There was more than tenovus... I don't want to leaf anyone out!

23 Goodgymers helped their local community in Cardiff
1 / 37
Cardiff

Tuesday 13th November 2018

Report written by Benjamin Annear

Share the love

23 runners attended GoodGym this evening with an appetite to get fit and do good!

As the clock turned 6pm runners began entering big moose café thick and fast. Everyone was raring for 6.30pm for the start of the run, and when the clocks eventually hit that time Ben led everyone outside for the warm up and to do the briefing.

There were some new and for a long time not seen faces at GoodGym this week. A HUGE, GIGANTIC welcome to Sophie and Dom! Katy brought Sophie along to GoodGym this evening so that means she earned herself 1 BRAND NEW RED LACE! #LifesGoals

The warm up consisted of everyone running around in a circle whilst Ben led everyone through a rather bizarre warm up. Ben shouted out the names of people ‘Miss High Knees’, ‘Mr Butt Kick’, ‘Mr Jump’, ‘Mrs Lunge’ and ‘Dr Jump’ and each time he called out their names they had to do the fitness exercise that corresponded… needless to say it was weird, but great fun!

What!? Is it really Two Task Tuesday!!?

Ben then explained that this week there were two different tasks. Task 1.) You will be running to the Tenovus Charity Shop on Clifton Street. Task 2.) You will be running to Grangetown Pavilion to declutter the AstroTurf of all the leaves…. Choose wisely!

Helping out at Grangetown Pavilion

Ben led the group of runners helping out at Grangetown Pavilion; the group included Ben, Lucy, Martin, Marion, Adam, Darren, Lydia, Andrew, Nic and Peter. The run to the Pavilion was adventurous, we did step ups on benches on St. Marys Street and squatted outside the Millennium Stadium.

After about 1.7 miles of running we had arrived to Grangetown Pavilion. Our arrival was celebrated, maybe next time though we don’t need fireworks… Ali welcomed us all to Grangetown Pavilion. He told us about how the leaves collected on the Astro pitch has been a nuisance and made it difficult to use the pitch safely (as it becomes really easy to slip when there are leaves on it). This was what Ali needed our help with – Our mission was to collect all of the leaves and put them into green bags. Ali provided the green bags and the gloves were taken from Bens backpack. … We weren’t left to do this alone, though. There were groups of teenagers and fathers and sons playing on the football pitch and they joined in too. Approximately 18 of us all worked together to clear leaves from the Astro turf and after about 20 minutes the task was complete.

Well done to everyone for doing so well! I’d also like to extend a special thanks to all of the teenagers, fathers and sons who were using the Pavilion facilities at the time and who joined in with making a positive difference.

Helping out at the Tenovus Charity Shop

13 of us ran to Tenovus, a short run in the darkened cold months, but not to be stopped extra time was added on with the wonders of step ups. Also the shouts of ‘we should have gone on Ben’s run’, but after a couple of minutes we were off again. Introducing Dom to the lovely night Cardiff we ran around the prison that the City has grown around. It wasn’t too long until we arrived at our destination, the Tenovus charity shop, with a mixture of tasks to come. Carl opened the doors with a welcoming smile and introduced us to the shop, tonight we had old clothes to de-hang so that we could re-purpose the hangers and hang NEW clothes, but first they were to be steamed and then put out on shop floor. More to do, a seasonal display in the window – OOOOoooh Christmas Jumpers, rearranging DVDs, in age classification and then alphabetical order, now there is dedication.

We had a dancing Xmas toy, sparkling shoes, soooooooo many Christmas jumpers, an inappropriate dinasour, bikers outfit and a weird head in a cloche. Oh it was so much fun, but we did it, we made the store ready for the season and so much more.

But wait, why was there a cat blanket left, should this not have gone home with Dom. Just to confirm, that’s a blanket with cat’s on it, not a blanket made of cats.

And so to the philosophical question of the century, with the Gingerbread Man the Jesus of cookies……. Does the baking of the Gingerbread man create the life of the cookie man, or ……… does it kill him?

Answers to the dark question below please!

All from the dark dead gingerbread man Xmas jumper that was found in the shop, the poor guy snapped in two.

Happy Seasonal Greetings!


Well done to Darren and Ben who together came up with the Pun for the Run! - You guys get to have half of the RunPunStiltSkin award each!


Session Leader
This task supported
Grange Pavilion
Making Grangetown an even better place from the Grange Pavilion located in Grange Gardens by Transforming the closed bowls pavilion into a new social hub for the community.

It’s been five years since a group of Grangetown residents began talking about a café and a space for community activities in Grange Gardens. After thousands of volunteer hours talking to Grangetown residents, running events in the Grange Pavilion, and creating a partnership between the Grange Pavilion Project, Grangetown Community Action and Cardiff University’s Community Gateway, the Pavilion was temporarily renovated and re-opened at the 2016 Grangetown Festival. Since then, regular activities suggested by Grangetown residents, such as Homework clubs, a Youth Forum, ESOL classes, a community garden, mental health peer support, a Tech café, arts therapy, the Friends and Neighbours group, cricket and football training with peer mentoring, and play sessions, as well as one off and annual events including a Community Iftar, a Winter Fayre, and Love Grangetown, have helped bring the Pavilion to life.

See more
Attendees
Michael
Emma Wilkins
Dom Tooze
Benjamin Annear
Su Fernandez
Lowri Davies
Aimee Giles
Martin Graff
Adam
Susan Smith
David McCullough
Darren
Eleanor Cardenas
Nic
Andrew Skelton
Peter Gillibrand
Marion
Lucy
Katy
Sophie Bateman
Lydia
Molly
Join us on our next session

Cardiff

19 Group Activity - Grange Medical Centre
🗓Tuesday 7th May 6:15pm

Helping to support Grow Well newest project

Michael
One GoodGymer is going

Discuss this report
Darren

Wed 14th Nov 2018 at 8:54am

Nice report lads. Good run. Baking creates the ginger bread person, biting their head off kills them.

Michael

Wed 14th Nov 2018 at 2:26pm

That's what i said, minus the biting their heads off.

Dom Tooze
Dom Tooze (he/him)

Wed 14th Nov 2018 at 2:32pm

Not getting the cat blanket, definitely on my top 10 list of life regrets :D