On a cold and frosty evening Claire and Petra popped into St John’s Church to help set up for the Christmas fair.

Our first task was to move all the chairs to the side followed by getting the tables out of the shed and putting them into position. It was then time to move the piano, thankfully it was on wheels!!!

Having cleared the church it was time to get creative with the fairy lights around the pillars and hanging the baubles.

By the time we set off back into the frosty evening the hall was ready for the stall holders to set up.

Well done to the painting team last night on Phase 2 of the Holy Rails.

Martel, Adam, Tom and Jane hung in there to stay on the rails in the face of icey winds and very cold conditions (so cold Jane ended up painting in her cycle helmet).

GoodGym always like to be completors and finishers - but the cold made the paint less pliable and slow to apply - so it proved mission impossible to ‘holy’ polish off a small patch of railing left - ahhh a tad frustrating!

Thanks to vicar Mark for being such a welcoming host and blessing us with patience and perseverance. 🙏😇

Also to the angelic choir doing some baltic outdoor choir practice that helped keep us going.🎼🎤

And to Adam on his new GG uniform - a PVC onesie! 😂❤️😍

We were blessed.

After the rain, came the sunshine, warmth, great company and sociability, and a wonderful church and location to help.

St John the Evangelist is an Anglican Church in the heart of the Spring Grove neighbourhood in the South of Kingston.

They are lucky to enjoy big lawns around the church, but as a result have alot of wrought iron railings to maintain. They needed some help in finishing the front railings.

With 3 of us and a couple of team members down, we got about half done with the remaining part to finish off next Sunday for Vicar Mark and his parish.

Thank you for welcoming us so warmly Mark and we look forward to a finisher's photo with you next Sunday!

Winter may be coming for some, but it was a warm evening in Kingston for 14 keen runners. After quickly congratulating our latest and greatest centurian, Canada Kate, with homemade 'Happy' tarts (Thanks Nicky). We were warmed even further, then broke off into our running and walking groups.

With an Angel to the rear Mark set a devilish pace up the front, keen to get to the church on time.

Arriving at St Johns Evangelist church in Surbiton, we were keenly met by Caroline the task owner, who cooled us down with non holy water and set us to work sticking the tiles down and taping up any trip hazzards.

Different techniques were tried and tested...and the final say went to the test crash car as to whether the trip hazard had been smoothed.

We carpet enough of these tiles! Unlike our last visit we were a bit more strategic this time and set a tapetastic trail to follow. Since there were a pew of us, we were able to get stuck in quickly and tape this task down. We did some top notch speed taping, getting far too excited about stripping (the back off the double sided tape!)

The final say went to the test crash car as to whether the trip hazard had been smoothed.

Our time had eventually run out, along with the duck tape so it was back to the Guildhall for cool down stretches and across the road in celebration of Canada Kate's 100th good deed.

Welcome to Maarit on her first run and well done to Jane on her second run - great to have you run with us!

Bottoms up to a new year!

If we weren’t already confused enough about the day of the week after all of the festive bank holidays, what did Mark decide to do? Yes, throw us a starter session on a Saturday. Same location, same trainer, same wonderful bunch of people (with a few new faces too!) - don’t be surprised if we all wake up tomorrow thinking it’s Wednesday...

We welcomed runners from far and wide (Dave, who had clocked an incredible parkrun PB this morning - were you on roller blades?! and Rafal), and newcomers too: welcome to Jo, Taki and Zita - and extra well done for making your first group run on a freezing January afternoon! As well as PBs, we heard about Parkrun PWs that had been achieved and about forthcoming community missions tomorrow and next Saturday - take a look at the Richmond and Kingston group run listings, and remember that you don’t need to be mission verified for these.

And then to the warm up. Oh how we’d missed Mark’s specials over the past couple of weeks. Lots of lunges, a fair few squats, star jumps and then a game of “copy the plank cat” - we definitely caught the eye of many passers-by, with some even joining us for part of it. Unfortunately we lost them before the run began - but they were greeted with random shouts from us of “join us on Tuesdays”, “welcome, come and join in!”.

We split into groups of runners and walkers, taking different routes but both making it to the church on time. The church were very grateful to have recently had heating installed, but this had required the carpet tiles to be lifted and they had become a trip hazard once they’d been put back. Our mission, which we chose to accept in the warmth of the church, was to tape down the tiles that were loose or creating a trip hazard, helping to make the place much safer. Would we (tape) measure up to this one?

Rather than sensibly thinking out how to do this beforehand, we divided into triads and each adopted a different plan of tape attack. We removed tiles, laid down tape, peeled back the other side of the tape (harder than it sounds!) and replaced the tile. For the most part this worked, but there were some moments of tape and tile tension; tiles not being aligned, needing to remove a row of tiles to realign them all over again, more trip hazards being created. On our hands and knees, lying down or squatting for the majority of the task (and the warm-up, come to think of it), this really was a case of bottoms up for our first task of the year!

Goodness starts from the ground up! #goodgym #running #volunteering #kingston #startersession #JanuaryChallenge #stjohnskingston pic.twitter.com/yZGXrRe6GI

— GoodGym Kingston-upon-Thames (@GoodGymKingston) January 5, 2019

Then came TAPE GATE!

We ran out of tape!! What a sticky situation! So it became a real case of tape it and leave it - and then use the luminous orange tape to tape over the surface if some trip hazards remained.

We’re looking forward to returning to finish the job. And after hearing all about wine tasting evenings (scotch tape on the rocks?) and quizzes, there’s definitely potential for some “community mission come socials” in the pipeline!

After a brisk walk/run back, we were reunited back at Guildhall and stretched. Thanks Mark for fitting in my favourite stretch!

Awesome work everyone on a fantastic starter session - and well done to Taki, Zita and Jo on your first good deeds, we hope to see you all again soon!