Tonight we returned to Haviland House to bring some Christmas cheer to the lovely residents. It was the first time since 2019 that we were were invited so it was with great excitement that we went along there this evening.

Huge GG welcome to Susan who joined us for the first time tonight - hopefully the first of many.

Natacha and Stephen brought their beautiful 10 week old baby boy, Ben, with them . Looking adorable in his elf outfit, he doubled up as a modern day baby Jesus and everyone just loved him. It was lovely to welcome Natacha's mum too, who was over from France on holiday.

6 years ago Jemima was our little 4 year old angel who came along to the same event in 2019 Tonight at a grown up 10 year old, she returned with her Mum, our very own social secretary, Tamsin Well done both of you - it was so lovely to have you at this event tonight.

The turnout tonight was great. Many thanks to Paul for his choice of dongs and hymns Nick who not only sorted all the sing sheets but came out of GoodGym retirement and joined us for singing too ( still looking great in the GG black t shirt ! ) Special mention to John too for bringing along a speaker so that we could have a musical accompaniment- not sure how it would have turned out without it ! 😄🙈

Thank you to you all also, that I haven't yet mentioned for your energy and enthusiasm not to mention the vocals you brought to the party! Gillybean Roxy Barbara El Mel Paul

To see the delight on many of the resident's faces was most definitely worth all the effort. We were not any where near perfect but for a scratch performance I was extremely proud of you all and what we achieved ❤️

Some of went on to the pub to re lubricate our vocal cords afterwards- that was very nice too !

Hope to see all of you fur our soldier walk this Friday. Meet at Splashpoint LC at 6pm Finish at The Egremont pub at 7pm for a quick drink.

If you can't make it then it's a very Merry Christmas from me to you all and here's to 2025

Julia xx

*Waking the dead *

We returned to one of our favourite task venues at Heene Cemetery for our second summer visit. Sue had asked us to assist with some pruning and also some cutting up and bagging of previous pruning activities.

Special mention to Sarah and John who worked their socks off this week ( as we all know they always do 🤣) and who do enjoy special accreditations for their great work 😍

Ryan and Belinda also quietly cracked on shadowing Sarah and John's great work happily doing so without any external validation ( Ryan took a fair bit of banter in his strlde from John too !! )

*High Stakes *

Health and safety guru Craig returned to GG tonight on the promise of a pint afterwards 😀 🍺 Its just as well he did as Paul was up to his tricks up a ladder pruning a large tree ! Kevin, a new volunteer for the friends of Cemetery , stood steadfastly holding the ladder the whole time whilst Craig joined the climbing activities 🤣

Also working constantly hard was Gillybean Anne and Stephen It was great to have some amusing great chat surrounding lots of subjects including divorcing in your 60' s ( who gets the dog or cat ) and Steve and Natacha's GoodGym baby who will be with us within the next 8 weeks !

*All bagged up *

We filled 5 huge grabs which were dragged over to near the entrance of the cemetery to store tidily before disposal.

Cheers After the task we ditched the beach and went to the pub instead. We were joined by Sue ( chair of the cemetery) and John ( Paul's husband)

What a great evening 🤩

Next week, because of bank holiday , the task is on Wednesday at Worthing Leisure Centre garden. Hope to see you there 👍

Julia xx

Turning Tides

With the bank holiday being on our regular Monday meet up day we moved the session until Wednesday this week and what a good decision this proved to be!

It has been lovely to have Roxy back at GG in recent weeks and we were delighted that she chose to celebrate her birthday with us today.

Before the birthday celebrations began, we had a new task at a Turning Tides hostel In Queens Road. We had been asked to give a helping hand clearing the garden. One of the residents called Lisa, who had had been living there since March and had taken a keen interest in the back garden and we were only too happy to assist. She directed us to all the jobs she politely asked us to do.

It was a really good turnout tonight with guest appearances from Duncan, Stephen together with Jay Katharine and the gorgeous baby Olivia who is ( unbelievably ) almost 1 year old.

Joining these celebrities were my regular teamRyan [John](/v3/profile/john-robinson-3fd25dec-75bb-4e8d-9799-f66af7474b63 GillybeanBarbara Roxy and Sarah Thank you all ! We achieved an amazing amount in just one hour with extensive pruning, weeding, raking and moving pots. Lisa couldn't have been more grateful.

