It's card to believe but 30 runners joined us to complete two challenges this evening, the first to help Card Beds make beds for the homeless from waste bicycle boxes and the second to clear out a pile of junk from a room into a skip.

This run was huge, not only in numbers of runners but also in the amount of work we completed. It started as usual with a warm up outside Vivo, but this time with a big welcome to not only our new faces but also Ruth from GoodGym Central who particulary enjoyed the chicken herding.

The run was very short and we were soon at our destination for the evening, The Island. An old Police Station that has now been turned into a creative space used by artists and for loads of random events. Our main task for the evening was to help Elliot from Card Beds to turn a pile of old bike boxes into beds that could be given to people living on the streets to use to keep them off of the cold ground. Elliot met us and explained what he does and how the beds are made. The team got to work quickly drawing out templates, cutting pieces and even assembling a demo bed in the hallway.

Whilst this was going on Paul led a crack team to the cells below the building to clear out load of junk from a room so it could be used to it's full extent again. They work tirelessly and even though the skip was a fair old jaunt away they had soon had that room cleaner than a banjo polished by break-dancing alpaca covered in fairy liquid.

When time was up we loaded the bed parts into Paul's car so he could deliver them to the church where they will be distributed from, grabbed a quick group photo and then fled into the night. Sadly there was not much time for drills so we squeezed in some squats and lunges before stretching and wrapping up.

A big congratulations to Nick for hitting 50 deeds today. Only took 3 years, great commitment fella! And a big shout to Chris for the pun.

Thanks to everyone who came down I had a brilliant night and I hope you did too.

See you soon amigos,

Gary

Wowzers! 38 people came along last night to our run to help a local homeless charity improve their garden. One of our biggest runs ever on one of the colder nights of this impending winter... you guys all rock! An especially big welcome to all our new runners (well, the 3 new ones).

We squeezed in to our meeting point at Vivo and warmed up whilst people signed in, and then Gary led the run to Emmaus - it was a very short run though! We grabbed gloves and tools and set to work.

Our tasks were these:

Moving a sofa dumped on some plants we planted last time.

Weeding the beds we literally smashed apart last time (there was cobbled stones before!).

Litter picking

Mulching

Bulb planting

Sweeping

The list goes on but with 38 people we were done in under 20 minutes, so one of our fastest accomplished tasks too!

To get more exercise out of the gang, Gary led a hilly run and Dave led a flatter run back to Queen Square, although I was waiting for Dave's team at the end with a couple of games that were hopefully both fun and fitness boosting too.

We'd just finished the second game (Stuck in the mud) when Gary's team came in to the square and saved the rest of the group from lunges. Phew. So instead we had a big stretch, some announcements, and then quite a few of us went for a pie too!

Top job, ladies and gents!