Following a brief but comprehensive deluge hitting the coast, this week's task - a slice of green community action as part of WWF x GoodGym’s Workout for Nature - saw an impressive fifteen GoodGymers descend on Round Hill Conservation Area to paint over graffiti tags gathered on the local Cat's Creep stairway and hoe stubborn weeds on the nearby Wakefield Road.

After GoodGym's visit, Cat's Creep, famous for its wavering apostrophe (depending on whether you think one or more cats are involved), 116 steep steps and resident toads and newts, was lined once again with freshly painted magnolia walls. Meanwhile, finely honed hoeing skills from the recent GoodGym Palmeira Square challenge meant that the flint wall on Wakefield Road was similarly smartened up.

Through its collective endeavours in the Round Hill, the GoodGym Brighton team are hopeful of another appearance in the local Round Hill Reporter (published since 2000) following previous articles in recent editions. The Reporter is the printed newsletter of the Round Hill Society and is evidence of a lively local community with regular events including an annual water fight.

The mission drew to an energised end with the packing up of tools, swiftly darkening skies and GoodGym area activator/ Round Hill resident Stefania handing out ciabatta and luminous doughnuts sourced via the Olio app, which helps prevent good food from going to waste.

With thanks to volunteers from the Round Hill Society, including Dominic and local councillor Raphael.

Executive summary haiku

Fifteen GoodGymers

paint and hoe. Local acclaim.

Toads enjoy the rain.

The garbage they gather is grand, I'm sure.

5 of us ran from Victoria Gardens to Hove Lawns, where we met Sarah, in order to pick-up litter on Brighton Beach on an exceedingly beautiful spring evening.

The clean-up was done as part of the Tidy Up Team initiative which works across the city to clean-up public spaces in order to create a sense of civic pride.

Some technical difficulties with the Tidy Team locker led to Stefania improvising a last-minute task with her backpack full of gloves and bin bags. Given that its the first week of the Easter Holidays we decided to focus our attentions on picking-up litter from the beach. We started in Hove and methodically made our way towards the Palace Pier.

Hove was on-brand as ever and pickings were slim, but as we got nearer the pier we unfortunately started finding much more litter and we ended-up with a full bag of rubbish to ceremoniously deposit in a wheelie-bin.

As the sun set behind the West Pier we eventually managed to take a selfie that Rosie was satisfied with and jogged-off home, leaving the beach a little cleaner!

This week we welcomed back Liam from an incredible hiatus in Central America! But sadly we also said goodbye to Pippa, who has become such a big part of the GoodGym Brighton community recently but is heading back to London. I hope the London Goodgyms know how lucky they are to have her.

After some hellos by the statue we headed up to community kitchen- a favourite task of ours where we are always greeted by the ever organised owner. The task started with a brief impromptu rundown on the do's and don'ts of using induction hobs: no one with a pace maker is allowed with arms length of one, and don't drop salt on them - though many of us were dubious about this one!

We also found learned that the kitchen has recently had their funding stopped for their regular dementia cookery group, which had been providing valuable community and structure for people living with dementia. The team have been working hard to source extra funding from various places, and they also have a just giving page, in case anyone would like to support the initiative: https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/dementia-food-project

We then divided up the list of tasks between everyone and set about cleaning windows, chairs, stools and cupboards, alongside tidying drawers of kitchen implements. The list seems to get bigger every time we were are there...but we always manage to get through. By the end of the night we were celebrating every task satisfyingly ticked off!

After the task we said our farewells to Pippa, who will hopefully be back for plenty of visits in the future, before all heading our separate ways.

On a personal note, tonight was my 250th good deed with Goodgym Brighton, and one of the best things has been all the lovely people I've met through GoodGym over the years. So whilst its always sad to say goodbye to people I feel very lucky to have had the chance to get to know them. So thanks for being such a lovely group of people to run with!