The weather forecast was looking awful and I was worried our task was going to be rained off, but it turned out to be a lovely evening down at the community croft with Earth in Common.

After a short run down Leith Walk it was another evening of graft turning over compacted soil and digging out stubborn weeds. We are making steady progress in expanding the market garden but there's still a lot to do, so expect us to be back again to continue the work! The vision is to keep coming back to this spot and see it transform over time to a thriving growing space with Goodgym veg supporting the community!

Thanks to Ali and the Earth in Common team for hosting us again.

Shout out to Lucy for getting to a park run this past weekend.

Props to Rory for running all the way to and from Gorgie to get to the task.

And congratulations to Jake for completing your PHD! A huge achievement and looking forward to exploring your idea for a GoodGym run based around your history of running tour in Edinburgh - watch this space for developments on this.

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Another lovely Tuesday evening session with 7 Gooodgymmers returning to the community croft in Leith for some hard graft.

With the fading daylight, we benefited from our patch having a nearby streetlight providing enough light on a lovely crisp autumn evening. As we were taking on a heavily overgrown section of land we brought our best 'Ross Kemp energy' and got stuck in. Armed with spades, forks and gloves, we dug, pulled, cleared and shifted our way through stubborn vegetation, gradually reclaiming more ground for future growing.

Although we made excellent progress, there is more work to do, so the plan is to come back again next week to continue the work - sign ups are open now. With a few more sessions, we're hoping this patch can eventually become productive growing space and play its part in supporting the amazing work being done by Earth in Common and the wider Leith community.

Until then, we'll keep getting grubby

It was a mighty meetup on a pleasantly mild Tuesday evening this week with 13 GoodGymers joining 12 Edinburgh Trash Club litter pickers for a joint mission around Tolbooth Wynd Park and the surrounding area.

Walking and running groups set off from Edinburgh Street Food and made excellent time down Leith Walk to get to the meeting point. There we met up with Indy and the Edinburgh Trash Club for our first, but hopefully not our last, collab.

Edinburgh Trash Club meet up once a fortnight for cleanup duties around the city (and post cleanup socials in the pub) and are well worth checking out: https://www.instagram.com/edinburghtrashclub/

After some friendly introductions we got to work, armed with bags, litter pickers, gloves and plenty of enthusiasm. Over the next hour we set out to gather as much rubbish as we could, and there was plenty to keep us busy!

And what a transformation it was! So many full bags of rubbish collected and the whole area was noticeably cleaner and more welcoming afterwards. Our efforts certainly didn't go unnoticed too, with a number of local residents stopping to chat and sharing how grateful they were for the work being done with litter being an issue

A huge thank you to Indy and our new friends at Edinburgh Trash Club for welcoming us along and helping make the evening such a success. It was brilliant to work alongside another community-focused group that shares our passion for improving local spaces and bringing people together through local community action.

Here's to more collaborations, more community action and a cleaner city!

Shout out to first time Goodgymers Sam and Maya - hope to see you again soon :)

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Please note there is no GoodGym next Tuesday 29th September as I'm on holiday, We'll be back in a fortnight.

With just a mighty trio of GoodGymers out this Tuesday, we were looking forward to our first collab with Edinburgh Trash Club for a community litter pick. Due to some crossed-wires in communication this has now been moved back to next Tuesday though.

Instead we pivoted to what is quickly becoming a favourite task. A big thanks again to Ali at Leith Community Croft for welcoming us back at short notice to get stuck into some more weeding. There is never any shortage of work needing done and it was a lovely evening to spend chatting, cutting back and weeding away at the planters.

It was a great 5km run and a great weeding shift from our dedicated team of three. Next week we'll be joining Edinburgh Trash Club as originally intended, hopefully see you there!

GoodGym done, weeds gone! 🌿💪

Our group was celebrating being a whole month old and this Tuesday evening saw us return to Leith Community Croft, our first ever Group Run task. This is a fantastic community croft run by Earth in Common.

Ali was on hand to welcome us, dish out the tools, and point us towards an overgrown herb garden and surrounding growing spaces that were in need of some TLC. Armed with trowels, forks, spades, and plenty of determination, we got to work straight away.

An hour of solid effort later, there was a significant transformation. We tackled weeds, cleared beds, and helped bring some order back to the growing areas. There's always plenty to do at the Croft, but it's amazing what a motivated team can achieve in a short space of time.

We have been talking with Ali about the possibility of GoodGym taking on a dedicated corner of the market garden to maintain on a longer-term basis. Ali is really keen on this idea so it looks like we will be returning to the community croft on a regular basis. Watch this space for what could become our very own GoodGym Growing Project! 🌿

A special shout-out goes to Luke, who joined us from GoodGym Kingston for the second consecutive week while enjoying his holidays in Edinburgh. We hope you've enjoyed seeing a bit of the Scottish capital and thanks for being part of the team.

Also a big welcome to Imogen, Michael, Ian and Suilven. Great to have you onboard!

With the tools packed away and some energy to spare we squeezed in a quick workout before running back up Leith Walk and a nice wee crew stuck around at Edinburgh Street Food for some well-earned food and drinks, taking advantage of that 15% discount.

Five weeks in and we're already building partnerships, improving local spaces, and perhaps even planting the seeds for a project of our own. Here's to month two! 💚🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️🌱

We have recently set up a Whatsapp community - link to join is here: https://chat.whatsapp.com/LWdv5YU8SJ7LYNARbKFj6f

And don't forget to follow us on Instagram (any help with photos/videos and getting posts out is greatly appreciated) https://www.instagram.com/goodgymedinburgh/

GoodGym Edinburgh spent a full day at Scotland’s largest Volunteer Recruitment Fair, running a stall from 10am to 5.30pm at P’s and G’s Church to introduce hundreds of Edinburgh residents to the idea of getting active while doing good.

We are Scotland’s first GoodGym group, this was our first major public event and it was a corker, lots of people keen to get involved and many folk having spotted our feature in Monday's Edinburgh Minute! https://www.edinburghminute.com/the-edinburgh-minute-monday-31-august-2026/

At our stall we had GoodGym posters, QR codes for people to sign up or follow us on social and printed out reports from our last 3 weeks of Group Runs. We were right at the back of the hall but still managed to draw in lots of interest from a wide range of ages, interests and backgrounds.

Huge shout out to Kate, Suzanne and Lucia for coming down at different times of the day to welcome people to the stall, answer questions and share stories about how fantastic GoodGym is. It added a lot to have stories from each of your previous GoodGym experience with groups in different parts of the country!

By the end of the afternoon, we had spoken to over 110 people, with the vast majority showing genuine interest and support.

A big thank you to the Volunteer Edinburgh team for putting on a fantastic event and supporting GoodGym Edinburgh as we find our feet and try to reach more people to get involved in our activities.

After the event we wen't straight into that evening's Group Run - report linked here: https://www.goodgym.org/v3/reports/a-fair-amount-of-cleaning-at-the-volunteer-fair