You've got the tools but have you got the touch?

With some stiff legs and sore throats from Bristol Half Marathon running and cheering at the weekend, a big group of runners still stumbled together to show Shania Twain what her lyrics should really be. It was great to see lots of new faces tonight - welcome Hannah, Stefano and Nia!

With the dark nights drawing in, the group did me proud with a great array of hi-viz and head torches on show. I am looking forward to seeing much more of this over the coming months! In our red and fluoro-clad group, we hopped off to the south side of the river to help two different tasks.

Dave took a group to Cherry Tree Garden, where they were helping Julie give the garden a big cut-back and weed for the Autumn. With all hands on deck, the 15-strong group made a massive dent in it and left the area neat and ready to be enjoyed by all the Bedminster locals. The group even had time to do a Beatles reenactment on their way home...

What the fork

Meanwhile, the rest of the group went to help Urban Buzz at Gores Marsh Park. Hayley from Urban Buzz explained to us that after a summer with a drought, followed by the recent rainy weather, the meadows in the park have now been left with a thick layer of mulch on them. We needed to remove this and then reseed it. Thirty pairs of hands got a hold of whatever tools they could find, and here started a competition between mulching with a fork, spade, rake, shovel or hoe was the best method. Meanwhile, our expert Mulch Movers skirted back and forth, getting rid of the piles of mulch being dragged up. With a quick reseed under the darkening sky, the group waved goodbye to the meadow and headed home.

Well done to everyone who helped make Bedminster beautiful tonight!

A bit of drizzle doesn't put Bristol GoodGym off! Despite the dreary weather and the umbrella obstacles, our group of runners helped two brilliant projects tonight. It was great to have so many new faces join us tonight - welcome John, Chris, Zoe, Tim and Matthew!

After we warmed up, the group split into two tasks: Westbury Park and the East Bristol Food Bank.

Westbury Park Wanderers

The Westbury Park group set off on their longer and hillier run. They made quick progress and were greeted by Sue and Paul from St Alban's Church who soon set them to work on the area. The group were sanding down the doorway to the church and weeding their way around the area (with regular trowels this time, not the famous golden trowel which made it's way there last time). After a biscuit-refueling, the group ran back and set such a quick pace that they had finished stretching before the Food Bank group were even in appearance!

Food Bank Fighters

The rest of us set off to our regular task, the East Bristol Food Bank. After our numerous occasions of helping them at their old storage unit, we had the exciting news that they had found their own space and they were moving. The group split into the packers and the unpackers, with the packers heading to say a final fond farewell to the our favourite lift in Bristol, while the unpackers went to investigate the new warehouse. While the packers cleared out the stocked up rooms and sent the final food donations on their way, the unpackers weighed and sorted the donations from the past week. There was a tie for the 'Weirdest Donation of the Week' between edible eyeballs and lemon cheese. Meanwhile, Clo and Caroline made a toilet roll tower which they were so proud of that I have attached a photo for the whole world to see.

With all of this help to sort their new space, the food bank will be able to receive more donations (and fit more GoodGymers inside to help!) - hooray!

We all had our first dark run back to our base. Remember your head torches and hi-vis from now on everyone!

A pair of wings, a Park Run magistrate and a vegan chocolate brownie walk into a bar...

Not a joke, just another night of celebrations at GoodGym Bristol, as we had a triple celebration tonight. But before we could dig straight into our three reasons to eat cake, we had some running, squatting and a task to complete. It was great to be joined by first-timers Laurence and Latoria tonight - welcome!

The group warmed up and quickly split into two. Maria led half of the group through two parks to where we reconvened at Easton Salvation Army. Mark, the Corps Officer at Easton Salvation Army, quickly showed us the overgrown area behind the building, which hadn't been worked on in a long time. The group chose their piece of equipment and quickly set to work cutting back the bushes, nettles and brambles, as well as doing an impressive job of litter-picking and leaf-raking.

Brambling around

Art crowned himself the Bramble King, but Alice soon whipped out a huge bramble with her bare hands to give him a run for his money. Meanwhile, Zdeni wasted no time in getting into the skip which the Salvation Army had got in for us to fill. Luckily, she had a plan, and we soon managed to squeeze even more garden waste into it.

After the team had successfully made a huge dent in the overgrown area and filled several bags of rubbish, it was soon time for a good old cup of tea and biscuit to build up the strength to run back. This led to two teams being created: the tea-sippers and The Rest. As we left the tea-sippers to sip, The Rest of the group split into two groups who had a hotly contested race back to Queen's Square.

Squat Squad

While we squatted our way to our own Centurions, we celebrated Liam reaching his 100th Good Deed! This meant that, not long since it's last parade, the Centurion outfit was dusted off for Liam to wear with pride. Well done Liam!

Not only had we this to celebrate, but also Mel's incredible achievement of her 200th (and 201st - in one day) Good Deed(s). Massive congratulations to you Mel, and we look forward to you sporting your new t-shirt with the same amount of glamour you show while stretching off at the same time as receiving it in the photos.

And as if two sets of delicious cookies weren't enough (is there any such thing as enough cookies?), Richard Good-deed Giddings went and had a birthday to celebrate and made mega vegan chocolate brownies to go with it (also inventing the timeless game of 'Which one is birthday Richard?' which you can join in on the photos above). Happy birthday Richard!

And so, the celebratory squad went on their merry way, sated by sugar and another good deed to add to their lists. Until next time...

Tonight was the night. The stars aligned, the figures added up, Matt's beady eyes on GoodGym stats came to great use and the five years of Bristol GoodGymers being jolly good people culminated in

GoodGym Bristol hitting 10,000 Good Deeds!!

Just two weeks after GoodGym hit a grand old total of 100,000 good deeds, you have shown what a massive contribution you have all been. You are all amazing!

But first, what Good Deed got us up to this big old milestone? We gathered in our usual spot to run out to Easton to return to Cafe Connect. It was great to have some new runners with us tonight - welcome to Gemma, Rhiannon and Teresa! Libby and her team at Cafe Connect are planning to do a grand reopening of the space as soon as they can, and had drawn up a big list of tasks to keep all 34 GoodGymers well and truly occupied. The team were quickly split into small teams each with their own tasks.

The Garden Group

The painting team gave the inside and outside walls a fresh lick of paint to finish off the job they had started last time. The gardening team got green-fingered by giving the tomato plants a helping hand and planting some new ones. The wood-chopping team got ferocious with saws and axes to split up wood into kindling.

The Kitchen Kids

In the kitchen, the group did a stellar job keeping their hands above their heads for half an hour, and had the added bonus of taking down lots of excess plastic and foam from the kitchen which will massively help the Cafe Connect team with their health and safety.

The Cafe Crew

Inside, Kait found her new passion for varnishing (if you need a varnisher, you know who to call) and Gary got reunited with the table he so lovingly sanded all those weeks ago. The magnetic board team spent a long time holding the board against the wall (shown beautifully by Alex and Freddie in the pictures). After 30 minutes, they realised that they couldn't actually stand there until the cafe opened, so the team eventually found some nails to keep it in place miraculously hands-free.

After a speedy half an hour, much to the group's disappointment, we had to pack up our toys and head back on our 3km run home. The group zoomed along, and we were soon stretching off our evening's antics. Little did we realise that Matt was going to be trumping his own birthday cake (but not his own face on his birthday bottle) with the 10,000 good deeds, showstopping, Carl the Caterpillar cake, topped by an impressive array of numbered sparklers. These were so decidedly hard to light that it led to a fantastic countdown from well...one to..zero. We very much appreciated each one though, Matt!