Brightly coloured play equipment A pond to dip into Spring flowers A handmade pizza oven Teeming raised allotment beds

These sights faced the intrepid few after a breathless stride/ride up a freshly asphalted hill to Carlton Hill Primary school.

After some brief checks for frogspawn and newtspotting, hands were gloved and the team divided like a shamrock to tackle three tasks in one. The strong hands of Alpha team cleared the pizza oven surrounds in preparation for upcoming proud cooks at the summer fete. The green fingers of Bravo team weeded the allotment beds - soon to be planted out as an educational project with the littlun’s. And with secateurs, graspers, bold feet and the thoughtful (if damp) hands of Charlie team, brown stems and green mats of pond overgrowth were plucked, snipped, and lifted so the 4-11 year olds could get excited about the prettier parts of nature and have a chance at spotting the fortunate few tadpoles still on their way to frogdom.

Of course - once the lucky trefoil had reunited we all wound down in GoodGym style using every inch of the kids’ playpark for dips, push-ups, balances and mushroom-hopping japes. Smiles on dials all round, with an iridescent cloud formation to keep us marvelling at the beauty of nature on the way home too.

Brighton’s topography may not have been the inspiration for Kate Bush’s classic track, but our hills are remarkable in both number and steepness. Great for some challenging and rewarding running sessions!

10 GoodGym-ers tackled not one but two of Brighton and Hove’s most challenging hills. The group split our efforts between parallel street clean-up tasks, supporting groups in Hanover and Roundhill to paint over graffiti tags and pick up wind-blown litter to encourage others to keep the community tidy.

Striding up the sun-drenched lawns and splitting off to our separate sites, we were joined in our mission by a crew of local residents and councillors and cheered on by many passers-by as we paint rolled and litter picked our way around the neighbourhood.

Or, to paraphrase the prescient words of Chamillionaire:

They see me rollin’

We painting

Patrollin’ for litter making town less dirty...

Brighton and Hove City Council helped by supplying paints and brushes for painting over graffiti in the Roundhill and Lewes Road area. Good Gym volunteers did sterling work sprucing up the area!

We finished with a fun, increasingly fast paced training session around the Level led by Pippa and were rewarded with slices of still warm chocolate beetroot cake (yup, one of our five a day! :) ), as part of Stefania’s extended Birthday Celebrations. Buon compleanno, Stefania!

“Night-strimming (deserves a quiet night)” (for all the REM fans out there ☺ - thanks to Jason for the inspiration)

13 GoodGym-ers headed to St. Andrew’s Church in Hove to clear overgrown areas of the churchyard, helping to maintain this important urban green space for community use and reduce anti-social behaviour.

Jogging, skipping and grapevining our way along the chilly seafront on a wonderfully welcome warm-up led by Helena, we arrived at St. Andrew’s - beautifully illuminated in the settling twilight - primed and ready for action!

Welcome toTallula who joined us for her first Goodgym session and wasn't put off by the nippy air or energetic warm up!

After a quick briefing from Rev Dan and Ian who quickly got stuck into the task alongside us, we donned gardening gloves and selected our weapons of choice from an array of shears, mowers and strimmers.

Head torches and high-vis casting dancing shapes around the churchyard, the group got to work trimming down bushes and overgrown areas. The big task of the evening was removing ivy from the back fence, handful by satisfying handful, before transporting the vines to the waste pile.

Persevering through ivy dust and giant month attacks, we got everything clear and celebrated a job well done before jogging off into the night.