GoodGym Brighton runs to a garden job every Tuesday, and it's free to join

GoodGym^1,6 Brighton meets every Tuesday at 6:15pm, runs or walks to a job for a local charity or housing block, does the work and goes back together. It costs nothing to take part, and most of its November Tuesdays are gardening jobs.

The group describes itself as “local residents who run, walk, or cycle to help out community projects and older people in Brighton & Hove”. It has hung curtains for a man who couldn’t manage them on his own, and shovelled a tonne of compost for the Food Growers Group. On Tuesdays it meets at the Queen Victoria Statue in Victoria Gardens or at the Peace Statue on the seafront in Hove.

GoodGym’s own guide says the group works for 30 to 45 minutes once it reaches the task, and a session takes around 90 minutes in all. Newcomers are welcome: “no one gets left behind”, the session pages say. You don’t have to pay, though members can choose to give the charity a donation.

Coming up

Tonight there is gardening at Manor Paddock in Kemp Town: cutting back lavender, pruning buddleia and planting bulbs.

On 17 November it’s Palmeira Square in Hove. A resident called Stuart has asked the group back to rake leaves off the pavements and bag them for the B&H Tidy Up and Clearance Team to collect. Runners leave the Peace Statue by 6:30pm.

On 24 November the group goes back to Lavender House in Kemp Town. Its residents call themselves the “Garden elves”, and they asked for GoodGym to return. The job is weeding the flowerbeds along the front.

You can skip the run on any of these and meet the group at the task from about 6:40pm. Bring garden gloves and a head torch, and dress for the cold.

On Mondays until Christmas there is a kitchen job. The choir welcomes two GoodGym helpers a week to help the lead chef prepare and serve dinner for the Choir With No Name after its rehearsal at All Saints in Hove. Helpers meet at 5:45pm at the side entrance on Church Drive, off Eaton Road, and are welcome to stay and eat.

To join a session, sign up on its page at goodgym.org.