Operation January

We welcomed back from sunny Morocco Belinda and Johnafter their sunny week away. Extra kudos to Rosalind who had already been working outside all day . Craig - so good to see you back ( please link your strava to GG again! ) It was great to see Paul back after his bout of covid and it was an extra surprise to see Sarah especially as there was a 30 % chance of showers! Daisywas hoping to swerve some fitness by meeting us at the task ( bad luck!! ) and despite her toothacheGillybean came to help and support us too. Thanks team - a good, healthy turn out to support the January challenge.

The running group set off in the direction of the pier whilst the walkers headed directly to the task where we met up with Gill and Daisy.

We had been asked to return the The Recovery Project, which is part of the Turning Tides local homeless charity, to tidy up their front garden. It was 2 years since our last task there, and we were happy to see that it was in a good state with a minimal amount of pruning and tidying to do. With this in mind, once the runners arrived I got them straight onto fitness with functional drills and timed laps around the block whilst the rest of us stayed with the task.

In the end everyone gave a hand to get all the debris bagged and cleared up. I think the general consensus was that the group all enjoyed the 'old school' format - join me Wednesday evening for a litter pick and bonus fitness session with sprints on the seafront.

Don't forget to log any good deed and all your km's on strava - every little counts.

Thanks all of you and hope to see you soon:)

Julia xx

Back to the normal RV

For the first Monday meeting of January ( last week was cancelled due to snow) we met at our regular meeting point at Splashpoint LC. It was so nice to see Stephen back at GG together with Paul, Anne and Rosalind On such a cold January evening it was a real treat for me to see them turn out to do good. Special mention to Ros who had been outside working all day too.

We all set off running through the town at a steady pace until we arrived at Byron Road.

*Brushing it away *

We were enthusiastically met at the venue by Jason , one of the residents who was so pleased we were there and who is keen for us to return to sort the back garden out too as his room overlooks it. I enjoyed a chat with Jason, hearing about his story reminds me that we are only a few instances of bad luck away from being in his position. I wasn't so keen on his 'King Rat' account of finding a giant rat around the hostel!

Today, Anne was the queen of pruning and did some great cutting back of some of the lanky shrubs. Steve, Ros and Paul got stuck into clearing the borders. Luckily for us there was a big skip that we threw all the debris into which made life very easy for us. As it was so cold, and because we all wanted to do some fitness, we downed tools. The group photo outside the front door looks a little strange as they were all blowing cold air when I took it!

Fitness is back

We headed to the seafront and we loved doing squats, lunges , jumps and sprints all the way home ( via the pier) This will resume as a regular feature of Mondays for those who would like it - for those that don't, thats fine too as we can accomodate every ones needs.

January Challenge

Please do try to get to as many tasks as you can - we need 76 more this month to meet our target ( 24 so far) Plus remember every KM counts to so ensure your strava is linked to GG and get recording every time you walk, run or cycle anywhere ! If you do a good deed like Barbara does every week, then please ensure you self log it too.

See you next time !

Stay warm all of you :)

Julia

Dodging the raindrops three Goodgymers headed to the Turning Tides donation hub. Tamsin and John arrived first, so let the pantomime begin.

Oh no it’s not… We arrived expecting to put together Christmas provisions ready for later distribution to each of the Turning Tides services. Amy, from Turning Tides, greeted us, and confirmed that the task was as we thought. “Where is the food to be packed?”, we asked. “It’s behind you”, said Amy. Actually, what she really said is, “you don’t mind going to the shop first do you?” That was fine, as everybody knows, John absolutely loves shopping, especially in busy supermarkets, especially just before Christmas…..

She’d made a list….. The reason for needing to shop was that there had been a drop in donations compared to previous years. We headed off in two cars to ensure boot space. Amy’s car screeched to a halt. She’d got the list, she’d checked that twice! What she hadn’t checked was whether she had the means to pay! A quick change of passenger arrangement saw John and Tamsin speeding off with the shopping list, whilst Amy rode back to base with a planned rendezvous at Tesco!

With trolley tokens kindly provided at the information desk, we joined our first queue - to get access to the returned trolleys! One and a half of the trolleys were full before we crossed the threshold of the store proper. 30 bags of potatoes, 41 bags of carrots, 20 bags of parsnips - you get the idea! Whilst Tamsin and John vegged out, Amy set off on the hunt for meat - turkey, ham etc. No partridge though - apparently it refused to come down from the tree.

It’s till not the end List fulfilled (all but one Christmas Cake), and several so called jokey comments about the trolley full of brussel sprouts, we joined our next queue. We’d reached the tills. Amy declared as we arrived “I always choose the wrong queue”. That soon proved to be true, and the unloaded shopping was soon being moved one till along where things seemed to be moving more quickly. Amy was right though! It was still the wrong queue! As we were waiting the customerless cashier alongside us just looked on and smiled!

Cars loaded we headed back to base. Tamsin, ever the multi tasker, made a quick detour to adjust cooking temperature for dinner that evening.

We Three (un** pac) Kings Paula had arrived in time to lead the unloading of the cars into crates ready for Amy to set up the “packing line”. We three were sent upstairs to count to ten (you know, coffee, tea, tunnocks tea cakes. That sort of thing…) while the packing area was created.

Given the all clear we began working through the spreadsheet of requirements adding items to labelled crates as appropriate. We soon realised that “paying more attention” would mean not having to take things back out and starting again. Once realised Team GoodGym came into its own. We are always most effective when we operate as a team. Amy having asked us to just “concentrate on the first four, and we’ll see how it goes” was surprised to hear us declare “finished”. The minor spillage was forgotten (fortunately the phone survived its brief cleansing) and we three headed back out into the rain heartened by Amy’s grateful thanks.