After we had called time we headed to the beach where Roxy produced a huge bag of drinks and snacks from her boot. She then headed off to the Fish factory to pick up the most posh food we had ever had outside at a task! Fish and chips with a vegan alternative of halloumi and falafel with a gorgeous greek salad for Barbara and I. Following this , Roxy produced the most amazing gluten free honey cake baked to her mothers traditional recipe. Having been stuffed with our starter snacks and main course we all politely asked for a small slice. Within minutes we were all asking for second helpings and takeaway slices to take home for our loved ones- it was absolutely delicious. The question is did the extra slices make it home ?! What a very generous gesture it was of Roxy to provide all the food and drink for us all to join in and celebrate her special day. Thank you lovely lady :)

Apologies for the lateness of this report - no real excuses - just an extremely full few days !

Hope to see lots of you tomorrow evening at Haviland House.

Happy Sunday evening to you all

Julia xx

Happy 7th Birthday GoodGym Worthing

What an evening it turned out to be! Seven, yes seven years after GG arrived in Worthing and we had a brand new task tonight. We celebrated our special occasion with some Athletic Brewing AF beer ( complimentary with the GG sponsorship agreement) and Worthing Run Fest giveaways and also a very special announcement from Stephen ( but more about that later! )

We were helping out at a local first school, English Martyrs, to give some assistance with their pond and surrounding shrubs and bushes together with raised beds that needed a good weed and tidy.

We had a friendly welcome from the head teacher, Helen, who let us in and showed us what needed to be done before she dashed off for her ballet class.

Barbara, John and Belinda were the resident consultants for the pond maintenance and we were all super grateful for their knowledge and the tools they brought too. With Belinda still on light duties due to her thumb injury, Barbara and John started work on the pond whilst Belinda was in charge of the photography ( much appreciated by me ! )

Daisy, Ricky, Stephen and Gillybean did some amazing pruning on the large bushes surrounding the pond whilst Sue and I worked on digging over and weeding the raised beds outside of the pond area. Belinda also did some innovative compost heap creation then single handedly ( literally) shifted debris to the newly created site.

Back at the pond the pruning was still in full swing but with the entrance turning into a quad mire we decided to recycle some of the prunings to make a path that we could actually walk on with out slipping everywhere.

The pond clearing was also going well and with the discovery of frog spawn and newts we all took some time to take a look whilst also being careful to reunite any newts in the moss safely back to their pond home again.

The GoodGym flag made an appearance on this special day and just after the photo, Steve made his special announcement that he and fellow GoodGymer Natacha are engaged ! Wow ! Congratulations to the happy couple and another Worthing GG happy ending ( it must be the sea air! )

With happiness and good vibes flowing, and after clearing up, we cracked open some beers in celebration of everything and I off loaded some spare runfest tee shirts to anyone that would take one ( or preferably two!)

A great feel good evening with both a great task and plenty of happy banter and news to share with our fellow GG buddies.

Next week there will be two options of tasks - Bugcycle will be led by Gillybean and Beehive Care Home in Ferring led by me. Take your choice and vote with your feet!

Have a great week

Julia xx

Back to the normal RV

For the first Monday meeting of January ( last week was cancelled due to snow) we met at our regular meeting point at Splashpoint LC. It was so nice to see Stephen back at GG together with Paul, Anne and Rosalind On such a cold January evening it was a real treat for me to see them turn out to do good. Special mention to Ros who had been outside working all day too.

We all set off running through the town at a steady pace until we arrived at Byron Road.

*Brushing it away *

We were enthusiastically met at the venue by Jason , one of the residents who was so pleased we were there and who is keen for us to return to sort the back garden out too as his room overlooks it. I enjoyed a chat with Jason, hearing about his story reminds me that we are only a few instances of bad luck away from being in his position. I wasn't so keen on his 'King Rat' account of finding a giant rat around the hostel!

Today, Anne was the queen of pruning and did some great cutting back of some of the lanky shrubs. Steve, Ros and Paul got stuck into clearing the borders. Luckily for us there was a big skip that we threw all the debris into which made life very easy for us. As it was so cold, and because we all wanted to do some fitness, we downed tools. The group photo outside the front door looks a little strange as they were all blowing cold air when I took it!

Fitness is back

We headed to the seafront and we loved doing squats, lunges , jumps and sprints all the way home ( via the pier) This will resume as a regular feature of Mondays for those who would like it - for those that don't, thats fine too as we can accomodate every ones needs.

January Challenge

Please do try to get to as many tasks as you can - we need 76 more this month to meet our target ( 24 so far) Plus remember every KM counts to so ensure your strava is linked to GG and get recording every time you walk, run or cycle anywhere ! If you do a good deed like Barbara does every week, then please ensure you self log it too.

See you next time !

