Most GoodGym volunteers report high levels of satisfaction, with a strong sense of making a difference and increased social connection being key drivers to getting fit while making good.

At our group session yesterday, 11 handy GoodGymers fulfilled their expectations while volunteering to scrape weeds from the streets of Hanover 😊. After running uphill, we gathered in Islingword road to meet Chancellor Tim Rowkins and other residents who engaged with the session by handing over their tools and help, including Rose and Elaine.

Firstly, we manually pull-out weeds, ensuring to get the roots to prevent regrowth, and we then cleared all around to make the area looking well tidied up. Thanks City Clean Tidy Up Team for providing brooms and shovels! We managed to save the Red Valerian, known as Centranthus Ruber – a perennial herb with deep pink, almost crimson, flowers that are commonly found growing alongside roadside verges and on old stone walls, in bungaroosh. Did you know that Bungaroosh is a composite building material first introduced by the Romans and used almost exclusively in the English seaside resort of Brighton? I didn’t.

It was another of our Good sessions, helping Brighton & Hove council to keep our city streets clean! Cllr Tim Rowkins, deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Net Zero & Environmental Services of Brighton & Hove City Council, also updated us on the major plans to expand recycling to include all plastics and food waste in Brighton & Hove. Very Good!

On an evening that offered a blustery and overcast reprieve from the recent heatwave, the Brighton GoodGym gang again dialled up the kms to advance on one of Brighton's most celebrated woodland spaces Stanmer Park to offer assistance at a true hidden gem (including in that some have got lost finding it), the Centre for Ecotherapy.

Tonight's task menu offered two contrasting assignments. One group was allocated to clearing a clearing by hacking back buddleia (which can grow invasively fast), using hand saw and bare hands to expand a space large enough for a breathwork and art therapy tent to be pitched. The other contingent was assigned to weeding and laying down woodchips around a pond in an idyllic glade, bringing wheelbarrow loads from a nearby area with huge rolling mounds of woodchip, using eagle-eyed sifting to avoid damp, mouldy or green chips.

Afterwards the team rested on tree stumps under the Centre's shelter, built in 2016 with 8 wooden pillars and a reciprocal roof, a type of roof where interlinking bits of wood support each other to keep it standing, an apt visual metaphor for the power of teamwork. Liz, manager at the Centre for Ecotherapy, offered rewards to the group by way of chickpea stew and raita, chocolate cake and herbal tea using a trusty old Kelly Kettle, telling a tale of how at her auntie's 90th they had a four-way Kelly Kettle race to see whose would boil first (and one can only imagine the accompanying sports commentary).

Liz also relayed how the Centre for Ecotherapy aims to help vulnerable people in the local community, where they receive many referrals from health practitioners, for nature-based and horticultural therapies, meditation and practical activities. They also have an organic allotment garden and an "organic wilderness" area. While many find sanctuary at the centre (one moving testimonial on the website simply says "I felt alive today"), Liz explained that they are very reliant on donations and volunteering for support.

Liz invited GoodGym Brighton to return on 26th July to the Stanmer Organics Open Day which also coincides with the Maverick East Sussex trail races being held at Stanmer, an event already on the GoodGym running radar, so an imminent return to the woods is very much on.

“BUY - FIX - RIDE - DONATE YOUR BIKE” is the strapline of Brighton Bike Hub, a volunteer-led community bike workshop open five days a week for anyone to drop in and get help repairing their bike. Their mission is reducing wastage of abandoned bikes and enabling members of the community to access affordable cycling.

“RUN - FIX – RIDE”😊 is what 10 Brighton GoodGymers did yesterday at our group session at the Brighton Bike Hub. We ran and cycled to the Bike Hub East workshop in the Big Lemon bus yard, not open to the public, where there is a mountain of bikes needing lots of TLC. Paired for mechanical action, our task was dismantling old and rusty bikes and recover all the good parts that can be used to refurbish other bikes and make them suitable for riding. The hub offers to help people fix, maintain and get their bikes back on the road for free. Euan was tempted to donate his bike but then convinced to get it fixed. Let’s see if he will show up at our next session on the two wheels 😊.

We fully enjoyed the session at Bike Hub and welcomed Christophe, who recently moved to Brighton from GoodGym London. Let’s keep getting active together at our next GoodGym Brighton’s sessions.

Worth remembering that the Bike Hub runs regularly monthly free cycle maintenance sessions as part of Cycling UK’s Big Bike Revival, and NEW! Bikeability Adult Cycle Training. You can book HERE

Change (the garden) Grow (some vegetables) Life (enjoy it)

That’s what eight GoodGymers did this week, at Change Grow Life in Richmond House. We removed bind weeds and brambles to shape the ground of what will become a green oasis for gardening activities and growing vegetables.

Change Grow Live (CGL) offers support services to help people make positive changes in their lives, including help with substance misuse, mental health, and social challenges. They also have a gardening project where they are creating a new garden space, potentially aimed at providing therapeutic or social support through gardening as a tool to help people make positive changes in their lives. This could involve creating new garden spaces, growing vegetables, offering gardening activities as part of their support programs, or collaborating with other organizations to promote gardening for wellbeing.

With this social mission GoodGym Brighton also helped CGL to get ready for the memorial service that they hold annually on National Remembrance Day, which is the last Friday in July, to honour those who have lost their lives to drug and alcohol addiction. In 2025, this falls on July 25th. The garden might not be fully ready by then, but it shows some flourishing plants that were hidden by the brambles until now.

This was a very satisfying social mission!