On a sunny but chilly Tuesday evening, 12 GoodGymmers made their way up (and up and up...) to St Luke's Primary School in Hanover, for our annual task of helping to get the props ready for the Children's Parade, which kicks off the Brighton Festival.

This year the parade is themed on the National Year of Reading, and the children of St Lukes chose the book "The Cave Baby" for inspiration - complete with a giant mammoth puppet. However, we kept our hands dry from papier-mache this time round, and were instead tasked with cutting out as many paper leaves as possible - to be used for the children's cave baby costumes.

We were given a blue-peter style demonstration by our host Lara, and after a hunt for left-handed scissors and some ingenious card-folding - we set about drawing and cutting.

We posed for a quick photo proudly holding our leaves (points to our lovely first timerDerek for creativity) and then headed to the park to share some delicious homemade Tiramisu to celebrate our own Stefania birthday!

What a vibe at Brighton Marathon events!

Well done all Brighton GoodGymers, we are all amazing! ♥️ 💚What Good we do truly matters 💚♥️

Huge shoutout to all Brighton GoodGymers at the Brighton Marathon Events, especially to the new GoodGymers Angela, Lilian, Delia, returning Amaryllis and superstar David!

❤️💚🦸‍♀️ On Saturday, GoodGym parkrunners Nicola, Sarah and others, Stefania, Richard, David, escorted the superheroes at The Miles event. Running The Mile with the little superheroes was an absolute blast— it really brought out my inner child!

On Sunday, we had 13 GoodGym runners smashing their personal goals and pushing for new PBs on the marathon, trail marathon or 10K. Meanwhile, another 15 GoodGymers stepped up as 'Event Activators' or as ‘Plogging’ legends, forming the ultimate Brighton Marathon Events’ community volunteering support crew.

The GoodGym Official Plogging Team 2 run, walked and litter picked for 10K in a relay with other Green Runners on the marathon route from km 11.3 to km 24.1 while doing a green community mission - litter picking!

For the 2026 Brighton Marathon weekend, a few dedicated Green "Plogging Teams", organised by The Green Runners + Leave No Trace Brighton, actively "plog-ed" (jogged and picked up litter) along the 42-km Brighton marathon’s route. This was a first time ever initiative during a major running event in UK aimed to remove dropped gel sachets, cups, and other waste, following a successful 5K community plogging event held in February 2026 to promote environmental sustainability.

Together, the Official Plogging Team of Brighton Marathon Events cleared a staggering (estimated) 22,000 gel wrappers – demonstrating that a joint community action can move the change for our planet! The 2 full bags collected from team 2 were put in a black wheelie bin on the route due to being too heavy to carry back. The 4 bags at the end (video) were about 30kg each. 💪 Those bags were no joke to drag, but what an incredible effort for a Greener race! 🙃🤪😯

♥️💚GO GoodGym Brighton! Get Fit, Do Good...Move to Change! 💚♥️

This Monday was open mic night at the ChoirWithNoName singing over a Karaoke track or around the piano! Members were invited to suggest their favorite hits and bring instruments to play and perform their songs of choice, including Running Up That Hill by Kate Bush.

In the kitchen there was another music to play 🙃.

For this community mission, GoodGym’s Amanda stepped up as lead chef for the first time at ChoirWithNoName. She headed the kitchen alongside Sonam and me, with Lindsey and Anne-Mari rounding out our volunteer cooking team.

On the menu tonight: Potato and Spinach Gateau. It was a total race against the clock to peel, slice, and bake crispy potatoes while sautéing a mountain of onions, mushrooms, and spinach. Meanwhile, Amanda was a powerhouse, whipping up both vegan and vegetarian versions of the béchamel sauce.

I’ll admit, procuring and cooking food for 50 people was a first for me — but what an incredible, rewarding Good challenge! Many volunteers and members commented on how tasty the cooked meal was - DELICIOUSly Good :-). We were also proud to have successfully sourced several essential ingredients from surplus food via Olio. While the effort left us completely exhausted, Sonam somehow still had the energy to run all the way home!

"And if I only could, I'd make a deal with God, And I'd get Him to swap our places

Be runnin' up that road, Be runnin' up that hill, Be runnin' up that building (yo)

Say, if I only could, oh".

From Kate Bush's song, Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God).

For this week's task, the unique group that is GoodGym Brighton congregated at One Church Florence Road, a place of worship and one-stop shop community venue, for a cleaning mission in their community kitchen. From this kitchen on every third Sunday a meal is prepared for those who are homeless, vulnerably housed or at risk of isolation, which members of GoodGym Brighton are often on hand to support.

The team were welcomed by Stefan who outlined the scale of the task when he revealed that the kitchen hadn't had a single deep clean since the New Year. A wide range of activities were divvied up and the GoodGym squad tackled them all in typical no-nonsense route one fashion: washing/ drying up, rationalising shelves/ pans/ utensils, cleaning ovens/ surfaces/ floors and confronting the fridge-freezer. Hefty items had to be removed from the kitchen and then returned post-clean, including blenders, large bottles of oil and 25kg bags of flour, which provided additional weight training for some. Among the one-off finds in the kitchen was a tupperware tub of lentils used in pastry baking to avert a soggy bottom, familiar to many attempting long runs/ walks in the recent inclement weather.

Capturing the latest one-off moment in the GoodGym Brighton story, the gang posed for the post-task group photo in an adjacent hall often used for a variety of educational purposes, which hosted a collection of xylophones, a paper mache Where the Wild Things Are-esque monster, and an emotions colour wheel tacked to the wall. With Stefan delighted that the kitchen was left in such a sparkling condition the group headed home deserving of a spectrum of happy-coloured emotions including successful, valued and inspired.

In a burst of inspiration, GoodGymer Sam penned this lovely poem. Enjoy the rhymes:

Feeling Complete

Rubber gloves slip snug on my hands, A toilet brush waits for careful plans. Where others groan, I bend with glee, Scrubbing the bowl till it shines for me. The swirl of water, the steady sweep, A rhythm of work both calm and deep. Graffiti cleared, floors bright and true, A quiet craft I can take pride in, too. The scent of cleaner, sharp yet sweet, A fragrance that makes the task complete. Each motion steady, circles tight, Turns hidden corners clean and bright. Some wrinkle noses, some retreat, But here I find the work complete. A task that others choose to flee Brings pride and stillness home to me. So let the gloves embrace my hands, And brushes trace the path I planned. For in this work, both strange and sweet, I find myself, and feel complete.

This report was co-written with contributions from GoodGymers Ben and Sam.

Another GoodGym community mission complete! What next at GoodGym Brighton?