What a brilliant evening at Friends of the Earth! It was great to welcome Daniel to Goodgym, having cycled to his first session and returner Ali too, with his friend Ahmed.

Eve had a very warm run across the city centre and got stuck straight in with window cleaning and taking some rubbish to the local big bins. We all did a mix of tasks around the outdoor area, with Ali watering plants and trimming the ivy, Daniel clearing the bike hanger of leaves and debris, whilst myself and Ahmed spruced up the window sills and squeaked the windows clean with staff member Karen.

It was such a fabulous team effort and great to see the impact we made together for this incredible charity. We’re usually at Friends of the Earth every few months and you can stay tuned to hear about all our upcoming activities on the Sessions page! 😊👍

Tonight Eve, Rich and I ran 4km up the Rea in the sun after what was quite a damp and rainy afternoon!

We then met Amy who had already done a one hour mammoth task leafletting for the community market. We helped her finish off her leaflet stack having the EXACT right number to do an entire road. So satisfying.

Then it was off to the British Oak for refreshments and a catch up ❤️

The sun was shining and there was a breeze within reach as we saw out the heatwave promoting Goodgym! Word was spread down Tiverton Road in Selly Oak as we posted 200 leaflets. Great session for getting the steps in and kudos to Eve for bookmarking it with canal runs from the city centre!

We had a fab team of five coming together to join Tina for the session at St. Martin's Church to sort through their clothing donations store. The staff use this to support local people experiencing challenges such as homelessness, by providing helpful toiletries, a range of clothing and blankets.

It was great to be asked back and help organise key items after lots of recent donations had really filled up the storage space. We boxed up all clothing by size then set aside surplus items and bagged them up for local charity shops.

Our many hands made light work and we were soon back in the clothing store packing in the labelled crates in neat rows. All in all, fab teamwork, great impact and as always, such a welcoming environment for a Goodgym session!

Tonight we had a magnificient attendance of 13 people at the task to move 2 tonnes of sand at St Thomas Nursery.

Jonny, Morwenna and Emily ran to the task from The Good Intent to meet the rest of the group at the task.

Chela, Klaudia and Thea joined us for the first time and really got stuck in to the job in hand, which was to move the sand into the 'beach' for the children at the nursery to play in. The group quickly went into 2 groups, doing the 2 different bags. Spades, saucepans and shovels were used, with then the wheelbarrows emptying the sand onto the beach! The pun has a little nod to Rory Mcilroy's Masters triumph on Sunday evening.

In around 25 minutes we were done! There even was time to build a few sandcastles.

The task owner, Laura was delighted with our efforts :) After a group photo we all headed off, James, joining the other 3 runners for the run back to the Good Intent.