25 GoodGymers came out to do good not once but TWICE on an otherwise dreary Wednesday night in Camden!

For the first time this year, there were no newbies joining the herd so we motored on through the intro speech in record time. After some stretching out, we all ran to the American International Church together along the backstreets, arriving with 15 minutes to make the beds and head on to the second task - a mini-litterpick along Regents Canal.

C4WS (American International Church)

Jonathan was there to greet us as normal and we got stuck in, making 16 beds in record time - 4 women's and 11 men's (an extra being Jonathan's up on the stage) - finishing just before the homeless people arrived for a good night's sleep out of the wind and cold at 7:30. In a spare moment, Jonathan told me that a Syrian family had moved into a sheltered housing building directly behind the church, having previously been users of the homeless shelter. They'd arrived 3 weeks ago and were getting settled - yesterday's task was getting a flatpack wardrobe from IKEA built - and I mentioned that Helen from Scope Camden was always looking for volunteers who'd like to improve their English by working in the shop, so hopefully we can connect both places together.

From there it was full steam ahead to Granary Square for a litterpick. HUGE thanks to Liz for the ploggers and bags and Abi for the gloves (from Story Garden no less!). It wouldn't have been the same task without you two! Please go and give them an extra cheer! Thanks go to Suraj for the killer pun for this week's report.

Mini/Maxi Litterpick along Regent's Canal

After arriving at Granary Square, we got the plogging bags and litterpickers ready. 3 teams of 8 were set out to clear different sections of the Regents Canal with another fifteen minutes to get stuck in. Cigarette butts were the butt of most jokes out on the plog and many ploggers perfected the use of the litterpickers to pick up the tiniest butts. Fifteen minutes later and 6 bags full (3 of recycling and 3 of litter), it was time to head back to the Living Centre. Abi's team decided they wanted to do a maxi-plog and carried on homewards, picking up extra litter as they went.

While we were out on the run, I couldn't help but notice how great it is that so many of you are talking to each other and catching up, or finding out about a new member of the herd. That's what GoodGym is all about and it's wonderful to see!

NEXT TIME

COMMUNITY MISSIONS ON A TIGHTROPE: The wonderful Liz has organised a full day of activities for you at the Camden Highline. Much like what the Americans have done in New York with the original HighLine, Camden are working on a similar concept here in the Big Smoke. The first Saturday slot is from 9:30-11:00, the second kicks off from 11:30-14:00 and the final volunteering slot of the day is from 14:00-15:45 - so lots to get stuck into if you have some free time this Saturday.

CAMDEN QUIZLETES: In the first of many upcoming Camden socials, John has organised a pub quiz for 12 of us (on two opposing teams) to battle it out for. It's at the Hanbury Arms on Thursday 20th Feb and there are still THREE SEATS FREE on the second team, so get yourself signed up here!

NEXT WEEK'S RUN: We'll be splitting the group once more next week, with one half going to C4WS and the other going to the Home of English Folk (and Dance) that is Cecil Sharp House to help Susannah in the garden with some weeding, clearing and tidying up. Add your name to the list here.

In the meantime, happy running and see you next week.

A whopping 35 runners trooped out of St Pancras & Somers Living Centre on Wednesday night to get out and do some good in Camden.

We had two newbies join the herd - welcome Collette and Katie - as well as TWO big celebrations of the milestone variety:

Becs (as in the Rebecca Clarke, GoodGym Media and Comms extraordinaire) reached her 50 Good Deeds milestone tonight and Laura Lambert hit 100 Good Deeds! Stop reading right now and go and give them a cheer! Well done to you both. Big milestones deserve cake baked by Liz, but more on that later.

As normal, the team split with 10 runners going with John to C4WS and the rest of the rabble coming with me to see Helen in the Camden Scope shop on the high street.

C4WS Report (by John)

A group of 11 threaded their way through the crowded streets of St Pancras and Bloomsbury, avoiding swiftly opened van doors on the way, for our 12th visit this winter to the homeless people's shelter at the American International Church. We knew the routine by now, setting up a human chain to move sheets, mattresses and other bedding from a storage area to the warm area where less fortunate Londoners can spend a night away from the streets and enjoy a hot meal in comfort. In a few minutes we achieved what would have taken an hour for the busy helpers in the church. Afterwards we jogged back to Granary Square for a fitness session: three laps round St Martin's School of Art at a steadily increasing pace, before a relaxing warm-down on the swivel chairs at Coal Drops Yard.

