Our group was celebrating being a whole month old and this Tuesday evening saw us return to Leith Community Croft, our first ever Group Run task. This is a fantastic community croft run by Earth in Common.

Ali was on hand to welcome us, dish out the tools, and point us towards an overgrown herb garden and surrounding growing spaces that were in need of some TLC. Armed with trowels, forks, spades, and plenty of determination, we got to work straight away.

An hour of solid effort later, there was a significant transformation. We tackled weeds, cleared beds, and helped bring some order back to the growing areas. There's always plenty to do at the Croft, but it's amazing what a motivated team can achieve in a short space of time.

We have been talking with Ali about the possibility of GoodGym taking on a dedicated corner of the market garden to maintain on a longer-term basis. Ali is really keen on this idea so it looks like we will be returning to the community croft on a regular basis. Watch this space for what could become our very own GoodGym Growing Project! 🌿

A special shout-out goes to Luke, who joined us from GoodGym Kingston for the second consecutive week while enjoying his holidays in Edinburgh. We hope you've enjoyed seeing a bit of the Scottish capital and thanks for being part of the team.

Also a big welcome to Imogen, Michael, Ian and Suilven. Great to have you onboard!

With the tools packed away and some energy to spare we squeezed in a quick workout before running back up Leith Walk and a nice wee crew stuck around at Edinburgh Street Food for some well-earned food and drinks, taking advantage of that 15% discount.

Five weeks in and we're already building partnerships, improving local spaces, and perhaps even planting the seeds for a project of our own. Here's to month two! 💚🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️🌱

We have recently set up a Whatsapp community - link to join is here: https://chat.whatsapp.com/LWdv5YU8SJ7LYNARbKFj6f

And don't forget to follow us on Instagram (any help with photos/videos and getting posts out is greatly appreciated) https://www.instagram.com/goodgymedinburgh/

It was a small but mighty crew for this week’s GoodGym Edinburgh group run, with four of us meeting at P’s and G’s Church at the slightlier earlier than usual time of 5.30pm to support Volunteer Edinburgh as they closed down and cleared up Scotland’s largest Volunteer Recruitment Fair.

Our stall had been buzzing throughout the day, thanks to the brilliant efforts of Lucia, Katie and Suzanne, who came along earlier to help spread the word. Across the event we spoke to over 110 people, lots of people keen to get involved and many folk having spotted our feature in Monday's Edinburgh Minute! https://www.edinburghminute.com/the-edinburgh-minute-monday-31-august-2026/

Packing Down the Fair

At 5.30 the fair was closed to the public and there was mountain of work to tackle. We got stuck straight into shifting and stacking chairs, packing down tables across the hall, sweeping and mopping the main floor and clearing leftover materials and rubbish.

The staff on site were hugely appreciative for our help making a mammoth end‑of‑day job manageable. It’s safe to say we earned some serious brownie points with Volunteer Edinburgh for a strong showing during the clear‑up as well as the fair itself.

A Drizzly Litter Pick at St George V Park

With spirits high after a satisfying indoor task, we dropped bags at Edinburgh Street Food and jogged down to St George V Park and Rodney Street Tunnel for a bonus mission: a quick litter pick in the light drizzle. It proved to be a worthwhile spot. In a short session we collected over 300 pieces of litter with some bizarre, and slightly creepy, finds along the way.

Thanks to Chris Evans and Edinburgh Council's Seafield Street Cleaning Hub for providing us with litter pickers, gloves and bags, and thanks to Councillor Jack Caldwell for linking us in with the team!

Finishing With a 5km Loop

To round off the evening, we completed a 5km loop taking in Warriston Path. Big efforts from Jake (closing in on 50 GoodGym activities completed!), Kate, Luke and Jake for a great evening!

A tidy hall, a cleaner park, and a solid run — not bad for a Tuesday evening.

Wow, what a great first session launching GoodGym Edinburgh with a bang!

Big shout out to all the runners and walkers who turned up for the debut Tuesday Group Run. We were joined by GoodGym CEO Hannah Crane who made the trip up from London to celebrate Scotland's first GoodGym community getting started.

We set off from Edinburgh Street Food with our running and walking groups and made good time down to Leith Community Croft where the incredible Ali from Earth In Common was on hand to share out tools, tell us about the work they do and talk us through what needed done.

I was blown away by how much weeding, wheelbarrowing, clearing and tidying up we were able to get through in a short space of time. The raised beds were looking in good shape once we were done, we had managed to clear a good chunk of material off site into a skip and made a good start on the market garden (potential for a follow up task here I think).

Finishing off with a 'Bring Sally Up' squat challenge before tucking into some discounted grub and drinks at Edinburgh Street Food was a real highlight for me. Looking forward to seeing what other kinds of short workouts we can squeeze into future runs!

A huge thank you to Places for People for their support in helping bring GoodGym Edinburgh to life. Their partnership has been key to getting this new community off the ground.

For the next sessions I'll be looking for helpers in run leading and photography. There are also opportunities to get involved in setting up tasks as a member of Taskforce. if you'd like to help out with GoodGym Edinburgh just drop me an email.

big love,

Dave

While we're finally beginning to feel Spring in the air, on Monday the GoodGym gang braved a dark wet evening once again, on a mission to clear up yet more litter around Grove Street. This session started out emotionally as we said our goodbyes to a long-term member Jake, who will be moving on to exciting new pastures. After sharing some cake to celebrate Jake's time with us, we steeled ourselves and got stuck in at a particularly littered patch of greenery we'd scouted previously. The going was rough in places, but in an hour we left the little corner considerably cleaner, and with our Grove street litter bag total boosted up to 28. While it was just a little unnamed corner of Liverpool, the spot is home to a range of birds and even some rabbits, so hopefully they will appreciate the cleanup alongside the many passers-by commuting into the university.

There was a change of plan in Liverpool on Monday, the original plan for a meet up sadly had to be rescheduled so the team quickly regrouped and decided to pivot to a litter pick rather than cancel.

Siân had an excellent suggestion of a patch of land which actually linked back by an overgrown path to the green we litter picked last week. She did a quick reccy during the day to check there was enough litter to keep the keen goodgymmers going, and shared the location with a fabulous caption of “here be litter”. And there was indeed! During the reccy she spotted some rabbits, which added a fabulous incentive for the group to make the area nice and clean for the local bunnies.

We met at the Tung Auditorium and welcomed new member Dan, and sadly learnt it was Jake's penultimate session as he’s moving away! After introductions Bekah laid the ground rules as we were working in a quiet dark area – no wandering off alone into the darkness, and everyone to remain in pairs, minimum. We each had a bag and nominated a specific recycling bag, which Sian would kindly take to the appropriate recycling centre the next day.

It was a great spot as the litter was quite dense and we could quickly see the impact we were having as we cleared it. We found new, unopened hair rollers, pint glasses, a tent which the ground had begun to engulf and which Heetu astutely spotted was 1 item, not 2 as it appeared poking out of the ground in various places, numerous umbrellas, and lots of litter!

Due to injury Bekah was limited to the carrying she could do, so acted a human corral and kept the team safely together – catching Sallyannin the act as she was seconds away from heading straight for the dark undergrowth!

It was great to return to the same area the following week, as it really felt like we’d completed the job. The only concern was due to doing so many litter picks recently, we were running low on bags – what a nice problem to have.

Special shoutouts to new member Dan, who originally joined Goodgym in London and sought us out following a move to Liverpool, and Nina who it was lovely to see again after her 4-month break away. The team’s good work means the bunnies can safely hop another day!