The Scrapstore needed our help, and 17 GoodGymers answered the call! We welcomed Ryan, Ruben and Kieran to their very first Group Run this evening and we hope they enjoyed their warm welcome this evening.

12 runners ran, 3 walkers walked and Frances and Jade appeared, worked hard, then disappeared back in to the night!

We split in to 3 teams, Ryan, Ruben, Richard G, Richard, Helen, Frances and Nell set about rolling up coloured pre-cut materials, and much debate was had about the relative density, likely uses (pirate hats, capes and yoga mats for people who abhor comfort) before filling barrels and barrels full of them!

Valè and Jason were the cutting crew. Valè proclaiming that one of the sheets reminded her of the smell from baby dolls in Argentina in the 1980's!...unpleasant! The final job was re-attaching handsets to phones. The staff had a little wager on how many we could do, and the team of Phill, Nell, Gareth, Jordan, Freya and Sebastian, surpassed their expectations, reattaching, according to Phil 'a billion!'.

We left the Scrapstore dazzled by multicoloured scrap and hope to be back soon, but also with the promise of indoor winter tasks!

It was almost not raining, and then only drizzly mizzly on the 15 GoodGymmers who artived in Queen Square for a lovely Group Run or Walk.

Not only were Gaia and Genevieve back for a second deed, Will and Seb were the first to arrive for their very first visits to GoodGym - we hope to see you both again very soon, in your matching outfits!

The runners outnumbered the walkers this week and 9 GoodGymmers were sandwiched between Run Leaders Vaguely Northern Darren and Richard B as they set off to St Werburgh's Community Centre and the four walkers set about hunting litter on a walk across the city centre.

The runners navigated the flooded subway via the handily-placed Bricks of Dryness (BoDs) and set about tidying the play area in St Werburghs. We definitely didn't touch the plant that had the 'Do not touch' sign on it, but we did clear all of the soil, remove the weeds, and tidy toys up, as requested.

Meanwhile, litter-picking and tidying were happening on the walk up to and around Brunswick Square and, once that was tidier, through parts of the Cemetery where Richard G, Jason and Frances were introduced to the wonders of Renée and Renata by Melanie. The 80s were odd.

Blue sky and sunshine for the 12 GoodGymmers who braved the hill up the Totterdown, making the mostbof the Banana (Benene, Binini,Bonono, Bununu, just for Frances) Bridge before it, too, closes for a couple of years to be fixed.

A local group is looking after some green spaces and making them more inviting, including this one (not the actual orchard but still technically an irchard as it has five fruit-like trees) that needed some woodchip moving from a big pile to start creating a winding path, hindweed to pull and fruit trees (what with it being an orchard) to water.

Riya, on her first good deed, mastered shovelling, raking and the all-important GoodGym proficiency test for wheelbarrowing after revealing she'd never tried any of then before - great work!

The runners, led by Vaguely Northern Darren and backmarked by Caroline, who was backmarked by 50-good-deeder Caroline, had already gotten to grips with the woodchip path-laying by the time the walkers arrived so Richard and Frances joined Melanie in trying to pull up the bindweed without pullout out, nor falling down, the bankside. Somehow Ed joined the path gang although he'd walked and defected to the running group for the return leg (where Marianne's 50th good deed cake was waiting - delicious!).

Darren took some lovely photos in the sunshine and if you can see through the glorious glare of the sun, Tom, Gareth and Freya were all hard at work casting long shadows.

Soon we'd weeded and pathed and were on our way back down the hill for tea, cake (and Ed's burger), cider and a lot of nonsense chattering about skiing chickens and Mr T(-pot). All pretty standard stuff.

Same tine next week?

Seven runners and four walkers made their way to Riverside Park in the evening sunshine to do what we do best...rid the parks of rubbish with style, panache and a little je ne sais quoi! (one of our new GoodGymers is French and I remembered that I am fluent at French! :-) So bienvenue to Genevieve and benvenuta to Brent GoodGymer Gaia (who's Italian, which is not one of the many languages I speak so had to Google that one.) It felt as if spring had finally arrived this evening and while we worked hard at the task, it was great to hear the chat and laughter while doing good, and seeing passers by smile and acknowledge the work we were doing for our community.