Five GoodGymers headed over to Peter Pan Pre-School to help them spruce up their outdoor play space a bit.

The area is carpeted, if that’s the right term, with a play-friendly matting and for the first job we each took up a broom and brushed away however many months of dirt, sticks and various bits of debris. Just to tidy it up ready for the next phase.

That being to brush a few bags of fresh sand over the area. The idea being that the sand gets into the carpet and plumps it up ready to make it a safer and more robust space for the little terrors, er, happy kiddies to continue playing on until the next time…

As the nights are starting to get lighter, GoodGym Bath ran to Peter Pan Pre-School in Lower Weston to paint one of their sheds and sweep up the children's play area. Afterwards we headed to The Stable for some pizza and cider. What a fantastic Tuesday evening!

Welcome, Emilie!

We welcomed Emilie to her first run with GoodGym Bath. Thanks for coming and helping us out and we hope to see you again soon!

On with the task

Before Christmas we helped out at the school by spreading sand over the astroturf in the children's play area. We were delighted to be invited to return last night to continue developing the outside space. To make sure we got everything done in time we split into small teams.

The school has a shed in their outside area that the children use to play games in. Some of the runners bundled themselves into the shed and took responsibility for painting the interior. They managed to paint all four walls and the roof which was brilliant.

Another group of runners painted the outside face, the door and the side of the shed a pale blue colour. A third group of GoodGymmers painted the gate and fence posts at the front of the school using another colour (egg shell blue?) to give them a fresh lease of life. After we had done with our painting we helped some of the other volunteers and parents helpers to sweep up leaves and stones that had made their way into the play area. There wern't many brooms available so some runners got creative with their choice of brushing device!

Overall it was a really successful evening. There were 3 different colours of paint involved and lots of enthusiastic volunteers and we managed to avoid any mixups!

Thanks

Thanks to the staff and volunteers at the school for hosting us and setting up the equipment. We had lots of fun and would really like to help you out again sometime soon! Thanks to Allie and Rachel for backmarking for us and thanks to Rachel for organising the social at The Stable afterwards. We plan on going on the first Tuesday of the month and it would be great if you could join us.

It was a chilly November evening and 5 GoodGym volunteers put their running gear on to run to Peter Pan Pre-School in Lower Weston and help improve their playground. We ran nearly 6km in total and got a great workout moving items around and re-sanding their astroturf. A rewarding and mindful way to spend a Tuesday evening!

A Winter Feast at the weekend

As per usual we met outside the leisure centre. There were hundreds of young people milling about in reception and so to avoid the crowds we stayed outside for the briefing and warm-up. I mentioned a fantastic Community Mission that we have arranged to help out at this weekend. We have been asked to help prepare and serve a charity Winter Feast to support some great organisations. More details here. After a warm-up we were on our way running through the city centre, along Upper Bristol Road and to Lower Weston.

Never shying away from work at Neverland!

The staff and volunteers at the school had already started setting up for us and we were ready to get going immediately! Peter Pan is a pre-school in Lower Weston for children. They have a fantastic outdoor play area that is covered in astroturf to make it accessible in all weather conditions. Unfortunately, the mud below the astroturf layer comes up through the surface making the play area slipper, dangerous and very dirty.

Our task for the evening was to move play equipment and logs and use brooms to distribute sand across the entire play area. We had 6 big bags of sand, lots of work to do and not a lot of time! Fortunately we also had our great GoodGym work ethic and we pulled together as a team to get everything done in time.

Hopefully we will be back again to help the school next year with more outdoor tasks they need help with.

Thanks!

Thanks to the team at the school for setting up for us and hosting us for the evening! Thanks to Emily for backmarking for us and thanks also to Emily for the fantastic sand-themed pun this week!

Upcoming

• At the weekend we have been asked to help at a charity Winter Feast
• Next week we are flyering for Bath City FC