Rain rain go away - or Sarah will cancel ! :)

Just 36 hours later, it was a far cry from Sundays glorious weather that we had enjoyed on the beach and during the fitness session. The forecast was looking good but 20 minutes before we met up, and just as many of the team were setting off for the task, there was a downpour of rain meaning a few getting soaked before the task had even started and a few deciding to cancel too.

Luckily Sarah had believed the forecast, booked into the task and left home before the rain started so we won ! Ha ha ! She is usually more careful when committing to tasks (I think she would agree with this! )

Helping out at Turning Tides - about Byron Hostel

At Byron Road the support for many hundreds of men and women who pass through their doors is as follows.

• 15 bed complex needs
• 24/7 staffing, double day and single night cover with waking night workers
• 14 bed move on hostel
• Abstinence and harm minimisation
• Psychologically informed approach

Giving a helping hand with the garden

Tonight, after 2 weeks of being rained off we were determined to make the front garden tidy up happen. We collected up and bagged a lot of pruning debris that had been previously been done by other volunteers. In total there were around a dozen bags filled. Nice work Duncan

Daisy and Suealso spent a lot of time sweeping and clearing the drive of leaves and debris.

Whilst in another corners of the garden Rosalind John and Sarah plus Daisy too, were on hands, knees and butts weeding the drive. With the ground so wet this was a task that proved quite addictive !

An hour later the garden looked much tidier and a lot smarter.

Tonight was small but mighty team who turned out on a fairly grim November night - Massive thanks and kudos to you all.

Have a great week and see you next Monday

Julia xx

*In the bleak mid winter *

On another beautifully still and crisp January evening we found ourselves gathering outside the homeless hostel in Byron Road. We haven't done any work here since before the first lock down so there was plenty to do!

It was a wonderful turn out on a chilly January night and the vibe felt very close to BC ( before covid)

*Ooooh la la *

It was lovely to see Natacha back tonight. I especially loved her reaction to Tamsin sumo squats during the fitness session. What a giggle we had !

Also back were our lovelies Rosalind AnneRoxy and Paula

Mr and Mrs R Belinda John did the B YR O N tools invite perfectly ( no surprise there ha ha ) No blackmail required!

It was good to catch up with Sue and her great running progress together with Duncan about the current South Downs Leisure news.

Paul was doing his own good deed acting out a personalised version of the 'Carry On Matron' film looking after husband John who, sadly, has covid. We are hoping it will remain a mild case and that there wont be a role reversal next week.

After a 15 minute warm up run with an attractive walking option too we set to work. The team loved this task today because there was so much to do! We will head back in a few weeks for Part 2. Massive thanks to Paula who literally threw the bags in the back of her truck and drove them to a bin!

After the task we headed down to seafront where the walkers kept walking back and the runners embarked on a 25 minute fitness session.

You already know that we did Sumo Squats! We also added tempo running, sprints and bulgarian squat lunges. Fitness is definitely the focus for 2022 :)

See you all next week. Hope its a good one for you.

Julia x

TEN 'tative' suggestions

We were delighted to welcome our leader Ivo to Worthing this evening. It was such a nice surprise and much appreciated by all of us.

Tonight we were booked by Turning Tides to do a garden tidy up at The Recovery Project.This centre is a unique residential service for homeless men and women who are seeking safe shelter to tackle their addiction to drugs and/or alcohol.

In case you haven't realised by now, there were, in fact 10 of us ! Please do enjoy all the 10/ten puns courtesy of the team plus some help from Nick whose good deed tonight, was thinking up the title pun!

It was TENse out there as we listened to the safety briefing

Before the walk/run warm up we had a chat about the January challenge which is now live https://www.goodgym.org/january_challenges/2021

Following the update and after the regular extensive safety briefing, we set off together for a short walk before splitting into two groups of walkers and runners. The walking group was led by Belinda and they headed directly to the task together with Sue John and Barbara

The runners went on an extended loop along the prom before winding back round to the task location where we all reconvened. We were also joined by Anne and Gill.

The weeds were plucked with ten der loving care

Big thank you to Gillybean and Duncan for bringing tools with them and we never fail to appreciate the wonderful GG work lights! What would we do without them?!

Many thanks must also go to John for being photographer. We had happy memories of this task being where it all began for John back in January 2019 when he had walked past us on the way back from the pub and I handed him a broom! 148 good deeds later and here we were again ( but this time without the visit to the pub! )

Fast forward to last night again. Everyone chose their tools and got stuck into some pruning, weeding, sweeping and general maintenance of the garden. It was delightful to hear all the cheerful banter and chat whilst the team worked their magic on the front paved garden of the project.

35 short minutes later we packed up the tools before we all posed for the first group photo of the year.

X marks the spot

The 2 groups set off again with instructions to meet at my outdoor studio on the seafront :)

The runners headed off on an extended loop around the pier with the walkers hot on their heels, not far behind.

It was time for the highlight of the week, the GG Worthing fitness session!

10 keen GoodGymers burpee'd by the wall

With 10 being the theme of the session, the runners jogged / sprinted 10 reps of the wall whilst the walkers walked/ jalked the 10 reps. We followed this up with a series of bodyweight strength exercises including the followingg * 10 squats * 10 squat reaches * 10 burpees * 10 chest press ups * 10 tricep dips * 10 walking lunges on each leg

........ and then we did it all again!

Finally, we walked back to our start point for some stretching and farewells wishing Ivo a safe journey back to London.

Ivo - remember ... Its a swim followed by fish and chips next time :) We really hope to see you back in sunny Worthing during the summer :)

Have a great week and don't forget to start your strava for each activity you do together with logging any community good deeds you do.