weren't enough (is there any such thing as enough cookies?), Richard Good-deed Giddings went and had a birthday to celebrate and made mega vegan chocolate brownies to go with it (also inventing the timeless game of 'Which one is birthday Richard?' which you can join in on the photos above). Happy birthday Richard!

And so, the celebratory squad went on their merry way, sated by sugar and another good deed to add to their lists. Until next time...

A big batch of Bristol runners broke out of their beginning-of-the-week babble to bumble along, break some brambles, bamboozle blackberries and bag up some bad litter. Some say barmy, we say brilliant.

The Jumping Jack off

The group started off with a merry jumping jacks warm up. Or so I thought... according to Darren's photo evidence from the night, Alice and I were merrily doing our jumping jacks while everyone else was doing their utmost to pretend they weren't with us...

Task 1: The Bramble-Removal

Alice ably led a group of runners out to the Harbourside to help the Friends of the Harbourside Reed Bed. After a summer of growing (and our help a few months ago) it was time for another trim to keep the area looking spic-and-span. Not ones to like an easy challenge, to do a good job, the group had to tackle brambles and a nest of wasps in the area. But they got it done in no-time and left the area looking ready for the Autumn months.

Task 2: The Litter-Pick

Our second group of wiling runners went to the other side of the harbour to Gaol Ferry Bridge to help the Friends of the Avon New Cut to do a big litter-pick in the area. Unfortunately, this part of the river has become rife with anti-social behaviour, leaving a lot of litter and more in the area. The group did an absolutely fantastic job of filling 16 bin bags with waste. Massive well done to everyone for getting your litter-pickers out and getting stuck in!

Task 3: The Fun One

Meanwhile, those who wanted to stretch their legs a bit further (or knew what was in store) were led on the 3km run to Bramble Hill Farm by Paul, where they met Chris for animal feeding and blackberry picking. Roll-on animal stroking, selfies and blackberry eating, just in time to roll back down the hill for finishing time.

To top all of this hard work off, the group then powered their way through a circuit session around Queen's Square (until a pug came along to distract everyone from their burpees).

More than 40 GoodGymers, two locations to go to, two charities to leaflet for, plus one charity that need help with three tasks - sounds like a seemless night of GoodGym action, doesn't it?

Mina detour

One group seamlessly took on the task of leafleting for two charities around Mina Park. One was Real Economy who we have helped previously and who are keen to further spread the word about their brilliant social enterprise around Bristol. Secondly, we continued on our mass leafleting for Penny Brohn for Stomp, their sponsored walk in October. The group did a brilliant job of an extended, alternative route run, zipping all the leaflets out, having time to do a squats and lunges session and getting through most of a pint before the rest of us got back. Thank you very much Alice for your brilliant run-leading and Alex for your back-marking with sore legs!

Easton promise

Meanwhile, the rest of us trotted off to Easton to help Annali from Litterarti with clearing up an underpass in the local area. Annali explained to us that the skate park there is a really important part of the community, where lots of local young people can come and hang out. The area is not looked after by the council, so it is up to the local community to keep it in shape to discourage it from being a place of anti-social behaviour. Annali split us into groups - teams of litter pickers and recyclers went through the whole area clearing it up, collecting bags in and putting up new bags to discourage future litter. Another group brushed up the whole area to make it as safe as possible for children who play there. A third group took on the pillars: Litterarti get Street Artists in to paint these pillars, so in preparation for the next set of artists, we painted over previous graffiti and tags which had been left on the pillars.

All too soon, it was time to pack up the paint and get back on the road to central Bristol. With the knowledge that Alice's group were already safely nursing pints, there was, unfortunately, no more time for squat-stops on the way home, much to everyone's disappointment.

Are you Fi-real?

Fi achieved her 200th Good Deed on her mission on Saturday! To congratulate her on this amazing achievement, tonight Fi received her 200 Good Deeds t-shirt. Matt has once again done a brilliant job of making Fi's mermaid-likeness and goat-memories live on forever through her t-shirt (and we even got a photo of her mermaid-ing painting tonight to match). Massive well done, Fi!

Tonight's litter picking task was supplied by Bristol Waste and indeed it appeared that the whole of Bristol's waste had been deposited behind just two bushes on a street in Redfield.

This task was truly a load of rubbish - the litter equivalent of sweeping everything in the entire house under the carpet.

With such a gargantuan task it was lucky that we had 24 of the very best Bristol Goodgym members on the job - including both battle-scarred veterans and some of our courageous new recruits. Dividing into teams of 4 or 5 we concentrated most of our forces on the bushes but were able to spare some of the remainder to tackle the rest of the street and a small children's playground.

Team Playground - Masters of Diplomacy

Team playground employed some excellent diplomacy, quickly winning the support of the families who were taking advantage of the longer evenings to relax amongst the swings and slides and receving enthusiastic offers of help from the children.

Team Street - Bringing the Muscle to the Party

Not content with collecting myriad bags full of litter the street teams succeeded in retrieving an entire discarded TV and bringing it to the specified point for collection.

Team Bush - making good on a TARDIS of Withering Sights

But through all of this the bushes never ceased in offering up their endless array of unusual and unwanted items.

Lindsey discovered a bucket half filled with cans, Alice discovered a toad in a rubbish-strewn gap that must surely have been the inspiration for the Star Wars waste compactor scene, Liam found the old womans shoe (though it is unclear what had happened to all her children so maybe she did know what to do after all), and George having come all the way from his home turf of Lambeth found Barney the purple dinosaur. Sadly, it appears that Barney's rock and roll lifestyle had finally caught up with him as he was found under the bush with a wide variety of cans and appeared to have let his once ripped physique ... get ripped.

All in all, in 30 minutes we collected over 25 bags of rubbish for collection and totally transformed the street for the residents. Fantastic work everyone!

After a pacey run back to base, there was just enough time for the early arrivals to do a fartlek circuit of Queen Square before everyone got down to some stretching. We congratulated all our members who ran last weekend - and particularly Charlie for running her first marathon in the hardest possible way, off road and up hill.

Congratulations Sarah - 50 Good Deeds!!

And last but not least, huge congratulations to Sarah for reaching 50 good deeds. Sarah is a true GG Bristol regular - cheer her here, or maybe buy her an Oreo or two. Thanks also to Richard for bringing one of the last two packets of pink wafers in all existence to help celebrate.