450 leaflets distributed and 6km run by 22 GoodGym'ers? I don't be-leaf it!

On what threatened to be a wet and miserable evening, a lovely mild and dry (thankfully!) evening greeting us in H&F. An amazing 21 GoodGym'ers joined me tonight to run and spread the word about some wonderful local charities.

Baptism of flyer

Tonight it was lovely to welcome along Lauren and Tatjana to their first H&F group run, thank you both for coming along and lending some extra hands tonight, hope you enjoyed it! And thank you as always to my wonderful regulars 😊.

Today’s task was the distribution of leaflets for Open Age UK H&F, posters for Food2You and some postcards for Age UK H&F around the streets of Hammersmith. So what do all these local charities do and provide I hear you ask?...

• Open Age H&F provide hundreds of weekly activities for local residents aged 50+ to sustain their physical and mental fitness, maintain an active lifestyle and develop new and stimulating interests.
• Food2You, a grocery delivery service run by Age UK for vulnerable, isolated older people who can't do their own shopping. It will be up and running in Hammersmith & Fulham very soon and they are currently looking for volunteers to drive the delivery vans and assist with co-ordination.
• Age UK H&F offer services for the over 50s, these range from home cooked meals to physical activity classes to IT classes, led by the man himself, Johnny Wren. Part of the programme Johnny is heading up is getting those in the community more IT literate, and one side of the postcard promoted this service. The other side was a call for more volunteers.

Flyer flyer pants on flyer!

Following a pulse-raising warm-up and a quick-fire number game we set off towards Shepherd’s Bush and White City, weaving in and around pedestrians and puddles (some were more successful than others at the latter!) and regrouped at Shepherd's Bush Green.

Before continuing on, we smashed out tonight’s fitness session of “When I went to GoodGym H&F...”. This was based on the school game, except with exercises. Everyone was challenged to both remember and do all the previous exercises, and add in an additional exercise and repetition.

We called it a day when we reached Sarah at number 14 and had the following list: 1 squat, 2 twists, 3 lunges, 4 knee raises, 5 jumping jacks, 6 jumps, 7 ‘funky chickens’, 8 punches, 9 left-leg hops, 10 right-leg hops, 11 spotty dogs, 12 star jumps, 13 press-ups and 14 windmills. Cake and biscuits was also mentioned, but sadly today no-where to be seen (until next week...).

Which, by my calculations worked out as a grand total of: 14 squats, 26 twists, 36 lunges, 44 knee raises, 50 jumping jacks, 54 jumps, 56 ‘funky chickens’, 56 punches, 54 left-leg hops, 50 right-leg hops, 44 spotty dogs, 36 star jumps, 26 press-ups and 14 windmills. Phew! Great work team, 14 exercises and a whopping 560 repetitions done in total 🙌🏼. There was also the bonus of “We went to GoodGym H&F and got some ‘motivational’ heckles from some kids on bikes!” 🗣🚲 as captured and captioned by Lucy on the ‘gram! @goodgym_hf for those not yet following.

Make like a tree...and leaf-let

Fitness completed we continued on our run. We reached Shepherd’s Bush Road and headed down one of the adjoining side streets. The team split into two and implemented the efficient 'flyer chain' down all the streets with perfection. With some helpful local knowledge from Lauren about a cut-through the large pile of leaflet quickly began to diminish and after 40 minutes of leafleting door-to-door the team had covered a substantial amount of the surrounding side streets.

Realising that we had yet to get a team photo with our leaflets, in a case of déjà vu from last week we headed towards the Josiah Braithwaite Community Garden. Once outside we inspected the level of leaf fall over the past week and grouped together for some team photos, and under direction from team photographer, Mo, we struck a fabulous ‘flexed’ pose 💪🏼. In the words of Mo, “that’s lovely that!”

Time flyers when you're having fun!

With time flying (as it always does!) we began our run back to base armed with one Food2You poster each. The challenge was to get the poster displayed in a shop, supermarket or local convenience store. In a classic case of speaking too soon about it being an early Christmas miracle that no-one had been lost, as we reached Shepherd's Bush Green again we realised that we were 3 GoodGym'ers short! Thankfully the yellow viz of Johnny was soon spotted running with Rosie and Tatty!

With a handful of Food2You posters successfully delivered and displayed, and most importantly, everyone present and correct, we all headed off on our short run back to base for a stretch off and then back home. Another good deed done! Thank you for all your hard work and efforts tonight team...560 exercise repetitions and around 450 leaflets delivered, boom!

Shoutouts 📣

• A big well done to Matt who got not one but TWO PBs at the weekend!! 🥳🙌🏼.
• Well done to Alice and 'Speedy Jonzales', Jonny Knight for completing the Spartan Stadion Race at Twickenham! 🙌
• Thank you to all my backmarkers, and to Mo for his fantastic camera work as always 📸.
  