Scope Report

23 of us arrived to Helen's Scope shop in Camden high street, ready to get stuck in. A queue formed and our very drilled taskmaster handed out the jobs to the waiting teams. Jewellery needed sorting and pricing, mannequins needed re-dressing (by the GoodGym visual merchandising team - "Sorry if it's 'Devil Wears Prada' but I think we need a belt here."), shoes needed polishing, donations needed sorted (and steaming) and the upstairs office needed an early spring clean. So many jobs and so little time, but we managed to do them all and boy did that place shine as we left.

By the time both teams got back to base, it was time for blondies and fudge (both made my the inimitable Liz!) to celebrate the two big Good Deed milestones. Liz's recipe for the delicious blondies are at the bottom of the report if you'd like to try at home.

NEXT TIME

COMMUNITY MISSIONS AHOY: There's not one but TWO plogging Community Missions today - one at 1pm at Red Lion Square Gardens and the other is Glebelands Wood Nature Reserve from 4:45-5:20pm! Let's beat Lambeth to be the top scoring London GoodGym in the January Challenge. We can do it!

NEXT GROUP RUN: It's official, we're going back to Alara Wholefoods and there'll be a box of granola in it for every runner after you've helped shift some manure, tidy up the pond and do some weeding. A smaller group of us will be heading back to C4WS to make the beds again. It's going to be a brilliant night whichever task you choose.

Liz's Peanut Butter and White Chocolate Blondies:

Ingredients

125 g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

100 g butter at room temperature, plus extra for greasing

150 g crunchy peanut butter

175 g light brown sugar

1 egg, beaten

1 tsp vanilla extract

100 g white chocolate, chopped

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 170C/gas 3. Butter the sides of a 20 x 20cm square cake tin and line the base with greaseproof paper.

2. Sift the flour and baking powder into a small bowl and set aside.

3. In a large bowl, cream the butter and peanut butter together until very soft. Add the sugar, egg and vanilla extract and beat until well combined. Add the flour, baking powder and the chopped chocolate and mix to form a dough.

4. Place the dough into the prepared tin and bake in the oven for 25–30 minutes, or until golden brown and almost firm in the centre.

5. Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tin, before removing and cutting into squares.

6. Eat!

JANUARY CHALLENGE SHOUT-OUT: It's January, it's cold, it's always dark and everyone's broke. Luckily GoodGym Camden's here with lots of ways you can do good and get fit (and win this Challenge for Camden!), all you need to do is make sure your Strava is linked up to your GG account and get those miles logged in. It's a friendly competition between GoodGyms around the UK, but the key word there is competition and we must win! Camden's now #5 of all GoodGyms in all the land, but it's only the 9th and we've got a lot of January left. Sign up to the January Challenge here. (Well done if you've already signed up and linked Strava!)

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A whopping 35 GoodGymers shook off the running cobwebs and rang in the New Year with a run out in Camden on Wednesday night.

We welcomed two new folks to the herd - shout out to Niccole and Lauren. I hope Camden is what you'd hoped for (and then some) and I'm looking forward to seeing you out with us again soon.

How about Christmas Tree Run (Take 2)? Same time, same place next week - sign up now!

Tonight was the second Annual GoodGym Camden Christmas Tree Run as well as our regular bed-making at the American International Church.

A small but mighty group of 9 - led by the brilliant Louise - ran down to Jonathan and the team at the American International Church on Tottenham Court Road for our first (official, non-community mission) bed-making of the New Year. 8 beds were made for those who needed them and, as the heavens opened and the rain bucketed down, a slightly longer run was on the cards for the return leg back to the Living Centre.

As the beds were being made, 5 packs of runners had fanned out across Camden Town in competition for the Cardamom Cup (but mostly just for the bragging rights of being the winning team) in the...

Second-Annual Camden Christmas Tree Run!

