On a gently sunny evening, a veritable bevy of Brighton GoodGymers (including a warm welcome to new recruit Mauricio) turned their attention to a regular venue on the GoodGym roster, The Bevy, a community pub/hub, familiar to some as the go-to breakfast venue after the formidably hilly Bevendean Down parkrun. The journey for many involved a 3.5km trot up Lewes Road (allegedly the longest named road in Brighton & Hove), to complete gardening and clearance tasks.

One cohort of the GoodGym team were assigned to the Bevy's allotment, tending to a variety of fruit trees and vegetable patches, weeding and planting the likes of kale, beans and rhubarb. Meanwhile the other contingent tackled a backyard area, hacking away unruly bushes and brambles, and ridding the area of fallen leaves, mounds of soil, buckets of stagnant water and abandoned paraphernalia. As well as finding a rusty electrical device reminiscent of a ghost trap from Ghostbusters, there was under an old beer keg the discovery of a slow worm, the UK's only legless lizard, and apparently a relatively frequent visitor to the Bevy's undergrowth.

Following the transformation of the allotment and backyard, Dave, Shirley and Warren from the Bevy committee were impressed, with one commenting that the outcome of the group's work was "like Christmas", a nod perhaps to GoodGym's predominantly red and white wardrobe. The group was rewarded with an array of tasty snacks from the Bevy kitchen, including cheese scones and Eccles cakes.

The Bevy, for now over a decade, is proudly the only community owned pub on an estate in the UK, keen to support its local neighbourhood amidst cost-of-living challenges. A busy calendar of events for June includes a music and memory cafe for those with dementia, a disability disco, seniors lunch clubs, family days with creative activities for children, and a summer beach party to close the month.

The GoodGym team is happy to support such a cherished community venue, and as the sun set on another completed mission a small Taskforce group duly took the opportunity to visit the Bevy bar, order a glass of the usual, and sketch out its own summer party plans.

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After a gruelling parkrun in the mist of Bevendean, I traveled muddy to the Bevy ready to get stuck into some equally gruelling brambles. Over just a year part of the Bevy's community garden has been overtaken by some marauding brambles which are limiting the use of areas of the garden. With some sturdy gloves and various cutters I set to work clearing the overgrowth. An hour and a few cuts later I had laid waste to the brambles reign and restored the potting area back to some glory.

My hard work was rewarded by a free breakfast at the Bevy which was very welcome indeed!

Making the most of the of the evening sun we headed to the Bevy. We welcomed back Kitty!

The Bevy Pub– More Than a Pub! The Bevy is the only community run pub on an estate sited in Moulsecoomb at the margins of Brighton & Hove city. As well as pouring a good pint they run events for the whole community including a Kids Club, Disability Disco and Seniors Club. They are struggling for funds but still providing support and activities for the local community, thanks to the support of everyone for More than a Good cause! 😉

We had a longer run of approx 7k with a sting in the tail with a hill at the end!

We were helping master gardener Dave, a very much-loved member of The Bevy community, with the community garden where the produce grown is used for feeding the Seniors Club. The GoodGym Brighton’s group got busy weeding the bushes of berries, under great coordination from Frances, Nicola, Jane and Stefania for tools provision and time keeping! Some of us dug out compost to use as mulch to renjuvinate the soil all around those well managed bushes that are still gifting The Bevy’s chef with succulent little fruits to make apple & berries crumbles. While others prepared soil beds with recycled cardboards and carried out buckets of green waste compost up the sloping garden to improve the fertility and health of the soil, so reducing weed growth in the future. A smaller team, including Pippa, Liam and Ben watered the upper flowery allotment and picked up the grown veg, including beans and squashes that I remember GoodGym volunteers planted here last spring.

In a short time, we made a bit difference to Dave’s garden and left him with a big indulged smile on his face. You, Dave, Warren and all The Bevy’s community volunteers are greatly contributing to the future resilience of such a Good pub!

The Bevy Pub– More Than a Pub! An engaged community of friends and volunteers believing in a shared social good purpose. GoodGym Brighton is proud to befriend you, and we will be happy to return in winter for some painting!