Stay warm all of you :)

Julia

Happy 60th Birthday Mr Robinson

On a very happy evening we all convened at the cemetery to combine good deeds followed by an epic celebration in honour of John 60th Birthday.

With volunteers aplenty we had to bolt on an additional task to accomodate everyone. Luckily Rik and Val came to the rescue and half the group headed to Heene Church Rooms garden to start work on a new project for us.

Back in the cemetery we welcomed Ryan to our group. Although many of us know Ryan as being Sarah partner, it was especially nice to see him at his first task. Luckily Lucy was on hand together with Ricky to partner up and do some very fine raking and bagging!

Elsewhere in the cemetery Sue was busy pruning brambles from the grave looking extremely fit in her shorts and long compression socks!

Meanwhile, Anne and Sarah were busy raking - this was certainly the case when I left to check in with the other half of the group but I'm not entirely sure that the work rate was kept up in my absence - ha ha! Some of the photographic evidence may support this!

Duncan, fresh from a 3 day stag event and a board meeting was busy digging whilst trying to stay awake!

Back at the new task - the ground force makeover team were certainly going at full strength.

Belinda had partnered up with Gillybean to clear the area around the steps ( credit to Belinda for some great before and after photos! )

John. Tamsin, Daisy, Barbara together with Rik and Val made great strides with clearing bindweed, wild garlic, brambles, weeds and rubbish !

We will return to this site in the coming winter months to really get a grip with it and smarten the whole area up.

We all reconvened at the cemetery for a Happy Birthday sing song followed by a group photo and a well deserved drink at the pub where we presented John with a variety of presents from his GG buddies!

Great job and smiles all round !

Hope to see lots more of you at the tasks in the coming weeks !

Julia xx

3 of us plus Simba turned up at the earlier time of 08:45 to do a beach clean. Thank you so much.

Huge kudos to Barbara and Stephen for supporting this community mission today - It proved very worthwhile and what we are all about at GoodGym - Giving to our local community without hesitation.

Ongoing tech issues mean that I cant upload a photo - I have no idea what photo will appear but it wont be anything like the ones I took which is sad as they are amazing - look out on whats app for them

See you next time - you missed a banger !

Julia x

Worthing Run Fest dawned sunny and relatively still on in our beautiful town.

For the second year running, GoodGym had been asked to give out the finishers medals which we were very happy to agree to. Stephen was also harpooned to volunteer by one of the organisers, Jade whose charms were clearly more powerful than my pleas for volunteers - but wait - he ended up in the baggage tent so maybe karma did prevail somewhere !

A number of our Worthing GoodGymers were participating in the event.

Natascha, Daisy Greg ( aka Craig) Sarah, Sue A and Mr R John ran in the 10K whilst Sue W and Jay took on the mighty half marathon. Well done to you all . You are all our superstars !

Our intrepid runners all did brilliantly with several personal best times- Notably Jay, who ran London just 7 days ago got a PB . Massive kudos to you, our very own super hero - Cake man!

The other mini super hero of the day was Jemima ( mini me Tamsin ) who was super excited to be helping with the medals, and ended up fronting our team and giving out the medals and the trophy to the winners.

Finally, big shout out to Daisy and John who ran and then volunteered too.

So sorry for the lateness of this report. The Central GG tech team did a upgrade last week of the website which resulted in multiple bugs meaning it was impossible to upload a report until just now.

Looking forward to seeing you all in the next few weeks. With 2 more bank holidays in May we will also be actively volunteering on Wednesdays too.

Thank you for your support and patience

Julia xx

Post parkrun reward

Following the very successful parkrun we all walked along the prom, basking in the sunshine to Munch where we decided to rearrange the furniture to suit the GG worthing 'as one' ethos :) Luckily we narrowly got away with it despite a few stern words from chef Theresa.

With breakfast already pre ordered it was a ( relatively ) straight forward ordering of drinks etc. We all did slide down in our chairs when Stephen asked to alter his order ( although he was oblivious of our concern! ) but yet again, Theresa ( happily) agreed to the last minute change.

it was really lovely to see our very own mini Christmas star Jemima come along with Tamsin and what a great photo of her and of everyone by the tree:)

There were also very welcome guest appearances from Natacha , Pauls husband John, plus Nick who has been stuck on 67 good deeds for around 4 years - ha ha !

Save the date

Watch this space for our new years curry party on January 28th which our social secretary, Tamsin and I will be organising early in the new year.

Plus Bank Holiday Monday - walk and chat 09:30

Wishing you a very warm and cosy Christmas filled with love and good times.