On (yet) another wintry, windswept evening, a doughty team of GoodGymers cruised by trainer or tyre to Brighton's Community Kitchen, a regular on the GoodGym roster, and a key community venue for the Brighton and Hove Community Partnership, the umbrella organisation that also oversees another GoodGym staple task venue Wilding Waterhall, among other initiatives.

The gang were welcomed as usual by Jo, the manager at Community Kitchen, with an efficient checklist of tasks including window washing, pan sloshing and oven scrubbing, ticked off with gusto by the team to the accompaniment of Jo's playlist of upbeat pop classics, including Madonna's 80s Latin-inspired reverie La Isla Bonita.

Offering an oasis of the culinary kind, the Community Kitchen serves up a menu of enticing cookery classes for all, led by local top chefs, with sessions on Goa curries, macarons, and steaks, sauces and stocks on the near horizon. It also delivers a range of community cooking workshops at low/no cost to improve well-being and confidence for people on low incomes, those living with dementia and those with physical/mental health conditions, empowering disadvantaged groups with cooking skills while providing advice on creating money-savvy nutritious meal plans.

The Community Kitchen is also available as a community venue to hire, which GoodGym Brighton made exuberant use of for its most recent Christmas bash, which featured rounds of tricky quizzing and a flotilla of pizzas. As this task fell on Shrove Tuesday, floury treats of a different kind were flipped at the follow-up social, as a contingent energised by Pippa's pancake-themed HIIT session wolfed down stacks at the nearby venue Hope and Ruin, dowsed in maple syrup and ice cream.

A great session to welcome Sam on his first go with GoodGym Brighton!

Last Tuesday evening, for our Brighton GoodGym’s regular weekly group session, the rain couldn't dampen our spirits. We saw a winter-record turnout, with 17 GoodGymers walking, running, and cycling through the downpour to reach the Fitzherbert Hub. The gang included: Rob – happily returning after a busy time at work😊; Ricky – visiting GoodGymer from Worthing on a 200 good deeds + 250 parkruns mission for 2026; and, David – new GoodGymer who opened the doors of the venue and all its cupboards needing some action. It was time for some cleanup duty! 😉

It was great to be back at The Real Junk Food Project Brighton - an organisation we’ve long admired and that we love supporting for their mission to feed the community using surplus food.

Here is Ricky’s report - A Visitor’s Perspective on his first GoodGym Task with the Brighton group:

*“Yesterday, I had the opportunity to join a Brighton GoodGym task as a visitor from Worthing. I have been meaning to do this for some time, but it never quite coincided with logistics after work. Everyone was very friendly and although I had to trail behind the running group due to only being equipped for the day job (and having run already) it didn’t take that long to reach the task.

*I had heard about the Fitzherbert Centre before but had never been inside so it was interesting to find out how it is now co-operated by four different charitable organisations.

*I found someone to work with, and we set about cleaning one of the toilets before going back into the main room to join in with the others. It turned out to be a small world, discovering my cleaning buddy was a friend of someone in my Goodgym Worthing group. I also met another who I had previously got chatting to spontaneously on a train when one or both of us must have been dressed for running!

I hope to return for future tasks when circumstances permit and one day I will be able to run when not wearing or carrying anything that might impede me!”

Thanks Ricky, and all. Let’s keep the momentum going for some more sparkling sessions! HERE’s what’s on at GoodGym Brighton in the next few weeks.

15 robust, wind-resistant Goodgymmers jogged over to St. Andrews church in Hove for our first visit of 2026. We welcomed new Goodgymmers Emily and Nancy!

Upon arriving we were welcomed inside by Vicar Dan and given a whole host of implements to get the church spick and span. We split into teams of dusters, sweepers, vacuumers and polishers and got to work!

Dan asked that we focus on giving the pews a good polish and sweeping the cobblestone floors. The church gets a lot of traffic from regular services and kids clubs. As made progress with the dusting an extra-long duster was constructed to get some pesky cobwebs* right in the rafters.

Cobwebs cleared, our big congregation of goodgymmers made quick work of the cleaning, posed for a team photo and then headed back once more into the breach (/wind).

*DId you know the difference between a cobweb and a spider web? A spider web can be new or old. A cobweb is typically an older web that has been left behind and has started collecting dust and debris. Some “cobweb spiders” make messy tangle webs even when they're fresh, so the best clue is usually fresh and sticky vs dusty and dull, not neat vs messy.

Yesterday session was held at the Brighthelm Centre, a well-known community venue in central Brighton that hosts a wide range of social, cultural, and support services and other community-focused volunteering activities.

The main objective was to help out the centre with practical maintenance tasks to improve the accessibility and appearance of the community spaces, currently disrupted by building works that are in progress since weeks. After a warmup tuned by Zumba moves (courtesy of Zumba with Mon), we engaged in a combined sweeping action of stairwells indoors and of leaves outdoors, accompanied by a festive weeds scraping workout of the garden pavements. The grace of Ewan, the building manager, revealed just how meaningful our contribution was to him and to all who benefit from this vital community centre in Brighton.

Yesterday mild night turned to be a bonus, bringing most joy to our GoodGym-ing and chit-chatting about the coming up Xmas GoodGym social events. We welcomed Pavel at his second GoodGym session on a personal mission to do as many good deeds as possible by 2025.

More to come? Plenty!