A South Bristol extravanganza today as a dozen runners toured Bedminster and the surrounding area to deliver packs and flyers for Lifecycle.

Meeting at Roll For The Soul, we welcomed Jacob and Gulnara to the group for their first GoodGym experience, and Neil kindly outlined the work that Lifecycle do.

Our task today was to deliver promotional packs for Lifecycle to community and sports centres, GP surgeries and libraries around South Bristol and drop off flyers to cafes, shops and bars along North Street in Bedminster.

David H, David S, Sarah and Dom opted for the longer distance option by heading out along the Malago Greenway to deliver packs around Knowle West, doing us proud despite the distraction of blackberries heading through the Novers Hill area.

Paul, Neil and Nick headed through Redcliffe over to the Windmill Hill area and beyond to St Johns Lane, delivering packs along the way before dropping back down to North Street to deliver flyers.

Kait, Petra, Jacob, Gulnara and myself headed to Southville and on to Bedminster, taking a tour of a number of parks around the area and admiring a lot of areas where we have have done GoodGym tasks in the past. Job done the team then headed down the other end of North Street for some flyer delivery.

Managing to regroup around West Street, the whole gang then headed back for base, with Paul leading us on a longer and more scenic journey home.

This was great teamwork today and great to see that we could manage to set off in three different groups, get the task done and still meet up to run back together. Thank you everyone!

Back at base we congratulated David S for completing his 50th good deed today - nice one!

A reminder that we have tasks on Tuesday with Growing Support and next Saturday with Incredible Edible - two of our favourite groups to work with. There is also a Tuesday eats social after the run.

Many thanks and see you all again soon!

12 GoodGymmers ran 10k to deliver flyers for Lifecycle in East Bristol.

A longer run this Saturday as we headed east from the centre of town to help spread the news of the great work that Lifecycle do.

Some of this includes Bikeminded rides for wellbeing, bike rides for the over 55s, Twos Company tandem rides for the visually impaired, low cost bikes, free cycle training, as well as bike maintenance courses. You can find out more at www.lifecycle.org.uk

Our task today was to deliver a number of envelopes to community centres, libraries and health centres around East Bristol to promote the Bikeminded project as well as the Big Bike Revival - a fun,free event to give your bike a little TLC with the help of some friendly experts.

After running together as one group to the Trinity Centre we then split into two groups as we had a large area to cover - one heading off to Easton, the other covering St George and Lawrence Hill.

We had been given a list of centres to drop in the envelopes to, as well as a number of flyers to drop in at friendly cafes and shops along the way.

Given the number of drop offs and the distance to cover, we were grateful for the extra half hour that the Saturday morning run gives us and yes it could have been a little cooler but we welcomed a lovely sunny morning in good company.

Great work by everyone today - David and Richard got the Easton team round in good time, fantastically supported by Paul, Caroline, Mike and Andrew. I was not quite so good in getting my group back to the meeting point in time, but we had some great navigation from Lindsey, strong running from Julia and Nick, Will (20 or so miles for the morning!) and Deb (completing a second longer GG run on consecutive days).

Thanks to you all for your individual and collective contributions today - these are not the easiest tasks to manage but you guys made it work!

Fab stuff! I know that Viv at Lifecycle will be thrilled with what we have achieved for them today!

Thanks to Richard and Julia for your contribution to today's pun too! Thanks for the extra photos too Rich!

Cheers!

17 GoodGymmers ran 9 km to the Bristol Children’s Playhouse to tidy, build, plant and weave in a variety of tasks.

A new task for us today, organised by fellow GoodGymmer, Cathy, and you can generally tell as soon as you arrive how good a task is going to be. On arrival at the task today, we just knew that this was going to be a great one.

A big welcome to our newcomer, Jane, for today’s run and to Steph, our awesome GG Bath trainer and welcome back to Bris to Sion, who has recently moved up to Sheffield (almost perfect timing with the fairly recent launch of GG Sheffield).

Our run, on a lovely, sunny Spring morning took us up the Bristol Bath Railway Path through Easton towards Eastville, to the Bristol Children’s Playhouse, a voluntary pre-school which provides a supportive and stimulating environment for the whole family. It’s aim is to safeguard and promote the welfare of children within the family and provide quality preschool education allowing children to gain positive experiences to improve their confidence and self-esteem.