News 📰

1. H&F Community Mission - Age UK H&F's Christmas party is on Thursday 12th December. Please sign up here if you can lend a hand anytime between 4pm-8.30pm.
2. Other local Community Missions - Tree planting in Chiswick on Saturday 30th November, all the details are here.
3. Santa Dash 🎅- Sunday 8th December at Brockwell Park. Run a 5k or 10k dressed as Santa! All the details are here - Andrew has kindly created a team called 'GoodGym H&F'.
4. GG-all areas Christmas party 🎅🎄⛄🎉 - Friday 6th December. Places are limited so make sure you sign up! All the details are here.

Next week, we’ll be spreading some Christmas cheer as we will be delivering some Christmas Cards for H&F Foodbank around Fulham. Please sign up here. Have a great rest of your week and weekend. Hopefully see you next week!

GoodGym H&F went off with a bang! Remember, remember the 5th of November, gunpowder, treason and trot....

On a chilly Tuesday evening, 14 H&F GoodGymmers forwent bonfires and instead chose to watch the bangs, pops and fizzes from firework displays on a their run to help out a local church.

A big hello and welcome along to GoodGym H&F to Melissa, thank you for coming along.

News

1. H&F Community Missions - 2 on Saturday! Help pack containers for ERASE Foundation from 9.30-10.30am, all the details are here followed bythe 'Big Planting Event' at Wormholt Park, all the details are here if you can lend a hand anytime between 11am-3pm.
2. Unofficial GG10 party 🔟🎉 - this Friday! At Topolski Bar on the Southbank. All the details are here.
3. GG Christmas party 🎄🎉 - Friday 6th December. Places are limited so make sure you sign up early! All the details are here.

There was some brilliant racing at the weekend....well done to Katie and Eloise in the Richmond Half and to Lucy in the Billericay Striders 10k 🏅🥳🙌🏼 .

Spot my mojo working

Before we headed to the streets we did a quick pulse raising warm-up that began with some high knees, jumping jacks and Johnny Wren's favourite, spotty dogs - he's definitely becoming a pro at these now! This was followed by some different movements when certain numbers were shouted out and some dynamic stretches.

Nicely warmed-up we headed down towards our task tonight at Parsons Green. With it being bonfire night and a Chelsea home game the streets were a lot fuller than normal! Following lots of weaving around pedestrians, and a brief pause for a wall sit while we waited for lights to turn green, we eventually arrived at St Dionis Church.

Orange you glad it's Autumn!

We managed to track down the church vicar, Tim who warmly welcomed everyone to the church amongst the lovely Autumnal colours of the fallen leaves. He explained to the group that tonight's task was to give the garden area and sides of the church a lovely spruce up through some leaf clearing and weed removal.

The church has been closed for refurbishment for the past 6 months and Sunday at 3pm is their grand reopening. It was our job tonight to provide the all inportant tidy up to leave a good first impression, because as Tim humourously said " you can never make a first impression again!"

No sight for saw eyes as GG H&F stand & de-leaf-er

The team gloved up and quickly set about filling green garden bags with weeds and leaves. Lucy and Jonny teamed up for the great rake off and large 'scooping hands' combo while everyone else got stuck in with their hands.

Following last week's strong winds there were a number of large fallen branches that also needed to be removed. Henry and Katie armed themselves with a saw and set about cutting the branches into smaller pieces so that they could be used as fire wood.

Raking it happen

After 30 minutes of raking, collecting handful after handful of leaves, sawing of branches and gravel de-weeding we called it a night. The result of all this hard work was 10 full garden bags and one immaculately looking garden area, one that would definitely give a great first impression!

Tim led us inside and treated us to a sneak peak of the refurbished church. And wow, it was stunning! We took the opportunity to get a team photo under the church's arches and bright lights before we said our goodbyes to Tim and headed off on our run back to base.

We'll keep you postered

En route we stopped at some local supermarkets and shops to distribute some posters for Food2You, a grocery delivery service for vulnerable, isolated older people who can't do their own shopping. It will be up and running in Hammersmith & Fulham very soon and they are currently looking for volunteers to drive the delivery vans and assist with co-ordination.

After another weavy pedestrian-avoiding run we arrived back at base. As we completed our cool down stretches we discussed upcoming races and milestones, and of course Christmas! With strectches completed and the temperature dropping, we all headed home to some much needed warmth. Thank you for tonight team, unbe-leaf-able work!

Next week we'll be helping out at Flora Gardens Primary and will be doing some more postering for Food2You. For all the details and to sign up, click here. Have a great rest of your week and weekend. Hopefully see you next week!