Cara and Kirsty greeted us on this cold February evening and knowing what hardy souls GoodGymmers are, led us to the 'Play Room' as it was 'warmer' than the other rooms! (thank you :-) )

There were 4 tasks already set up. Russ and Sarah K set about cutting out paper shapes (I wasn't paying attention I'm afraid, but Sarah was upset when I said it was time to stop so it must have been fun and it wasn't just because stopping work meant it was that little bit closer for her viva on Thursday! (you're got the Dr Kappel, Horse Whisperer!!!)

Paul and Jason were cutting paper into metre-long strips from big rolls, Caroline and Nicoleta were using a special circle cutter and cut out 'hundreds' of paper circles while Matt and I, Vaguely Northern Darren, beat the world record for removing batteries and wires from 'loads' of old keyboards, before helping Paul and Jason cut more paper strips out because they were going rather slow ...

We all joined in the singing as Cara had put on the radio and it helped the time fly by! (I think everyone else joined in, but I was singing loudly and probably drowned out the others!

Before we knew it, it was time to head back with happy memories, and no (reported) paper cuts which was a pleasant surprise!

Hopefully the Scrapstore will have us back soon as it's a great Tuesday session!

Three Tasks, 56 GoodGymers, 15,000 Good Deeds, 10 years of GoodGym and a 200th Good Deed 😲

What a mammoth session we had ahead of us tonight! It was great to be joined by Maddy for the first time - welcome Maddy! After a game of Shona Says (which everyone is getting far too good at), we split into our three groups to get started on our three tasks and mini-tasks we had ahead of us to celebrate. Not only did each group have to complete their task, they had to try and take a creative photo of 15,000 while they were at it and think of a pun which somehow included 15,000 deeds, ten years and Richard's achievements.

Mel's group did a walk/run session to The Southville Centre to give the paintwork a final push to finish it off just in time for the change of seasons. They are now the proud owners of newly protected wooden features as well as painted bathrooms. Great job team!

Richard B took his group to Easton and St Werburgh's to help The Children's Scrapstore advertise their upcoming Community Reuse Festival on the 28th-29th September. They managed to hand out a whopping 350 leaflets in the local area in just 30 minutes.

Atrenchion please

The rest of the group headed up the hill to help Youth Moves at their allotment. This local charity engages young people from the city in community projects, including their allotment. We joined the young people in digging the ground around the polytunnel ready to build a trench to fix the tunnel and to cut back a very overgrown area. It was all hands on deck to get as much as possible done in our 30 minutes, and we managed to make a big dent in it. Matt also spent a long time being the artistic director behind the 15,000 photo, so please do show it sufficient appreciation.

All's Will that ends Will

Once we had all admired the sunset from our respective parts of Bristol, we reconvened at Queen Square to take on 15,000 squats. I think everyone regretted being quite so good over the past few years at this point! 277 squats each (don't do the maths) and we were all very much ready for a sit-down. Luckily, we were getting to co-ordinate all of this squatting with the brilliant achievement of Richard (Will) Breakspear achieving his 200th Good Deed!! Well done Richard, what an amazing number, the last 100 of which he has done in just 14 months! He is also now the proud owner of a t-shirt with him in the 17th Century on it.

This also produced the wonderful news that there was double cake for everyone to have a good sit down and munch while we read the GoodGym stories and spotted several Bristol names and faces in the book.

What a great night of celebration, which will be continued with Super Saturday!

Thanks to Russ who won tonight's three subjects, one pun competition. I am looking forward to your answer on the other competition of how many prime numbers in 15,000

It was great to have Lucy and Aisha join us for the first time tonight! It was also lovely to welcome Jack back from his French adventure. We got warmed up (not required in this hot sweaty weather) and split into two groups to head to tonight's two tasks: Children's Scrapstore and helping The Churches Conservation Trust.

Derailed

Half of the group headed to St Paul's Church to help Ed from the Churches Conservation Trust to continue painting the railings of the church. This is a job we started helping the charity with at the start of the summer but have not been able to continue due to rain hampering our efforts. Even in this 32 degree day, a spot of rogue rain was due exactly at GoodGym time. We decided that the railings could cope and got to work on painting the pre-sanded area. The group smashed through it in no time at all and then managed to get to work sanding the entire other side of the railings too.

The railings looked good as new, Ed was extremely impressed and crowned the group as The Most Efficient Railing Painters and we only managed to restyle a few people's hair with Summer 19 Green Streaks - success.

Scrappy-Baggy-Doo

Meanwhile, Gary took his crew over to St Werburgh's for a long-awaited reunion with the Children's Scrapstore. Kelly and her team are preparing for a summer fun day next month and needed 200 Goody Bags prepped for it. Challenge accepted. The group created a chain to fill the goody bags with all sorts of scrap, and under Gary's watchful eye found the most efficient rate of 2-3 bags per person at a time (an efficiency rate challenged by Alice who won the record for Most Bags At One Time Per Person with 6 bags, and gaining the nickname of Alice Whaleback for the queue created behind her) and flew through the bags in just 20 minutes. Easy peasy.

With both group's efficiency, there was time for a 'game' of Sally Up Sally Down back in Queen's Square which everyone was delighted with (and will be even more delighted with tomorrow, I'm sure).

In an hour of need, when all appeared lost, a team of fearless runners clad in red took on a 5k run to transform unwanted business waste into useful, crafty items for kids to play and create with at the Children's Scrapstore.

The group amassed under the still shining sun brought by the ever growing days. Laughs and chatter abound despite the daunting task at hand, these brave souls were not letting any worries slip into their minds. Even the fresh faces of the group were confident. Before long the introductions were complete, we knew names, group leaders and back markers, all that was left was to hit the road on the 2.5k run to our task.

WHOOSH!!!

Faster than a hyperactive bat's wing flapping in a hurricane we arrived to the welcome of our hosts Kelly and Lucy. The news was broken to us that we would not packing newsletters tonight...

KAAA-BLAM!!!!

Our hosts then broke out a list of task that would need to be done. The list was long but well structured, like an army of leaf cutter ants transporting identical sections of palm leaf over the Forth Road Bridge. Crack teams picked a task that best suited their super powers. New runner Ceri and Kim sorted nets so fast they could have captured Poseidon.

SWOOOOSH!!!!

Others were cutting ropes with their specialist fabric melting powers, slicing through pipes with saws and pincers like ninja lobsters. The bobbin team were poetry in motion as the sliced thread from the bobbins creating webs and beards as they worked. It was a crate effort from the lads on the zip tying team and another team were certainly de-boxing clever.

WHAZUMPH!!!

In no time I was announcing that time was running out. Our heroes held their heads high, heeded the call and set to work finishing their task in hand and some even assisted others to ensure everything was complete. Filing cabinets were moved, and tools were returned. We assembled for a celebratory group photo complete with random scrappy accessories, were thanked by the wonderful ladies from the Scrapstore and headed back to Queen Square.

ZOOOOOMMM!!!!

Faster than you could say "jumping jilikers scrapman" we were back and completing some strength exercises to prepare us for more running and devious tasks to come. We stretched and punned like pros before heading off back to our very own Bat Cave in Vivo.

It was truly a story of the underdogs taking on the impossible this evening but all of you brave souls who dared to run and volunteer are an inspiration to all. You used your evening for good and for that you are all heroes, even if you don't wear bright yellow pants and own a fancy car that farts fire.

THE END