11 runners ran 2km last night to sort donations at the Salvation Army in Nunhead.

Southwark News

• Community Missions abound this weekend! Help shovel woodchip at Surrey Docks farm to mark Earth Hour on Saturday at 10.30am. Find out more and sign up here.

• Also on Saturday! GRACE is a charity that supports refugees and destitute families at home and abroad. They're having a 50p sale between 10am and 3pm on Saturday and they need our help! Pop in whenever you can - every little helps! Find out more and sign up here.

• This week we celebrated the amazing Beth Hoskins who has completed a whopping 703 good deeds since she started doing good in January 2014. She's even received a special award from the Prime Minister for volunteering. She's off up north to Walthamstow and we're very sad to lose her.

• Camden runner Abi Perrin wrote this brilliant article on why GoodGym is good for you - read it here.

That's enough of the business

Last night we headed to a brand new task! Old Spike is having more work done (they had some lovely new floors put in a few weeks ago) so we gathered next door at Batch where we were looked after by the wonderful Phil.

After a quick briefing we headed outside to do a bit of bouncy warming up and then run the 0.8km to the Salvation Army in Nunhead. It's an amazing building - a real rabbit warren! We're looking forward to getting a full tour next time - there's so much hidden space! We were met by Polis who explained that they're aiming to turn the Salvation Army into a busy community hub as more and more locals get pushed out by gentrification.

A huge hello and welcome to Vera, Rosanna and Alia who joined us for the first time!

Our task - to start tackling an enormous pile of donations. It all needs quality checking and sorting so it can be used in the charity shop or given to people who use the centre - from parents with young children to homeless people. You can see before and after in the photos.

20 bags of labelled sorted items went back into the stock room and 3 bags of recycling!

We started off by taking bags downstairs so we had plenty of space for sorting and Polis brought us tea, coffee and biscuits! Most of the donations were of excellent quality so we got to work splitting them into categories - womens top and bottoms, mens tops and bottoms, toys, outerwear (bedding, coats etc most needed by homeless people), books and miscellaneous.

Super amounts of sorting done, we waved goodbye to Polis and headed out onto Nunhead Green for a game!

Heads, shoulders, knees and cone

The basic idea - everyone in pairs in a line and squatting within touching distance of a cone. The 'caller' calls 'heads, shoulders, knees' etc until they say 'cone!' at which point the pair grabs for the cone. Whoever misses the cone then has to do a forfeit activity chosen by the caller - from burpees to starjumps to lunges! After several rounds we started whittling down to a tense final.

The winner? Beth Hoskins! Very fitting!

We headed back to Batch where we raised a glass to Beth and bid her good luck and farewell.

A great night and great work team!

See you next week,

Lucy J

Southwark News

• Next week Fergus from a community juggling club in Peckham is coming to tell us about the club and show us some of the benefits of juggling. We'll then head out to do some plogging and support the club. Find out more and sign up here.

• Tonight! It's Matt's fundraiser for the charity we supported last night - Westminster House. Matt is also running the London Marathon for them. Come and watch short films about running and suport Westminster House.

• SAVE THE DATE! GoodGym Olympics is happening on 3rd August at Parliament Hill Athletics Track! We have some mega achievements in the egg and spoon to defend. Sign up to enjoy baked goods, ridicuously fun sports day events and a bit of running.

That's enough of the business

Last night 8 runners gathered at Old Spike Roastery to support two local charities: Link Age Southwark and Westminster House. Link Age Southwark offers friendly volunteer support to older people in Southwark, to combat loneliness and isolation. Find out more about them here. Westminster House is one of the oldest youth clubs in the country which has always worked with young people amongst the most deprived and disadvantaged in the country. Find out more about them here.

We ran to Westminster House where Katie gave us a tour of the club - table tennis room, gym, homework club and library included. They support local kids to get skilled up in all kinds of things including Duke of Edinburgh which involves fully kitting them out with donations (see photos). Westminster House is amazing but they're being squeezed by the gentrification of the area so they gave us leaflets that detailed what your donation can provide for a kid eg. £300 a year buys a place on Fire Safety, First Aid, Basic Food Hygiene and Conflict Management courses for 1 young person. The LinkAge leaflets provided information for volunteering opportunities on one side and for older people on the other.

We posted over 400 in total!

After our tour, off we headed off, leaflets in hand to cover ground! We ran 6k distributing, but not before we stopped to play Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Cone - a game based on your reaction to cues.

On the way back we hit the area around Old Spike and finally finished up.

A smashing evening, great work team!

Lucy J

Southwark News

• This Saturday at 13.30 we need help! Rainbow Trust Children's Charity are raising funds and awareness at Crystal Palace Sainsburys, and we need you - sign up here.

• Saturday 9th Feb is the last cross country fixture of the year. If you're part of the race team, come run in the mud and drink with us! Sign up here.

• Next week Grove Park needs us to help them cut back trees. It's outdoors so if you have a headtorch bring it, and wrap up warm! Sign up here.

• Thursday February 28th is a date for your diary! Southwark's own Matt Guy is hosting a fundraising evening with our friends at Batch bar for Westminster House, a youth charity in Nunhead. It'll be an evening of running short films, tickets are £9 and include a running-themed drink. Support Matt, Westminster House and Batch all in one go - get your tickets here!

• We only went a bloody did it! 6000 good deeds absolutely smashed by GoodGym across the country in January.

That's enough of the business

Last night 17 runners ran 6km to clean the toddler toys at the Salvation Army in Camberwell. It was lovely to see Janet, the task owner again, who we last visited to help put together food parcels for Christmas.

'New Year same old toddler toys' - Janet

We've done this task several times before - we efficiently split up to take the toys out of the cupboard, line them up for cleaning and get to work. The clean toys were then reorganised as they went back into the cupboard and tables were put down and away. In 30 minutes we had cleaned every single item in the cupboard and put it back. Janet was thrilled!

Havin' a duck-duck-goos-in good time

Before leaving, we played a round of duck duck goose. We started off doing this from sitting down and then realised that we're not quite as springy as we once were and instead we held a squat in a circle whilst 'It' went around. It turns out duck duck goose is quite a tense game! The game was won to much cheering and applause, and we went to get water and biscuits from Janet (well earned).

Hello and welcome to Sasha and Amy who joined us for the first time last night!

Off we went back to Old Spike looking out for ice on our way - if you're out cycling today, be careful!

Great work team, see you next week.

Lucy J