For the second year running, Camden runners went head-to-head in a competition to harvest as many abandoned Christmas trees from the streets around their chosen collection point as they possibly could. The time they had? 70 minutes. 5 teams. 25 runners. And the victors? Returning to the Living Centre at 20:28, just 2 minutes away from disqualification, was TEAM TREE-MENDUS with a whopping 14 trees collected and thrown over a fence (into the collection point).

The final scores were as follows:

Team Tree-Mendus - 14 (8.79km)

Team Tree-Angle - 11

Team Five-and-a-Wreath - 5 (8km)

Team Pines 4 Pints - 4

Team Ho (ho ho) - 4

Commiserations to the other teams, but don't worry - you've got another chance to win next week! With a hat tip to sportsmanship, Team Tree-Mendus unanimously decided to give Team Tree-Angle the revered Cardomom Bun baked by yours truly this morning, to enjoy at the pub. Rumour is that there might be more baked goods for next week's competition.

Next time

COMMUNITY MISSIONS GALORE: In true Red January spirit, Liz has been organising community missions for us Camdeners to get stuck into; Plogging - lunchtime litter picks - this Friday (anyone can join in, regardless of location), Volunteering with the Canal and River Trust this Saturday and, next week, Volunteering at the Ally Pally Parkrun!.

NEXT WEEK'S RUN: We'll be back with the Christmas Tree Run (Take Two) and some of us will be going back to the American International Church. Come along!

Happy running (and missioning) until then.

Thanks go to Liz for the excellent punnage.

30 GoodGymers got in the Christmas spirit last night for another week of running with GoodGym Camden!

We welcomed Laurel to the herd - hope you enjoyed yourself Laurel and found that GoodGym was as good as you'd hoped. Looking forward to seeing you with us again soon.

If you fancy getting ahead of the game and signing up for our last run of the year, get stuck in here!

As with all of our winter tasks, tonight was a double tasker; bed-making at the American International Church and Christmas-decorating at SPCA.

Hanry led the 10-strong group to the homeless shelter to help Jonathan and the team get 18 beds ready for those who needed a place to spend the night out of the cold and off the streets. It's such a worthwhile cause and I'm so glad we can lend a hand to C4WS over the winter when the cold really bites. Every time I speak to Jonathan, he keeps saying how grateful he is that we're doing what we're doing, so thank you everyone.

I took the other half of the group to the Saint Pancras Community Association in the other direction for some light-hearted Christmas decorating fun. We had our work cut out for us - Elaine had left us with boxes of decorations and a few instructions (think a Technical Challenge on Bake Off!) so we had a fair bit of creative freedom with it. The group split again into Team Downstairs and Team Upstairs and everyone got cracking on hanging paperchains, decorating the two Christmas trees, putting out the bunting and sticking snowflakes to the doors and windows.

There were a few Italian fiesta coloured banners which I think we styled out nicely and George did some great work tinseling up the bannisters. The photos tell the story better than I ever could.

After a quick team photo next to one of the Christmas trees, it was time to head back for a cool down stretch and then PIZZA!

It was so great to have so many of you out with us, eating pizza at Happy Face last night and I just wanted to say thank you very, very much for a lovely card and hilarious Christmas outfit. Special thanks to Rosie (and Helen from Scope) from being the organisers of this unexpected treat - the card is sitting on my desk as I'm writing this, I love it!

Thanks for being so welcoming over the last few months and I hope you're looking forward to what 2020 will bring as much as I am. If I don't see you next week, MERRY CHRISTMAS and I hope you enjoy some well-deserved time off with friends and family.

NEXT TIME

COMMUNITY MISSION: If you're free this evening (Thursday) from 6pm and would like to sing your heart out for a good cause, then join our very own Beth and some others from GoodGym Wandsworth for some good old-fashioned carolling at Kambala Cares in SW11 2LE.

OUR LAST RUN OF 2019: Next Wednesday's session is our last group run of the year and we're going to be sticking together to go down to C4WS as a one big team before we say goodbye ahead of the Christmas break. Festive wear is as close to compulsary as possible and there may well be fitness penalties for those in just regular running clothes - ye be warned!

