19 wonderful GoodGymmers ran 5 km to help out at the St Werburghs Community Centre Volunteer Day

It was another great Saturday turnout for GoodGym Bristol, with a brand new task awaiting us with the Werbuzz Community Garden Project team at the St Werburghs Community Centre, who have just started a monthly volunteer day to help give the Centre a makeover by developing the car park into a community garden, play and event space. This will include building raised beds, planting trees, creating colourful designs on the tarmac and building a bug hotel - also a "Slug Slide" which is apparently a slide in the shape of a slug, rather than a slide for slugs!

It was a 5 km round trip, a nice run through central Bristol and out onto part of the Frome Valley Walkway, alongside the river, before crossing over the M32 and into St Werburghs.

It was great to welcome our new runners today - Yuting, Doris, Maureen and Jiale - we hope you enjoyed your first GoodGym run and task with us.

On arrival, we joined the other volunteers who had come in for the day and got stuck into doing what GoodGym does best - shifting a load of stuff in a short space of time. Goska, our fabulous host, seemed to have reserved the heaviest task for us which involved transporting long, chunky strips of timber (think of a railway sleeper and you'll be pretty close!) from one part of the Centre to a more secure location.

First we had to clear some of the ground of dirt and grass to allow the timber to be laid evenly, but also to use smaller strips of wood to not only leave a gap between the layers of timber, but also to level the pile further. Great work here by Jenny, Emma and Deb to achieve what we were after.

Then, teaming up in pairs the heavy lumber was carried along the central part of the Centre, passed to another team waiting at a lower level, who then moved it to it's resting place.

Working hard for just over an hour, and with so many willing hands (and arms) we were able to move a lot of the wood, including taking some round to where they would set to it with a buzz-saw to cut it to the size they needed. This was a really good work out for all!

It was time to go and say thanks to our hosts for their kind hospitality and also for looking after Alex so well after she had injured herself on the task - providing ice, tea and flapjack, plus a lift home for her and her bike was really kind!

Our number on the return journey had diminished a little, as some decided they would prefer to enjoy a walk back, some local to the area wanted to stay for longer (nice one Julia!) or head home directly.

Back at base we congratulated Maddy on completing the Bath Half Marathon the previous weekend, and our Larmer Tree-ers in attendance today, Emma, Jenny, Deb and Dave. Anthony had completed his first ever parkrun this morning and Richard was keeping quiet about lowering his Chipping Sodbury parkrun PB too!

Thanks once again to Chris for backmarking today - I think he might have given his pre-GG fitness session a miss today if he knew what awaited him at the task!

Thanks folks - you are great!

Dave