After a glorious sunny bank holiday weekend, it felt a bit windy-er our yesterday’s enjoyable outing and GoodGym group session at Wilding Waterhall. This is a project of The Living Coast Partnership restoring chalk grassland, improving biodiversity and supporting public engagement on a former golf course up in the middle of a scenic wildland just on the doorstep of the South Downs National Park.

It was our first GoodGym Brighton outing with double sport action, with Philippa leading a group of our enthusiastic runners, including Jane, Nicola, Ben and Angela who found her way without getting lost in the wild 😊

And, with Stefania riding by bike together with Juliet, Sarah and new member Maddalena. WELCOME! Joining Doug, and Richard coming from the further West and Frances, who is always the first one up and ready for the community action of the day!

We saved 1.2 kg of CO2 riding or walking to Wilding Waterhall rather than travelling by car. This is what the Brighton & Hove BetterPoint App tells me to encourage sustainable travel across our city!

We were hosted by Laura from Brighton & Hove Food Partnership for tacking a spring deep clean in what was a former golf clubhouse. The list of cleaning tasks was neat, clear and long but, as usual, we managed to sort all out with our GoodGym superpower, despite the missing hot water, the lost buckets and the hidden additional hoover with dodgy electric supply 😊

Brighton & Hove Food Partnership has just taken over the management of Wilding Waterhall venue that is now available for hiring to host projects like “Land Use Plus” and “Meat Share” to encourage nature friendly farming and improve food production practices that impact less on climate change. Read more here about Wilding Waterhall: https://thelivingcoast.org.uk/project/changing-chalk-wilding-waterhall-2 And, on BHFP website about their projects https://bhfood.org.uk/land-use-plus-project and https://bhfood.org.uk/meatshare-project/

Summer is here, it's official! 13 Good Gym runners met to run and walk up the steep hill to Brighton Unemployed Familes Project. We celebrated Pippa's 50 good deeds in her absence and welcomed new member Michael . Oranganised by Sarah, this seemed a simple task at first but proved deceptive. Joy from Brighton Unemployed Families Project told us the project had been running for 42 years and provided practical support, education and much much more to local families. Recently one group of families had 13 different languages between them! It was a lovely large space that backed on to Tarner park. Our task was to sort the many donations of baby and children's clothes. First it was suggested we sort by type of clothing, then by gender but then mother-to-be Catherine suggested by age. This proved the winning formula and our team made good progress. We were amazed by the end of the session that we had sorted at least half of the clothes. And there were some very cute clothes including baby sleeping bags and an elf's costume! The other team had to take many boxes up to the top floor where there was more room and also were very successful in sorting the clothes, although I think by the end of it some of us were going a bit ga ga !

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!