Cathy welcomed us in to the outdoor play area on a piece of land that had kindly been donated by the school next door and outlined a variety of tasks, set to test the versatility of the group:

David, Sarah, Steph and Fi set about building a compost storage pen out of pallets, using their collective know-how to wire this together and make it sturdy using tree branches as stakes and reinforced with a wooden block.

Caroline, Becky and Sion were tasked with creating an area in which to then design and build a planting box from wooden planks – with expert sawing advice from Sion, sterling organisational direction from Mel, and a bit of expert drilling from Cathy.

The appearance of a wheelbarrow (along with it’s very little brother) allowed Paul (naturally!) and Maddy to transport two apple trees into the play area, where they, Dave and Mel, dug holes to plant them in – some stubborn roots to get through here.

Chloe, Nick and Jane were busy collecting leaves that had been blown into the play area, and moving these to the compost pen, ready for storage. I don’t think Paul noticed that Jane had swiped the wheelbarrow for this task :-)

Last, but very definitely not least, Lisa and Will coppiced a tree, then using the thinner branches that they had liberated to weave through the railings at the entrance to the play area, which not only looked fantastic, but would apparently stop one particular young fellow from getting his head stuck between the railings!

The sun shone throughout, which just added to everyone’s enjoyment of the task – the only sad part was having to leave after a very productive hour.

Huge thanks to Cathy for arranging such a wonderful set of tasks for us, requiring as much brain power as muscle. We very much hope that we can come and visit again soon!

Also big thanks to multi-tasking Mel for not only coming up with some great suggestions on the task but also for getting Steph safely back to base as injury struck – very much appreciated. And to David for backmarking today, ensuring that we all got back safely, particularly through the protest marches, police and dogs – it was all going down in Bris today!

Finally, very many thanks to everyone for making this such a fun and rewarding morning and also for looping back on the run from time to time so that we could all stick together. Teamwork throughout!

All the best

Dave

A perfect 10 runners and an ace brace of cyclists made up this weeks not-so-dirty dozen to cover 8 km on a return to the Northern Slopes to continue the tidy up by Novers Hill

An almost spring-like morning greeted us as we met up at Roll For The Soul for another GoodGym Saturday run. Having been to Novers Hill just a few weeks before we knew what was in store for us today – lots of litter and a bramble onslaught – so preparation was key!

Warming up with a bit of light jogging on the spot, step climbing, squats and leg swings and a team talk focusing on the dangers of today’s opposition, it was then on with the game faces and down to business.

A steady run out along the Malago Greenway, saw us arrive in good time, with this weeks “Rocky” title going to Paul R as he flew up the steps to Novers Hill, cheered on by an adoring crowd – well, Matt and Paul B, to be precise!

Julia, our brilliant host today and Queen of the Northern Slopes Initiative, greeted us and armed us with our weapons of choice for today’s bout and outlined the challenge that lay ahead. Not only would we be clearing more litter from around the Novers Steps and taming the brutal brambles that had once threatened to overrun the whole of the Northern Slopes kingdom, but we would also need to take care to avoid the landmines that had been planted in our way in the form of piles of dog poo!

Fi and Deb opted for the heavy artillery in the form of Austrian Scythes, the sort of tool that the Grim Reaper would be pretty chuffed to own, and learnt all about the ergonomics and rhythm required to master the art of scything (scythery?).

Meanwhile, Darren and Sarah, clearly wanting to demonstrate their brute strength, selected slashers to lead the assault on the massive bramble forest that lay ahead, and seeking revenge for the injuries caused to Rich B by our foe a few weeks earlier. In fairness, I think that Darren was just trying to prove that he could slash in a relatively straight line!

Next our cunning quintet of Matt, Paul B, Will, Nick and Caroline took on the task of leading an initial foray with loppers deliver a few low blows to the prickly enemy and weaken it’s resistance.

I had the privilege of sweeping up the carnage caused by our whirlwind of winners with a double weapon of rake and pitchfork.

Whilst the main assault was going on, Paul R and Mark led an expedition down the flank, with litter pickers and rubbish bags at the ready, clearing the steps of all manner of evil debris.

An hour later and glory was ours and we celebrated our victory with mugs of mead and fistfuls of hog roast (oh sorry, no that was tea, coffee and biscuits). It had taken a little longer than planned, but we were all in one piece!

With a bye and thanks to Julia, we were back on our way home, with a spring in our step and stories of the battle to share.

Great running today by everyone, and a great victory on the slope! Nice one all!

Here’s to our next adventure!

Cheers!

Dave