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We finally managed to return to help our friends from the The Bevy Pub – More Than a Pub! The Bevy is the first community run pub whose events and profits support the local community: from kids who need a square meal to seniors who want some company and everyone in between, The Bevy is there.

As well as being Brighton’s only community owned pub, is the Bevy Brighton’s first zero food waste pub? Every weekday lunchtime they serve up home cooked community lunches at affordable cost thanks to their link with Fareshare Sussex who redistribute surplus food, feeding bellies not bins. Any food waste is then put in their new hot composter, to produce gold standard compost that is then used in the edible pub garden. They’ve been adding 400 litres of mixed waste per week. For every 3 parts they put in, they get 1 part of top-quality compost - and the punters and fruit, veg and flower garden all love it!

Yesterday, GoodGym Brighton welcomed new member Euan and helped Dave, Shirley and Warren to enrich the soil with Bevy-Made compost, planted pumpkins, harvested rhubarb and cleared the Rubus Fruticosus, also called brambles, from invasive weeds – in a few words, we got the edible pub garden ready for the summer season, when we will come back to look out for the juicy berries to make the most of this place favourite.

The Bevy struggles to make money from food, but ironically it is their community approach to food that is a shining example of how this untypical pub on an ordinary estate working with a host of different organisations, is helping to achieve extraordinary things. Nowdays the Bevy’s work is more important than ever, with economic pressures on the rise. Let’s help our friends to realise their current plans and crowdfunding ambitions! Please Donate and Share

This past weekend, Brighton GoodGym-ers have been running or volunteering while engaging their heart with their friends Susan and Joel in Mind.

We are big fans of Parkrun and are always keen to lend a hand.

Bevendean Down is known for its amazing views and challenging climbs. It is a smaller Parkrun but with a loyal following.

Myself, Stefania and new member Lucia helped out the other volunteers.

We all enjoyed cheering on the runners including Doug another Goodgym friend. Stefania and Lucia joined forces to do the important role of timing the run and the runners. While I scanned barcodes. We had stunning views of menacing clouds and a rain shower which just missed us.

We headed to Bevy Community Pub for a well earned breakfast. There we chatted to other runners and browsed the community stalls.

GoodGym sessions, parkruns and races like the Brighton Half are not just great ways to challenge ourselves and support our fitness goals, but also provide an opportunity to come together and remember friends like Susan and Joel, GoodGym-ers who sadly lost their lives.

Massive thank you to everyone who supported the fundraiser for Mind.

We’re fundraising for Mind because their work supports people like Susan and Joel, providing mental health information, advocacy, and peer support. Since the pandemic, the demand for mental health services has been increasingly overwhelming, and charities like Mind are doing essential work to help keep up.

If you’d like to donate, you can still do so here: https://www.justgiving.com/page/brightongoodgym-halfmarathon2024?utm_term=MqPB5rDjy

After a hiatus tonight we returned to one of our favourite tasks at The Bevy! 9 runners (and a dog!) ran and cycled their way deep into Moulescomb to help out with the incredible tiered vegetable garden that provides food for the Bevy pub and local community.

We were joined for the first time at Brighton Goodgym by Siobhan, an experienced Goodgymmer who will be a great addition to future tasks. A handful of us enjoyed the long sunny run from the centre of Brighton picking up people on route and meeting everyone else there. Everyone was pleased to see us but with the niceities over we soon got to work. We split into two groups, the chosen few had the fun but precarious task of picking plums from the steep fruit bank. Chanelling their inner mountain goat the team made light work of the picking, building up a great pile to be used at local community events.

The unlucky second group were tasked with weeding the vegetable garden path. An unglamorous task but important- with the last chance to grow some produce coming up, the planting beds need preparing. We set work pulling up bindweed, bracken, grass and all manner of weeds. Our reward for this was to pick the pears from the trees at the top of the garden. We were soon joined by the first group and made quick work of the path in the evening sun.

As a thank you we were treated to homemade Eccles cakes and stayed for a sunset chat before heading off back into central Brighton. The Bevy has had some difficult times of late but is bouncing back amazingly, make sure to get down in support when you can. We will be heading back there on Saturday for a post Parkrun breakfast!