Tonight's mission for the Cardiff crew, the same as usual

Do Good, Get Fit

Our task, helping at the Salvation Army with the overgrown bushes and grass. The "Northlands Life House" is a hostel run by the Salvation Army, its objectives;

We offer a safe, supportive environment for individuals, helping them make positive choices about their current circumstances. As part of our Young Person’s contract, The Salvation Army provides support and accommodation for young people who are experiencing homelessness, across a range of services in Cardiff

There was a lot of work going on at the hostel, with upgrades to windows and doors. The bushes had been left for a while, so needed some TLC to tidy up the look. Michael was double hatted for this task, as both the run leader and the task organiser. The jobs that were on for the day were,

• Tidying the buses
• Removing ivy from walls
• Cutting back bramles
• Strimming the grass section
• Collecting the trimmings in wheelbarrows
• Running the wheelbarrows to the compost heap

The team went straight into volunteer mode, as Michael passed out the tools for the night (he even jumped in to help, in between photos). 30 hard minutes later, we looked back at the work achieved, it was a great help to see things looking tidier with just the tops of the hedges left to trim.

We even had a special goodgym bush now, after the hard work of Jonathan and Lucy to create our heart bush.

Thanks to all for coming out on these darker nights, the hostel appreciates the hard work. See you next time.

Tonight the goodgymers got together to help out our friends at Samye Foundation. One of the originals for Cardiff, and one dearest to our hearts.

We were split, the walkers meeting us at the task and the runners as usual from the Glassworks.

We had our warm up, counted the runners in and said our welcome to the newest person - Lucy.

CROESO

During the run a message came through for Michael, and it all changed. Due to dental issues, our organiser had to leave the location for the task. But as we know.......

goodgym doesn't quit

Upon arrival at the Samye Foundation, Michael had a quick look around, and hey presto, a task was born.

Gloves on, volunteers ready, let's go!

We weeded all along the raised bed at the front of the yard, around the seating area and in front of the building. We cleared up all of the fallen leaves, and then we used all of this natural material as a mulch back on the soil, just as nature planned.

Weeds became mulch

Leaves became worm food

And then it was time for home.

We got plenty done, considering the last minute change. Thanks to all for coming, and hope to see you again next time.

Goodgym Cardiff Met as usual for our Tuesday group session, outside the Glassworks. Our destination was over to Sport Wales, where we would pick up anyone meeting at the task. Our task, a final farewell litterpick to the Summer, and boy did it get dark fast... Running lights needed next week.

We made our way into the depths of the park, over to the rugby car park, up to Western Avenue and back again to the start. It was quite a distance for the litterpick, but we cleaned up.

And Now

A quick ditty from Bugsy Malone,

We could've been anything
That we wanted to be
And I'm not saying we should
But if we tried it, we'd learn to abide it
We could be the best at being good
....

See you next time.

Disclaimer - if you have never heard the Jessie J song 'Price Tag', please go and listen to it first if you want this report to make sense!

8 Goodgym folks ran, walked and cycled through the pouring rain to help out at the Samye Foundation.

Lorraine at Samye was pleased to see Michael, Adam, Emma, Aimee, Darren, Rosie, Dylan and Jonny arrive; she had pinned a task list to the door for us to crack on with!

Jonny and Aimee got on with pricing up items for the upcoming plant and book sale.....they under took the....

Price Task

Seems like everybody’s rushin’

Runnin’ through the rain, no hushin’

Volunteers with soggy shoes

Still smiling, got things to do

Why is everyone so serious?

Why am I leaf-clearing in shorts?

Can we slow down and just breathe?

Or at least get a towel, please?

It’s not about the price task, task, task

It’s all about the give back, back, back

We wanna make the world run

Forget about the rain splash, splash, splash

Just focus on the impact, impact

GG just wanna make it count

Even if we’re soaked and worn out

A little kindness, a little sweat

Volunteering with no regret

I ain't writing a song for every task.... :o)

There was plenty of vacuuming to be done so Adam and Emma (and Henry!) cracked on with that. Adam also washed the walls down in the hall to de-scuff them.

Some nominative determinism was in play as Rosie cut back the roses at the front of the foundation!...ably assisted by Dylan. Michael floated around (quite literally with the rain!) helping everyone, taking pics in the process.

The group were re-leaved to leaf Darren alone to sweep and clear up the.....you guessed it - leaves.

A little sodden we all really appreciated the piping hot Carrot and Coriander soup Lorraine had made to say thank you.

We all had a chat.........mainly about the old test card (click here if you are too young for this reference!) and dried off a little.

You may have noticed a non red runner amongst the pack, Jonny was being a good sport by wearing a Norwich City jersey as he lost a friendly wager with Darren and had to spend the evening in his rivals jersey! As you can tell from the pictures he was delighted! ;o)

The rain had got a lot harder but we ventured out running, walking and cycling back home or to the pub.

What a night of celebration we have tonight as 15 goodgymers, old and new, join to take on the task at the community orchard.

Firstly we welcome our 2 new runners, welcome to the Cardiff crew Evie and Simon.

CROESO

Then we had our pre-celebration for a very special birthday for Llion, followed by a night of fun celebrations at the flyte club.

Penblwydd hapus

After initial greetings and chats, we set off the walkers first on a slightly shorter and quicker route, before Lucy led the runners off through the park on a different route. We had the return of our water rolling barrel baddies, the bowsers, which allowed us to transport 80 litres of water in total at a time. Michael ran with them initially, until we hit the park and then the running challenges could begin. Each runner took a turn of running with a single bowser, and this certainly engaged the concentration as those contraptions had a mind of their own at times.

Our first stop along the way was at the cricket changing rooms, where the outside tap was situated. we picked four people to stay back and fill up the bowsers, whilst the rest ran over to the orchard to meet up with the walkers. Michael gave a quick briefing on the tasks, and a quick overview of the orchard project - which was really looking well settled on just its second year.

We had a couple of tasks tonight, so we split the group up to tackle them,

• running the bowsers back and forth to get filled
• watering the orchard
• collecting seeds from a couple of plants

Michael handed out brown envelopes for the seed collecting, and showed everyone which plants we were collecting from and how to get the most seeds. Our plants of choice were foxgloves and honesty.

Did you know?

The Welsh for foxgloves is "Ffion", remember that next time you meet someone with that name. Other translations are "bysedd y cŵn" and "Maneg Ellyllyn".

After a good half an hour of running back and forth, collecting seeds and Michael eating blackberries from the bushes like a feral animal, it was time to collect everything together, including ourselves, take a group photo and head back. Michael had to leave us at this point to drop off the bowsers at another location so that he could then join everyone for the birthday celebrations and darts.

Thanks to everyone for coming, expect some foxglove planting sessions in the orchard next year thanks to all of the seeds collected.