Three Intrepid Good Gymers: Abby, Steph and Phillip ran along to help out at Southampton's 'Race For Life' 10K, 5kK, 3kK and Children's Pretty Muddy 3K and Adults Pretty Muddy 5K. Lots of fun and frolics and loads of happy, sweaty and smiling runners and walkers enjoying the course on a bright sunny day on Southampton Common. All three were out on the course for the first three races helping guide sometimes inexperienced runners and of course a real range of ages walking round the course. We had people on crutches and walking sticks battling their way around with determination to finish. Lovely to see both children and adults enjoying the second half of the day tackling lots of hilarious Pretty Muddy obstacles with great enthusiasm. There were tears of laughter and plenty of water thrown around by family and friends. A fantastic task and for a good cause.

Six Goodgymers turned up to assist RunThrough with their races today.

Steph and Laura were out on the course and had a great morning supporting runners at the final marshalling point. Cheering and running along with them on stretches of their last laps.

Phillip was a 62 min pacer for the 10km - helping people to get a pb on the course

India, Sarah and Wilson registered the runners and dished out race numbers and then helped at the finish line to hand out medals, water and treats!

Another great RunThrough event.

No team photo as we arrived and went straight to work - so sorry about that GG Team! Hope you all had a good morning 😊

Southampton Action work to support refugees, asylum seekers and other vulnerable groups in Southampton by collecting donations for distribution to those in the local area and further afield.

Yesterday we went to help them out at CLEAR for the first time with their monthly essentials distribution event where clients can come in and browse through donated items that they are then able to take free of charge.

We arrived and met our fellow volunteers, a lovely diverse group of people including refugees who had all come along to help. We received a very comprehensive and at times moving briefing telling us about the task at hand and the impact it would have on clients.

We were tasked with clearing the office space, then unloading a van full of donations (yes it was that full!) and moving the homeware donations upstairs before presenting the items for display.

Some of the boxes and bags were extremely heavy and Wilson and Lauren spent a considerable amount of time lifting a lot of boxes up a very narrow set of stairs. Its fair to say we were absolutely exhausted and we took a quick breather before getting back to help setting up the room for display.

Wilson got to work folding and displaying towels (finding the cow 🐄 and dinosaur 🦕 gems which simply had to be tried on) and Lauren was in charge of crockery and the odd curtain.

Once we had finished setting up Philip arrived and helped assist the refugees who had arrived to help make their selections.

We were incredibly moved by the work which Southampton Action do and will definitely be returning. A real difference was made and it was a true goodgym workout!

What started as an extremely soggy day on the Common soon brightened up ready for the RunThrough Southampton running festival. Wilson and Sarah set to work registering runners for the 5k, 10k and half marathon events. We also had India from GoodGym Portsmouth joining us to help for the morning. Great to see you! Philip and Stephanie headed to their marshalling positions out on the course full of cheer. Blue and I set off tail running for the half marathon and finished with someone doing their first ever race at that distance. A great morning everyone, well done.

Wow we had a super lovely Saturday at Aldermoor Farm cleaning bricks! The Sun was shining and it was great to be working at the farm whilst it was open - we caught the attention of quite a few children, curious as to what we were doing.

The 90 minutes passed super fast as we were able to chat and get to know a bit more about each other. Nice to have a mix of newer GG'ers and our friends from Portsmouth GoodGym. We sat and grabbed a drink after and were able to make purchases from the farm shop.

We cleaned approx 100 bricks, making a small dent in the pile still left to go!

Richard is now wondering if he may reuse the bricks on the farm to build a wall....I guess we better go back soon to clean some more 🧱🧱🧱