We know how it is: you are busy. Not only are you trying to make a living, you also have to fit in your social life, keep in contact with your loved ones and stay fit and healthy. Doing good? Well, sometimes there’s just no time.
This is where GoodGym comes in.
GoodGymers get fit by doing good. Instead of expending energy in gyms and on treadmills, they put their energy into our local community. Combine this with getting to do it with a bunch of like-minded individuals and you have a three-in-one combo - socialising, keeping fit and volunteering - tick, tick, tick.
And once you get a taste of GoodGym, you will see that it’s so much more than just a way of increasing your step-count. As well as weekly Group Runs to help a local community project, GoodGym focuses on helping vulnerable older people through tackling loneliness and isolation.
Runners can get involved in Coach Runs, where they get paired with an isolated older person that they run to visit once a week. You can also go on Missions, running in a pair to help an older person with a one-off task, such as moving their bed downstairs or clearing their garden.
GoodGym leaves regular running clubs behind it in a puff of good-willed smoke. It becomes a way to connect with your community while achieving your own fitness goals and making a real difference to local people and your area.
And for the community groups that need that help? GoodGym knows how stretched they can be - funds have been cut, volunteers don’t have much time, there is often so much to do you don’t know where to begin.
GoodGym can help: they are always looking for new projects to support, and really know how true the saying ‘many hands make light work’ can be. They help everything from established charities to one-person community projects. Get in touch to get support from the group and you could have a bunch of runners volunteering for you in no time.
Shona is Trainer of GoodGym Bristol. GoodGym has locations all across England and in Cardiff. To get involved with your local GoodGym as a runner or to get help from your local group, take a look at the website: www.goodgym.org.