Tonight we were on a mission to spread the word about missions as most of us headed off to Victoria park to deliver GG mission leaflets to the surrounding houses. Hopefully this will mean more elderly people will learn about all the fabulous DBS-checked Goodgym volunteers ready and waiting to come and sort out their gardens or help with other manual tasks around the house.

Since we also still had a few leaflets left from promoting the Emmaus warehouse sale last week, we took the opportunity to drop the rest of those off as well so a double dose of good delivered already.

But we didn't stop there. A small team were also dispatched to Kuumba community centre to help out with some sanding. The Kuumba community centre in St Pauls runs a wide range of activities and events including live events and workshops where you can learn about African dance, music, drama and literature. The term 'Kuumba' is Swahili suggesting Creativity.

I was expecting our task to be a few upstairs doors, but it turned out to be the main stage. This is good news as Nwanyi had explained to me that the edges of the stage had become a little splintered and risked hurting the feet of some of the dancers who perform there.

Finally we all returned to Queen Square for some shuttle relay races, and a series of one-minute conditioning exercises led by Matt.

I'll be standing down as GG Bristol trainer in the next few weeks so have a think about whether you would like to take on the role. An email should be going out in the next few days explaining how you can go about applying - feel free to ask me if you have any questions about what's involved

It never rains at Goodgym. (Well apart from that one time with the HelpfulPeeps leaflets, oh and that Stackpool road job with the Patchwork project ..)

It almost never rains at Goodgym.

And tonight was no exception. After raining continuously all day, it stopped for us tonight

So after welcoming our new recruits (fantastic to meet you!) we split into two groups and headed off to St Paul's Adventure playground. Guy and Rachel of the APE project are doing an amazing job of making this brilliant playground shine again - and had enlisted our help.

Rachel had promised there would be lots to do for all 30 of us - and she was true to her word!

Team one were set to work raking up leaves in the ball court.

Team two had to scrub the main gate with wire brushes, sand paper and sugar soap to prepare them for painting (they'll look brilliant when they're done!)

Team three were tasked with moving the contents of the downstairs room into the mezzanine above for storage. Unfortunately the hoist is broken so it would have taken Rachel a long time to carry each item up the ladder!

After 30 minutes ...

Team one had not only swept the ball court, they had gone rogue, sweeping up leaves wherever they could find them, amassing 5 or 6 bags full of them and making the paths a lot less slippery in the process.

Team two had done loads on the gates and were quite hard to entice back inside when it was time to go, they were so intent on finishing the whole gate!

And team three managed to finish moving all the items so that the room space was all clear.

You're all brilliant.

Fourteen of us headed off to monthly eats where Caroline took on social photo duties (thanks for the potatoes!) and I realized I had forgotten to promote our social on Friday - do go along if you can!

Thanks to Tim for the pun.

A very mild evening saw another great turnout for our two tasks tonight. After a brisk warm-up and some newt herding, we parted company and while one group set off for the Emmaus warehouse, the remainder were escorted off to St Pauls Adventure Playground by our brand new run leader, Charlie. Thanks, Charlie!

Emmaus Warehouse

Emmaus helps previously homeless people get back into work by giving them longer term place to live and helping them develop new skills, including PAT testing for companies, performing house clearances and moving large items for elderly or vulnerable people. A couple of the companions also help to organize the warehouse that stores the goods for the Emmaus shops - including one located on the same site.

Now a large part of the current shop stock is womens clothing and the two male warehouse staff could use some assistance in sorting this stock into the correct sizes (some of it is unlabeled). So, it was quite handy that our Emmaus group was almost entirely made up of runners who could do just that. In just 30 minutes the two teams of 8 moved a large quantity of the clothing onto rails with consistent hangers and lovely clear sizing cubes - a task that would have taken much longer otherwise.

Meanwhile, another small group worked through the donated books to sort fiction from non-fiction. The usual debates over categorisation ensued. Is "Pooh's Workout Book" - fiction or non-fiction? And of course, trampoline engineer Kerry made a beeline for the clothes rail construction task, ably assisted by one of our new runners Tim - who also came up with tonights pun - please do come again, Tim :)

And to top it all, Abigail finally got her red laces.

Thanks for back marking, Kerry!

St Pauls Adventure Playground

A group of 10 runners merrily trotted over to St Paul's Adventure Playground. An amazing local play area that is being spruced up and ran by a group of volunteers.

On arrival we were met by Dug who had a long list of jobs for us to be getting on with. We quickly got to work forming a good old good gym chain to shift a lot of chip board up into the mezzanine attic. All to the beat of some great reggae music.

Still with time to spare we sanded wooden doors, washed metal shutters ready for painting, moved metals poles and sorted out tents/sleeping bags.

All in an evenings work. Great work everyone!

Thanks to Dave for back marking.