Tonight we welcomed Sarah, John and Holly to their first GoodGym experience. Thank you to everyone for making them feel so welcome - don't forget we can spread the love some more by cheering them on the GoodGym website!

*//Cheers *

Now even though it was Johns first time, he stepped up in GoodGym fashion and was back-marker. Thank you John B!

Tonights task took us back to Baffins Pond where we were met by two members of the Baffins Pond Association. The Baffins Pond Association have planted over 100 trees in the last two years and we had the great task of tending to the trees to ensure they grow big and strong. The last time we were there it was so dark it was hard to appreciate how much work we hard done to tend to the new trees. However, the weather this evening was beautiful, and there were lots of smiles which prompted Amanda to introduced us to the word "Biophilia" which is a love of living things and nature.

We did a great job removing the grass and plastic supports from the tress and spreading the mulch to help the tree absorb the rain water and nutrients they provide. We were also shown a pond close to where we were tending to the trees which needs re-lining which could be a job for GoodGym soon! You'll see jazz hands in our group photo and Amanda and Adam doing the wheelbarrow - impressive stuff as we took about 100000 photos trying to get a good one! It was great that it stayed light for the whole task and was still light when we returned to base to do our stretches.

*//GG Portsmouth News *

• Rachel achieved a new PB at ParkRun - good work Rachel!
• There is a Beach Clean this Saturday, meeting at 10am at Southsea Coffee Cup, for more details and to sign up click here. If you are going along the organisers have requested we use buckets instead of plastic sacks, so if you have one please bring it with you.

Thank you all for being so well behaved whilst Katie is away - I only needed to use my teacher voice once!

Looking forward to seeing you soon.

On Spring Equinox and international happiness day we headed out to a new task at Arundel Court School. Angela led the walking group who got there before the runners - they were having too much fun playing squat squat goose.

We were put to work by the caretaker in the woodland area and the small allotment plot. There was plenty of litter to pick up that kind passers by had thrown into the school ground. The allotment area was quite overgrown so our very own botanist Judy identified the difference between plants and weeds and the team set to work. Sam was pulling so hard at a mint root that she ended up on the ground when it came out. There were lots of jokes involving Tony and the hoe... Duncan was wearing a super reflective jacket which confused the phone camera no end (check out the group pic where you can ONLY spot Duncan!). He also got his scout badge on the GoodGym website tonight!

Once the allotment area was transformed and we'd talked about what else could be done in the woodland area in the daylight; we headed back to the community centre for some MORE squats, clock face lunges and some skips and bounds alongside the car park. Good efforts all round - Tim's bounds were particularly skillful.

In this week's news:

• Jo wore the hat for reaching 50 good deeds at the weekend - she will be joining Mel in the black t-shirt gang now.
• Tim became an uncle in the hour before our task started
• Louisa was today's featured photographer on the BBC - check out the pic here, it's beautifully spring like!
• Lucy ran her first half marathon at the weekend at Hampton Court. Good work Lucy!

We have a community mission on Sunday if you're free - with an option of the Great Run Local beforehand and a cuppa (and cake?) afterwards. And we're off to Baffins next Wednesday to free the trees from their plastic wrapping.

See you soon for more good deeds.

A big well done to all who came along tonight and braved the cold wind. Good to see Space Rosy and Vicki back for their second group run. We had a last minute change to our task as our original (warm & indoor) task was canceled due to staff sickness. So we headed out for a quick (cold and outdoor) Parkletics workout followed by a run out to the shoreline at Stamshaw for a litter pick overlooking the continental ferry port and Whale Island (Naval Base).

Great enthusiasm from everyone for the Parkletics. Thanks to Rosie with an e for stepping in on camera duty for this one too. Once it gets warmer I will organise a proper Parkletics session for everyone. Let me know if you're interested in coming along.

Down by the seaside there was plenty of litter to pick! In true GG Portsmouth fashion we found discarded clothing (a pop sock) as well as rubbish from fireworks, drinks cans and bottles, a golf ball (way off course with that shot) and a plastic crate. We filled 2 extra large rubbish bags and then had to carry them for about 800m to find the nearest PCC bin to leave them by. Well done Mel on that one.

In our round up of news we learnt that Jen got a new buggy PB at the Great Run Local on Sunday (extra well done for that as the conditions were awful) and Rachel will be your friendly barcode scanner if you're heading to Southsea Parkrun this Saturday.

We're off to Baffins Pond for a community mission on Saturday at lunch time and then back in Fratton for a run to Arundel Court next Wednesday.

See you all at a GoodGym session soon!

p.s. thanks to my wonderful models for demonstrating 43 in Roman Numerals. For those who have no idea what we were up to - the 50th GoodGym is about to launch so each area has been tasked to represent their launch number - ours being 43!

A warm welcome to John, Vicki and Rosy who attended GoodGym for the first time! Hope to see you guys again soon.

At the other end of the scale, Mel completed her 50th good deed, so got to wear the crazy cap! We look forward to her modeling her new black t-shirt soon.

We started the evening with a quick talk from Beth from Parkletics telling us about the new equipment in the park and how she would like to see it well used. I'm on the training tomorrow so if anyone wants to learn more about how to use it or become a trainer as well, let me know!

We warmed up with a quick game of domes and dishes which got quite competitive - I'm not sure whether it was cheating or strategy that meant the dishes team won 11-9. Close!

Breezy does it

Then it was off to the Deaf Centre to help move chairs from the mezzanine to outside for breaking and stacking. Tony picked up a breeze block and used that to break the cushions off the chairs and Adam found his inner karate kid by kicking off the cushions. A good way to take out the day's frustrations! Tracey, Laura, John and Vicki were put to work cleaning the kitchen which was left sparkling and in the final task the orange chairs were taken up to the mezzanine floor, taking up the space that had been cleared. We used the stage space to pose for our #balanceforbetter photo for international women's day on Friday.

After all that, it was still quite early so we went down to Canal walk to do some partner resistance work (cue lots of laughing), got our squats done for the squat challenge and split into walkers, runners and loop runners to all meet back at the community centre for some post-run stretches.

Nice work by all - see you next week for another installment!