Tuesday 7th March 2023
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Report written by Melanie Young (she/her)
It was supposed to be really cold but was much warmer than the forecast so people were still in shorts for our run to lovely Emmaus, home of Indoor Tasks. It was great to welcome Ash from Sheffield GoodGym (we all had to be on our best behaviour), Kate to her first group run and Ed returning from his foreign travels.
Back at Emmaus, not only did Satya have an indoor task lined up, she had super warm high viz coats to lend everyone so they didn't get cold! We're now expecting this level of e=welcome on every visit.
The task at hand was to tidy the basement, which we didn't even know existed. The warehouse is a bit empty at the moment as both Emmaus Bristol's vans are broken so they're not able to bring house clearances and other furniture pick-ups to the site. They have a couple of borrowed smaller vans which did mean we could take a photo pretending to have run all the way to Coventry and Warwickshire.
The basement was chock full of bedding, boxes and cleaning materials, the floor was barely visible so the team were tasked with bring their Tetris A-game to the fore to make best use of the shelving all around the edges of the room.
With specialist cardboard box flatteners, pillow stuffers and shelf stackers (by the end needing to be the taller GoodGymmers, thanks Sarah K) plus photographers Run Leader Richard and Backmarker Alice/Margaret capturing the moments as well as participating, we were soon Very Tidy Indeed and Satya was amazed how quickly it had gotten so tidy. And all the boxes were ready for recycling and any leaking cleaning fluids were bagged in shiny blue bin bags, even though they all smelled of lovely soap.
We took the opportunity to have photos in our high viz jackets (now you see us, now you don't) before we were forced to give them back, run back to Queens Square and most of us carry on to Pieminister for National Pie Week's lovely pies and warmth - thanks to Clo for organising another great Eats.
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A chance to banish some brambles and other weeds