A perfect evening for a bit of hard liftin' & shiftin' down at Loughborough Farm so what are we waiting for let's go!

AA Yianny was in a race against traffic to get to Papa's from out of London to drop off the keys with Lambeth Run Leaders Joao taking the group out this eve. In the end I made it and in the end no-one needed to use the hall - standard!

It was great to have Ellie back with us after a while away - she even brough some juicy GG insider info - although the veracity of said info is currently under review (it made us all laugh though!)

This evening's category was favourite childhood character with Billy Joe Armstrong of Green Day, Tony Hawk, Tigger among others that made an appearance.

We had Marie-Noelle and Paul meeting the group down at the Farm and Anthea and her team were there to show the crew what needed doing. Mainly it was shifting the heavy boards from one railway arch to another so that the Farm can complete its' move.

As ever the team got through plenty of work and Anthea was delighted so well done all!

We will be back next week - same time - same place -see you then.

Last night 8 brave souls looked out of their window, saw the hail stones and the tropical thunderstorm and thought "I'm a GoodGymer, this is what I was born to do!" At 6:45 it wasn't looking promising with only Super Sam, Effie and yours truly at Papa's but by 7pm the rest of the crew had turned up and were raring to go. ⚡☔

The conditions were truly bizarre, one second blue skies and rays of sunshine immediately followed by cracks of lightning and heavy rain, then a bit of wind moved the clouds on and the cycle repeated but as I said we don't care - we had a task to help out on and Stephen, Bill, Lydia and their team of volunteers were waiting for us at Loughborough Park. ✊

Before setting off we had a quick warm up and the category of the week was favourite breed of dog, Gayle wins for most interesting breed with the Shibu Inu (although we all know Michael had it right when he said Boxer)! 🐶

It's a short run over to LP but this week Effie had kindly offered to come down and be walk leader for us (remember this is an option folks so do reach out and ask if you want to walk to a session - great for those recovering from injury!) so we were there in no time despite the rain.

In just a week so much work had been done by the Urban Canopy guys but still plenty was left to do so we put on our gloves, picked up the hand tools and got cracking pulling and digging up the last of the weeds in the central section of the gravel garden. Charlotte volunteered to grab the secateurs and head of into the undergrowth and start chopping that back as well. 45 mins later we were all suitably knee deep in mud (sorry Saucony) Lucy had been covered head to toe but we had a great time as Sam's speaker kept us entertained with cheesy classic songs! 🎧

So that's it for us and this task after two weeks and an incredible amount of work from GG and FLP volunteers. Chatting to Stephen it looks like we will be back in June for some planting and then again in October for a year end round of planting - personally I can't wait to see the evolution and what it all looks like.

Check out the pics (nice one Effie) and catch you next week!

Oh what a night, late May back in 2022.... This was a really fun one and a task where our GoodGymers could really get their teeth into, let's see what we got up to.

By 6:30pm the sun was still shining and it was a balmy 22 degrees - summer vibes indeed! I had bumped into Maya one of our GGers on the train earlier who informed me that the weather forecast had changed from 50% chance of rain at 8pm to 90% which simply wouldn't do. ☔ 🌂

Unbeknownst to the runners the AA formulated the warm up into an anti-rain dance, weaving intricate patterns and side steps which were almost perfectly observed by all the runners. The result of course is that not only did the rain rain stay away but it's not coming again until Thursday!! ⚡

This week's category was airlines (favourite, least favourite, simply name any) and we should send a special shout out to Wizz Air for taking care of our Lindy once when she was 'not very well' on one of their flights.

It was a short run to Loughborough Park 1.35 kms each way but that meant lots of time for the task. We were helping out Stephen and Bill from Urban Canopy who are working with the Friends of LP to create an educational garden where there once was a Japanese gravel garden (possibly back in feudal times as now all that was there were lots of weeds)!

Lydia, India (a GGer herself) and the volunteers from Friends of LP were all there so we could get stuck in together with a strangely satisfying weeds clearance task. Stephen explained that the plan is to clear away as much as possible to be able to plan out exactll where and what to plant and create a self-nourishing forest floor garden with each different planted item working in harmony with those around it. ✅✅

We had a solid 45 minutes to attack the pathways and managed to clear a decent chunk of weeds however by the end looking around it was clear there is still so much to be done. Not a problem though, the team will be down there this week and next to continue the work and we will be back next Tuesday to pick up wherever they have got to and take it forward. We are very excited to see what lays in store at the end of it all! 😍

Check out the photos, we managed to add a little to the huge pile Shauna generated all by herself..... 💪

Thanks to the team at Friends of LP, their volunteers and of course Stephen and Bill for having us and Sarah for being back marker for the evening.

One runner assisted in clearing away stockpiled waste to make the Farm a more cleaner, welcoming place for visitors.

Tonight was about shifting, wheeling, spreading and weeding but before we get to that we need to know how we got there. 😁

A bumper group of 13 signed up for this evening's run so what better way to welcome some fresh faces as well as some seasoned ones (welcome back Hannah!) than with a game of Top Trumps?? The category was wild animals of Africa and it turns out that TT has changed somewhat 'since I were a lad' in that it is a quiz rather than which animal could eat the others or which weighed more (more's the pity as I drew the Hippo). Anyway we learned that hippos can't swim, warthogs don't live in trees and storks can't really fly!! 🦁

A quick warm up in the Papa's playground saw a few folks mixing up left and right (don't ask our runners for directions) but we made it through and were off for the short 1.5km trip to Loughborough Farm. Michael as ever there to help out as back marker for us tonight. 🏃

We were met by Mohammed and Heather who would each lead a group to the Orchard and Styles Gardens respectively, the former had to shift a huge pile of woodchip and spread it on the paths and do some weed chopping, while the latter were pulling weeds and clearing debris and litter (while playing hop scotch over the slugs)! 🤸

40 minutes later Heather and Mohammed were delighted with our efforts and both areas were looking much improved. Joao got a great arm workout with the wheelbarrows! 💪

A pacey 1.5kms and we were back to base for a cool down and off home.

Keep your eyes on the socials over the next week as we have some great footage from tonight going up - big thanks to Maya for this! 🎥 🎬

Tonight, 12 GoodGymers met on the streets of Brixton for two tasks ✌️

Two for Tuesdays 🍕🍕

We ran as one to Loughborough Farm, where most of the group met Emily who instructed in preparing the ground for an event they have coming up this weekend.

This involved levelling some soil and spreading a load of woodchip on the ground. There was also an interruption from a friendly fox. 10 points if you can spot it in the photos!

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Group 2 were off to do some leafleting for the brand new Friends of Loughborough Park who have organised a monthly litter pick! We were spreading the word so other people can join to make the park look it’s best 👌

We blitzed a few roads near to the park and only got a little lost finding our way back to Loughborough Farm! 😬

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We had a quick thigh-busting game of squat squat goose in the park before a light jog back to base!

Great work guys!!