We came, we sawed, we painted.

Happy New Year and welcome back to doing good and getting fit with GoodGym!

Firstly, we have to welcome Jon who completed his first good deed with us - give him a cheer!

We did a slightly topsy turvy group run today by completing our run after the good deed but it made sense as the Lido team only came in because we were coming in!

A few of us did the Great Run Local first, Tony completing his fastest GRL 5km in a while and Judy beautifully modelling the GG t-shirt whilst running round in the drizzle. Jen did the 2km with Alice and I did the 2km with Angus so we were jogging, walking and encouraging along rather than a flat out run!

Judy's t-shirt was very handy as Jon spotted us coming over the bridge and we met up with the rest of the gang (including a whole bunch who'd utilised Jo North's taxi service!).

We then went on in to the Lido to meet Des and Sabrina who had lots of jobs for us to do. Val and Dr Jo used great team work to saw the tops off some old plastic chemical drums so they could be repurposed into plant pots. Tony & Jon worked together to bring old heavy metal fencing into the store room. Jo North, Maura & Jen took shelter in the Gents... where the picnic benches have been stored, and gave them a coat of paint. Jen's hands were pretty blue by the end, hopefully she'll manage to be less blue by the time she goes to work tonight! Mel, Sarah and India were first putting up the painting tower before scraping away some of the old flaky paint. Judy was breaking up the compost pile and I was smashing up some rubble so we had the base ready for the planting. Maxine was taking many stealth photos whilst also ferrying buckets between the planting area and the compost heap. Dr Jo and Val took charge of transferring the roses from their transit pots to the new plant pots with the rest of us heaping in the compost and then taking them over to the newly open fencing area which looks out onto the sea wall.

As ever, there was lots done by everyone and the Lido team were very grateful. We then headed over the bridge to have a walk / run round Foxes Forest. We almost lost Judy before we started but luckily spotted the red t-shirt and we all got back safely. Thanks to Mel for leading the walkers and Tony for taking the speedier runners on some additional loops. Kudos to Maxine and Dr Jo for taking the very long loop back round the moat at the end. Most of us then stopped off for a cuppa at the Blue Lagoon and a sample of Maxine's healthy January baking!

A great first group run back and less than a week to wait till the next one! Naomi House visit on Wednesday plus a whole heap of other community missions coming up in the next fortnight - check out all the listings here

See you all again soon!