THE CHRISTMAS BREAK: There will be NO RUNS on Wednesday 25th December or Wednesday 1st of January and our first run back in the New Year will be on the 8th of January 2020.

GOODGYM CAMDEN PIZZA PARTY: As it's nearly Christmas, we're all going to get together after next week's run and eat pizza at Happy Face in Granary Square. We're a big group - there's 28 of you signed up to come - so the restaurant is asking for a £5 deposit per head. If you've signed up online, please give me your choice of pizza and find out how to send me your fiver here.

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28 GoodGymers came out in the freezing cold tonight to run with Camden on Wednesday night and what a night it was.

We had THREE newbies join the herd tonight - welcome Emily, Jen and Isabelle (thanks for singing our praises, Poppy)! I hope you thought GoodGym was even better than you expected it'd be and we look forward to having you back with us soon.

Here's next week's run in case you want to sign up right now - we'll be bed-making and Christmas-decorating and then... PIZZA EATING.

Before we got warmed up, there were not one but TWO huge announcements to be made:

• Steve Coman has just reached his 400th Good Deed! That's massive, Steve, and you should be really proud of what you've achieved. That's 400 times you could otherwise have been doing something else but instead you chose to come along and do good for the community, big congrats for that!
• Liz also achieved the previously un-achievable; she's only gone and managed to do 250 Good Deeds in a year (and counting!). With 365 days in a year, Liz has shown some serious, serious commitment to GoodGym all across London, from community missions, to group runs and missions - often completing several in a day. All our hats are doffed to both of ye!

As with all our winter tasks, we split the group. One group ran with Louise up to Cecil Sharp House and another smaller group ran with me to C4WS to make some beds.

Cecil Sharp House Louise took 16 runners up to the Home of Folk. Susannah wasn't there, but had instead transformed into Clark and David who told the group what needed doing. Splitting the 16 up in a Ronseal approach, there was Team Front, Team Path, Team Back Garden and Team Car Park - who said GoodGym wasn't glamorous! While being serenaded by a choir concert happening at the same time the teams got on with sweeping and leafing. EIGHT BAGS of leaves were filled up in no time at all, and soon it was time to head back to base.

C4WS After a short run down to C4WS, 12 of us got stuck into into bed-making for the Jonathan and the American International Church team. There were 5 beds to be made in the women's room and 12 beds in the mens. Unfortunately, there was a bit of confusion about missing sheets, duvet covers, duvets and pillows which meant we overran a bit (the group collectively breathed a sigh of relief that there would be one less lap of Granary Square!). Jonathan had to run out to Primark while the folks were having their dinner at the shelter for the last 7 duvet covers, but promised us that next week it would be back to the slick operation it otherwise always is!

After a run on to Granary Square, the group did a lap, had a quick photo with the Christmas trees (not the neon one, but the nicer ones) and then a slow jog back to the Living Centre for a stretch and a cool down.

As it was Liz's 250th Good Deed in just a year (she's done even more than that, don't worry!) - I baked a lemon drizzle cake and Beth made her a really lovely bracelet with the GoodGym colours which we ate and admired (in that order) at the pub later on.

COMING UP

COMMUNITY MISSION: David from Russell Square Gardens has asked for our help once more this coming Saturday to bulb-plant and leaf-clear. Four of us were there last week and it would be great to see some more friendly faces - it kicks off at 11am and you can sign up right here.

GOODGYM CHRISTMAS PARTY: GoodGym are getting festive this Friday at Stephen's House in Finchley Central from 7pm. It's £5 entry and fancy dress is very very welcome. Find out more here.

GOODGYM CAMDEN PIZZA PARTY: As it's nearly Christmas, we're all going to get together after next week's run and eat pizza at Happy Face in Granary Square. We're a big group, so the restaurant is asking for a £5 deposit per head. Give me your choice of pizza and find out how to send me your fiver here.

NEXT WEEK: We're going to be bed-making at C4WS and Christmas-decorating at SPCA on next week's group run. Get your name down here for what will be our second to last run of the year!.

Phew. And breathe.

That's all for this week folks, see you next time.

Happy running,