Today saw us zig and zag our way to Hope Housing to help Mark all the rubbish that had accumulated from building work.

It was great to have Steve come back and join us after coming along for his first group run last week. We obviously didn't scare him off!! Good work team!!! After a very busy summer it was lovely to have Abi's smiley face back with us. We hope work doesn't keep you away from us for too long this time! Thank you Ross for joining us and helping us out! Hope you're able to run with us soon! We miss you!

After arriving at Hope Housing this evening Mark gave us lots of boxes so we could start sorting the rubbish....carpet, metal, tv's, pipes, lamps, cans, plastic bags, cardboard you name it, we sorted it! We then had to carry it to the side of the road to then be put into a skip that was being delivered.

We dealt with interesting smells but the gang weren't fazed at all! Not even the mosquitos were enough to stop them!

We managed to get everything out and left the yard looking much better! Well done everyone and you look great in the photos! The big panoramic shot was to large to upload, so I will add it to the Facebook page....like it if you haven't already! Well done Andrea on completing the Wolf Run last weekend, and Heather who managed almost 5 full laps of the Nuts Challenge....which is mental. Hope she tells us about it next week! Speaking of next week, we'll be doing some gardening with Grounded Enterprises. Come along!!

Today we were eagerly awaited at Hope Housing. I even had a phone call from Mark yesterday to check we were still coming.....he never calls!!!

We were also super happy to welcome back Steve after some time off....we hope we can keep you away from the Portsmouth group!! Lovely to have you back! See you next week!

We also welcomed Steve to his first run with us, we're really happy your colleague pointed you in our direction! You were great and fitted right in! Well done for coming along and chatting to everyone! You're our kind of guy!

Our run to our task would have been quite short so the gang begged me to take them a longer route, up a few hills. These guys are so motivated!!! Love them! As it's the "beloved" airshow this weekend, lots of the road overlooking the sea were closed to cars, so it was great to run along them, and we had to stop to take a few photos!

Hope Housing are building some new offices on their premises, so this week Mark had us shifting lots of fibreglass planks into the structure to keep them away from the rain and get them ready to be installed. Those of us with gloves were in charge of those. Neil, Steve and Millie made short work of that!

Then another group was moving wooden planks into another area and stacking those. We got to work on our squats...and chain technique....we are very good, some great form and efficiency on display. Megan, Andrea and Sarah were soon moving things along smoothly. And not a splinter in sight!

Off to the side original Steve, Mark and later Sarah were tasked with sorting through the off cuts of wood and sorting them into shapes and sizes, these were then going to be used to make flower pots. Nothing goes to waste at Hope Housing!

With everything done we set off back to base, but this time the straight and direct route...along all the restaurants and all the lovely smelling food....I'm pretty sure everyone picked up the pace on the way back...and even Millie rocked up the last hill without stopping! Impressive! Glad your headache cleared!

See you all next week!

This evening we were invited to go and help out at CCP. Upon arrival all our contacts were busy in meetings, but we were lucky to meet Bismarck who promptly showed us the things that needed doing. Some painting and kitchen tidy up was on the cards, but we quickly realised that there wasn't enough work for all 9 of us. ...not to worry, Andrea and Ema teamed up to do some painting first...in the picture below it looks like Andrea is balancing on Ema's shoulders....there is a ladder there I swear! Aby and Ross took the kitchen challenge. Cleaning surfaces and any area they could reach! The others went outside with myself and we did some short circuits. 30 seconds of squats, lunges and star jumps. Then we rotated until we had all done each exercise. Then back inside we went for the swap over. Those painting and cleaning had their turn on the circuit and after that we swapped once more. The second round of circuits included planks, burpees and flamingo balances! I think we all need to work on our one leg balancing...some great form on the star jumps, lunges and planks though!! Well done The gang were great and they enjoyed the circuits, great way to improve our core and help with our running form! It was great to be back with the team and catch up with everyone. Next week our friends at Bournemouth Foodbank want us to go and help them sort through lots of food....an indoor job, so no excuse for you not to join us!!! Stay healthy and happy!

It,s nice to see so many of you on the first run of the New Year A big warm welcome goes to Emma who normally sets us the tasks at Faithworks and a welcome back to Andy welcome to you both, After the introductions we did a warm up and set off to Hope Housing via Old Christchurch Road. Once at Hope we were welcomed by Mark who lead us to one of the Houses they have ,he had us in an human chain sorting the Bedding out folding and checking it and putting it into size we soon had the store room cracked Mark then lead us to another house were he had us sorting out a clothes rail we all most had our own fashion show with Caprice modeling the latest in rain wear.They are always so welcoming at Hope, as this Task took longer than expected we had to run straight back to base this happens from time to time . Next week we shall be returning to the Childrens charity CCP Well done to Caprice and Daryl who done the Bovington Half Marathon over the tank training ground. I look forward to seeing a big turn out next wednesday Daryl