This morning 5 goodgymers & Mark from Surfers against Sewage geared up for a sunny, but slightly mucky clean up of the Avon Gorge. We also welcomed Zoe to GoodGym Bristol, who's come over from our friends at GG Oxford!

Despite the hoard of rubbish washed up from last weekend's storm, we were able to sweep and clear the bank leaving it noticeably cleaner.

Nothing out of the ordinary was found this time, other than a social distancing sign which was discarded much like the regulations last week. We'll be coming back again soon so hopefully some better treasure next time!

Thanks for coming everyone, great job all round!

There may have been more GoodGymers! remember its every week so do go and enjoy Uni Parks newest run!

Want to help out?

I’ve listed 2x GoodGym takeovers. Do sign up if you’d like to help. Some roles you can still run 🏃‍♀️ 🏃‍♂️

Newbies very welcome to help too 🙏

https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/university-parks-parkrun-goodgym-takeover. 5th March AND. https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/university-park-parkrun-goodgym-takeover 2nd April.

-- Here is the event report (from PRHQ). more photos on their facebook!

𝗦𝘁𝗮𝘁𝘀, 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝘁𝘀, 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝘁𝘀! Well we didn't see that coming! 📈 A whopping 𝟯𝟵𝟬 of you joined us this morning – thank you so much for parkrunning us 🌳 We've got a run report and plenty of photos on the way 📸 For now, get your rulers out, sharpen your pencils and don't forget to show your working – here's event 2 in numbers 🧮 ⏱ Whilst we didn't see quite such a bumper turnout coming, we did see first finisher Brad Burke (slight blurred around the edges – he was moving extraordinarily fast) come steaming along the finish straight to set a new 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗱 of 16:34 💥 Brad switched straight into hi-vis hero mode to scan barcodes after he finished 📱 Congratulations Brad, and thank you for volunteering 🙌 🌱🌿🌳 38 people completed their 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 ever parkrun with us this morning. Wishing you all a long and happy parkrun journey! 🦺 29 𝘃𝗼𝗹𝘂𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗲𝗿𝘀 helped make today's parkrun happen. Huge thanks to each of you for supporting our event. 🔎 We're turning out our pockets and lifting up our sofa cushions in the hunt for 𝘁𝗼𝗸𝗲𝗻𝘀 𝟭𝟱𝟴, 𝟮𝟵𝟳 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝟯𝟳𝟮, which went missing this morning. If you know where they might be, please do drop us a message – thank you! 🪨 𝗠𝗶𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘀! And lots of them 🎉 Let’s hear it for the following new milestones reached this morning: 1️⃣0️⃣ Olly 👏 5️⃣0️⃣ Steven and Nicola 👏 1️⃣0️⃣0️⃣ Peter 👏 2️⃣5️⃣0️⃣ Kersti 👏 Phew, we hope you kept up with all of that (except with Brad, of course 🙈). Did anyone hit any personal targets today? 🛎 We know there were some Fibonacci hunters amongst you 🐌 (See you next week as well?) Or perhaps you're more of a letters than a numbers person and ticked off another letter of your alphabet this morning? We'd love to hear your event 2 highlights 🌟 #loveparkrun

Orinoco is a new project for us, but in fact has been going for over 20 years. They aim to inspire art, creativity and play through reuse of items that would otherwise be destined for landfill. Previously based in Peat Moors, they now have a shiny new home in Temple Cowley shopping centre and a lot of moving-in jobs to be done.

This was our 2nd Wednesday evening session at Orinoco. The book event we helped them prepare for last week was a roaring success at the weekend, with over £900 raised in donations. Now it was time to the flip the store from book shop to multi-purpose space.

Springing into action we had teams:
* Unloading the Orinoco van to bring in more stock.
* Clipping shelving together to make taller units and reconfiguring their layout.
* Reorganising the storage area at the back of the shop floor - breaking down cardboard boxes, taking loads of donations upstairs to the extensive store rooms above the shop.
* Stocking the shelves with books to make a library corner.
* Laying out the games in another section of shelving.
* Attempting construction of further shelving; a failed attempt due to missing elements of the units - no GoodGymers at fault ;-)

By the time our hour was up the shop was looking much closer to being ready for the big relaunch on 19th February.

Great work team!

This week was our last Saturday at the food bank for a little while: it feels like the right time to handover to another volunteer team for a bit.

This week the food parcels were well under control when we arrived, so we didn't have to spend quite as long as usual finishing them. With just a couple to do from scratch, 4 emergency requests to fulfill and a dozen or so which needed fridge items added we were soon able to turn our attention to hall maintenance tasks: Restocking shelves, putting away donations, taking out the recycling, sorting through the fruit and veg and taking out the food waste, portioning up nappies and tea bags (not together!), trying to make the leaning tower of breakfast cereal less of a danger to all who walk past it, and finally a bit of floor sweeping and fridge cleaning.

Good luck with your move Zoe. You've been a wonderfully reliable GoodGymer - we'll miss you. You might not miss organising bread deliveries every Saturday though I guess!

You could definitely tell that it was the last week of January at the food bank: it's been a cold (and therefore expensive) month, and so people are struggling to make ends meet.

In addition to the regular Saturday food recipients there were 17 requests for emergency help. Between finishing packing the parcels for the 2nd van delivery route of the day and prepping the 17 emergency food parcels there wasn't time for much restocking or cleaning and tidying.

You can definitely feel the effects of rising cost of living and reduced benefits at the food bank, and it's heart breaking.

In a dark, dark city,
There was a dark, dark road,
And off that dark, dark road,
There was a dark, dark path,
And along that dark, dark path,
There was a dark, dark school,
And a dark, dark brook,
And a dark, dark nature reserve,
And dark, dark allotments.
And all of them were blighted by litter,
Blowing in from the dark, dark path.

It was certainly a dark, dark, cold, cold night for litter picking last night!

It was well worth wrapping up warm, donning our hi-vis and head torches and patrolling the paths and cycle ways of Boundary Brook area to clear up the litter and fly-tipping. It's a litter grot spot just where you wouldn't want one (I mean, we don't want them anywhere, but this is particularly bad) - by two primary schools, edging a waterway and a nature reserve, and one of the worst areas is right outside the Children's Allotment.

We filled a couple of dozen litter bags with masks, cans, newspapers, takeaway cartons, and all the usual litter suspects. More surprising were the lengths of carpet, kitchen sink and assorted other flytipping!

Welcome to GoodGym Megan!