The Bee-st team

Another Monday evening in sunny Worthing and that can only mean one thing ! Its GG time. It was great to welcome Keith back for his second visit to us together with Birthday Barbara ,Dr Emma , John , Nick , Lucy, Paul , Emily and Tamsin.

We headed to the track for some warm up laps followed by some strength and flexibility exercises before a short walk around the back of the leisure centre to our task.

Welcome to our hive - The best place to bee

This evening we were excited to work with the lovely ladies from the Food Pioneers Fran and Debbie representing a local food social enterprise project.

Debbie explained that there were 3 hives in the compound each with around 40,000 bees in them. Our job for the evening was to make the new bee hive area a little more attractive ready for visitors. Fran outlined the jobs that needed doing and the team all picked a task.

To bee or not to bee

The biggest job was to paint the fence around the bee compound grey. Nick ,John,Lucy, Tamsin and Paul set about this whilst Keith opted for the litter picking .

There were some beautiful and diverse wall canvasses that some talented students at Northbrook college had painted. Barbara and Emma grabbed a brush and set about weather proofing the paintings with a protective layer of clear varnish. Emily set about some gardening and in Gill's absence some 'fine pruning'

Debbie asked if anyone was interested in some bee keeping and outlined how to get more involved with the group. Barbara, Paul and Lucy all seemed keen so watch this space on future progress

Un- bee- lievable progress

30 minutes later amidst loads of chatter and a large number of grey paint splatters I reluctantly called time on the task . Debbie and Fran could not have been more grateful to us plying us with snacks , water and banana's. After a quick group photo and a promise to return soon ,we split into 3 groups for our jalk/run down to the seafront .

400 metre bees- tings

We all regrouped for the 2nd time on the track for 2 x 400 metre extended efforts. I love watching the commitment and improvement of my runners and observing them on the track enables me to review their technique and form.

We all commented on the improvement that John showed this evening . Running daily in June plus taking a few rest days afterwards really seems to have worked for John and he is getting ever nearer to achieving his goal of running parkrun, without stopping, by September.

Lucy and Emma also did their 90 second plank whilst everyone watched !

Happy Bee day to our very own Queen Bee

We finished the evening with stretches and Barbara's delicious homemade vegan peanut butter and banana cakes to celebrate her Birthday. She had even bought some gorgeous red velvet gluten free cakes for Belinda who was out on Parkrun blind runner training. Kudos to both B's ( bees -ha ha )

But where was Cake man tonight ?! It is rare to have cake leftovers!

Next week we are meeting at Splashpoint and back at Lyndhurst Road for a garden tidy up.

Have a good week everyone . I hope you have enjoyed the plethora of bee puns today:)

Julia xx