A Tale of Two Tribes

Community A core value of Goodgym and tonight there was bucket loads of exactly that- Community Spirit - everywhere you looked!

Tonight, for the first time, Goodgym Poole joined up with local running club, Oakdale Runners, on what is hopefully, the start of many future partnerships. Oakdale Runners (OR's) has as its the core a friendly, warm group of runners who are supportive, inclusive and want to have some fun! Lucie, a recently qualified Coach and leader at OR, approached Goodgym and suggested a joint evening with a social to finish - and of course we jumped at the chance! Many of Goodgym runners are also Oakdale Runners so it is not all new to everyone! Lucie also suggested Robs Filling Station as a base, and they agreed to open just for us! Rob's Filling Station started as a community mission in itself! Rob and Uncle Mick started using the forecourt of the garage in the pandemic. They volunteered to make up hot meals for the 500 homeless in the area that had been housed in hotels but not getting hot food. It wasn't even a business offering food at this point! By an amazing karma, providence or just call it community spirit, these meals ended up being fulled funded by donations from local people, without even an request for funds! A generous kind offer to provide those meals, turned into a unplanned business venture of the self proclaimed 'tent in a car park' that is now Rob's Filling Station. They serve up Paella, Pizza, Pasta, Breakfasts and even a roast to the local community who are in turn spreading the word of the good food, friendly reception and quirkiness of the roadside cafe!

We all met at Rob's before heading over to the grass area for the traditional Goodgym Warm Up - Your name and Number! 19 all present and correct, before the skips and hops across the pathways! Onto the nearby roads of Oakdale which provided a great space to do some short lamppost running with speed, enough to get heart racing and improving that form! There was even the opportunity for steps over the railway bridge as we regrouped.

We arrived at The Old Town Children's Centre to see already regular team members Jane and Patricia in full painting swing on the gate whilst Andrew had started on the other end!

We were soon dividing into groups, as task owners Clair and Helen always come both fully prepared with tools and equipment!

Lucie, Emma, Sian, Marbellys and Lynne were quickly onto fence painting with the others. The fence had never been painted and had no primer so it was a lengthy task, despite only being small! It took full 50 mins to complete with extra hands coming in, if that had been one person it would have taken over 6 hours to do!

Tamar, Becky and Helen took on the bravest task - a flat packed sandbox! The fear of making it upside down is real I have no doubt! Team work was the only way (and the instructions!) and it was completed and ready to go by end of task - Mission Completed!

Sue, Joanne and Debbie were so keen on getting those weeds on the garden area, at one point the bushes appeared to having the last laugh with Debbie disappearing into one! Emma was spotted in many places getting her hands dirty so all great to have everyone just get on with it!

Christine, Elizabeth and Hannah, regular Goodgym members, worked quietly in the background whilst Robert and Sian found many a weed to bag! The best find was from Janet who spotted the dead plant actually contained a healthy looking potato!

Task completed with a sandbox, a now blue fence and many bag fulls of weeds - It was time for pizza! A quick mile back to Rob's where another 20 ORs were already enjoying a pizza post their run!

A really fantastic way to introduce others to what we do at Goodgym, we hope to see many of you again!

Let's keep that community spirit going!