Wall of Honour

• Thanks to Helena for back marking and keeping the group together.
• Big Shout to Danny & Nelly for completing their first run with us!
• Pat on the back to Jenny, Emma & Kate for their first tourist visits to Southwark

Social Reminders

• Friday night is GoodGym Monthly Social - celebrating all things Puns, playlists and Good Deeds come join us!
• Saturday is the Cross Country League an 8km race taking place in Welwyn. All the details are on their website here

Let’s have a Recap

Last night 24 runners ran 6km in total to Theatre Deli - Old Library in Burgess Park, a charity that transforms unused spaces into creative community venues supporting local groups and emerging artists.

With many regulars and some new faces we hopped through a quick warm up and successfully managed to count all the way up to 24! We took to the back streets up to Peckham Road and sliced our way through Southampton Way with social discussions in full flow. Upon arrival we met Emma who had carefully prepared the areas which required brightening up with a bit of white paint, ready for the upcoming awards ceremonies being hosted here.

Everyone grabbed a tool and we had 20 minutes to roller the walls, paint toilet doors and cover all spots around the hall with a white winter coat. Any spilt drops of paint were quickly wiped up by the white spirit brigade! A handful of runners were treated to some squat pyramids and bear crawls while we shared out the brushes between everyone.

FACT OF THE DAY - 'Paint the town red' most likely owes its origin to a legendary night of drunkenness by the Marquis of Waterford in Melton Mowbray in 1837, who ammoungst other pranks painted a swan statue in red paint!

With the task completed we thanked Emma for having us and continued our run back through Burgess Park, along the Surrey Canal path and back to Old Spike, finishing off with fast paced footwork and a good stretch.

Next week we will be running 10km overall to Tabard Community Gardens for some weeding and digging. Bring a head torch if you have one! Bring your oyster if you would prefer to take the bus back.

See you next week Team! Wrap Up!

Southwark News

• Tonight is the last monthly GoodGym Social of 2018 and WE'VE BEEN NOMINATED FOR INTERNATIONAL PUN OF THE MONTH! I could not be more excited and I'll be at the Star of Bethnal Green from 6.30pm to gracefully accept our award (hopefully). Vote by tweeting @pritski or coming to vote in person! Find out more and sign up here.

• Saturday is the second Cross Country Fixture. If you're with the RaceTeam, come along - it's an important one and I can't make it :( There's a vote on about whether the race distances between men and women should be equalised and I'm gutted to be missing it.

• 17th November is a 16km long run around Southwark led by Frances Powrie.

• Have you been thinking about your Christmas Party outfit? Theme is the first letter on your area. Get thinking!

• We're on Instagram! Follow us @goodgym_southwark

That's enough of the business

Last night 11 runners ran 5.5km to Theatre Deli to give the floor a second coat of varnish. We were there two weeks ago to do the first coat and this time around we absolutely smashed it! And with fewer people! In 25 minutes we'd varnish the whole floor and cleaned all the painting paraphernalia. Emma was amazed.

On 17th November Theatre Deli are holding a music evening with CALM speaking about their campaign and it's FREE TO ALL GOODGYMERS! Enter 'goodgym' in the promo code section for your free ticket

We also managed not to step in the varnish this time (my bad). Great work team! Theatre Deli take over disused spaces and open them up for community use. We'll be back there again on 1st December for the Christmas party. It'll be awesome!

After we'd cleared up we headed outside to try out a new musical challenge - shuttle runs and squats to the song Happy by Pharrell. It was hilarious fun and yes I do have more music exercise challenges up my sleeve. You're in for a treat!

Great work everyone, see you next week.

Lucy J

Southwark News

• The Christmas party is taking place at Theatre Deli on 1st December. We're asking for a small donation to cover costs. Sign up, donate and add to the Christmas playlist here.

• We're having a Christmas Decoration Party on 24th November to get things ready for Theatre Deli. Bring your craftyness - sign up here.

• Fancy a long run with company and food at the end? The GoodGym November long run is happening on 17th November and it's a 16km circle around Southwark. Perfect! Sign up here.

• (Yes I know this isn't in chronological order...) Like art? Like the Copeland Gallery? Like hearts? The Heart of the Matter is an exhibition that brings together art and medicine to reflect on the human heart and it's on at the Copeland Gallery 1-11 November. Our very own Katie Haines has been publicising it. Find out more here and pop in (it's free!) to support local goodness.

• Next week is Halloween - we'll be dressing up, bringing face paints and popping to Batch for a drink after. Sign up here.

That's enough of the business

Last night we set off for the (apparently) 6km to Theatre Deli on the edge of Burgess Park. Spoiler alert: It wasn't 3km...

Hello and welcome to Dan, Lizzie and Fumina who joined us for the first time last night!

After a briefing ramble and a warm up we headed a roundabout way to Theatre Deli - a group that takes over unused spaces and works to expand opportunities for people to make, participate in and experience art.

After a few cries of 'Lucy are we nearly there yet?' we were actually there. Yay! We arrived to find Matt helping Emma unpack the varnish and tools (some slightly overwrapped varnish in there...). She told us a bit about what Theatre Deli does and, enlisting the help of the ever-practical Helena, we established how best to apply varnish (a thin layer) and decided on a method to try to minimise the chances of varnishing ourselves into corners.

Emma had cleared one section of flooring (nearly half the floor space) but we ripped through the task so quickly that we almost finished the entire space which meant some heavy lifting to clear space.

We got so much done, Emma was delighted

We did find ourselves on the wrong side of the varnish a few times (myself mostly...) but all in all an excellent job.

Waving goodbye to Emma we set off home on a 'slightly shorter route'. Spoiler Alert: it was not slightly shorter. All in all we ran over 7km and had good fun chasing down Dan just as we reached Old Spike.

Great work team!

See you next week :)

Lucy J