Possibly the youngest ever Goodgymmer and I set off on a duo mission leafleting BS5 for the good cause of Z House Youth Shelter’s volunteer drive. We successfully delivered 200 leaflets and only one of us cried all the way home.

Four GoodGymers met in the early evening to help Caring In Bristol by moving some boxes between a couple of their offices. The 380 metre (official measurement from Richard!) journey across Portland Square was carried out a couple of times, with varying weights and awkwardness of the things being carried! All done in quick time and lovely positive feedback from a happy charity soon after we left.

Immense! A new Saturday record of 40 Goodym'ers turned up for our bonus Christmas Eve Eve run today.

Extra special thanks to our Cardiff and Bath friends for coming all the way over to join us today - it was lovely to have so many members of our GG West family over for Christmas. We should definitely meet up more often next year!

The original plan was to help out at the Christmas shelter, but they had been so well served by volunteers during the week that they really only needed a handful of people today. So rather than put all those good deeds to waste we split into 6 groups and spread out around Bristol. (Some of the details and photos may be a little sketchy for now - the group leaders are welcome to add to their sections as they see fit!).

Time fliers pie as Charlie out reaches herself to all points central

Charlie led her group of runners around central Bristol, distributing fliers from the Christmas shelter to anyone sleeping rough on the streets. Each flier was accompanied with the offer of a mince pie, sadly without cream though.

Lisa and Graham pushing the envelope to reach All Hallows Church

Lisa and Graham kindly took on delivery of a bunch of shelter fliers to All Hallows Church in Lawrence Hill meaning that if you were to run the whole perimeter covered by our groups today you would have been taking on a 14 km run around Bristol (see photos)

Dave turns over a new leaflet at Southville

Dave's gang headed out to Southville to place GG mission leaflets at cafes and shops along North Street. The hope is that this will mean lots more elderly people will find out about Goodgym and we can brighten up their January and February by helping out with a bit gardening or simple jobs around the house.

On the way back they gave out a couple of fliers from the homeless shelter

Maria experiences St Peter's Hospice-tality as she helps out at the Broadmead branch

A last minute call to our friends at St Peters Hospice this week meant that we were able to set up yet another task for a group led  by MariatoMtoto help out at their Broadmead branch.

Matterhorn goes native-ity in epic 9K to St Albans church

Of course it had to be our very own ultra-running Matt (check out his new badge) leading the longest run today out to St Albans church in Westbury. This task to set up the Church for Christmas (including a nativity scene) proved very popular, especially when the possibility of some mulled wine was discussed.

Saving Private Room Paul to take a group to the shelter

And finally yours truly took a group out to the shelter itself where a couple of us helped out around the kitchen while the rest of us attempted to re-organise the dormitory and pass a very important message about a potential flood back from the Quakers meeting hall. Thanks to Alex once again for helping out during my more scatterbrain moments.

200 Good Deeds!

Thanks to all my group leaders and photographers. And last but not least, huge congratulations to Richard for hitting 200 good deeds today. He's too modest to make a big thing out of this, but I think everyone at GG Bristol values his kindness and loyalty - and of course enjoyed his fabulous Canal Run earlier this month!

Happy Christmas everyone - this is now genuinely the very last group run before Christmas, see you in the New Year!

Our first Saturday meeting at our new start point - Mud Dock café. We were given a warm welcome, enjoyed a coffee or two and were allocated a couple of lockers for bags so all in all a very nice start - thanks Mud Dock!

We also had FOUR new runners today which was fantastic - welcome Jane, Heather, Alefiyah and Lauren! Hope you had fun and will come back and visit again soon!

Our warm up on Queen Square was accompanied by the news that Bristol is currently so well off for volunteers that our planned task at the Christmas homeless shelter now required only 6 people to sort donations. We agreed to divide this up and have one group tackle the first half hour and the other the second.

So we set off on a 2k run to the shelter, only to find that we had been beaten to it by the unexpected arrival of yet another band of donation sorters; a young offenders group. Ed our host had quickly put together an alternative mail-out task so with the help of Jack and Maria (and their Google map apps) we were able to dispatch a couple of small groups to deliver those. Thanks to my Run leaders for co-ordinating a few lunges while I was gathering up the envelopes!

The rest of us took a little fitter-litter tour around St Paul's. Starting at Portland Square with some meet-and-retreat, and a dash of running train we proceeded via Brunswick cemetery gardens with some press-ups and then on to Brunswick Square, collecting up litter as we went. It may not have been planned, but the local squares certainly benefited from our diversion as everyone managed to collect a lot of rubbish (including a pair of rather damp shoes).

Meanwhile the postal parties had managed to do their deliveries although there was apparently a little confusion over the location of the Wild Goose café, leading to Maria's lovely pun.

Thanks for being adaptable everyone - we still did plenty of good today and most of us managed a good 5k of running too!