GoodGym have been helping CREOS to help maintain a beautiful patch of nature in North London for a couple of years now; increasingly regularly and in increasing numbers. This month, a splendid 15 GoodGym runners assembled to help with an entire-A4-sheet-long list of tasks! The sun was out (mostly) and as we gathered, welcomed each other and distributed tasks, we set about making a real difference to the space with our numbers. Some examples of jobs to be done included:

• Shifting THREE TONNES OF SAND from a drop off point, into and through the park to help prep a new wildflower meadow.

• Removing roots, rubble and raking away LUMPY BITS from the wildflower meadow area, and creating a perimeter CHICKEN WIRE fence to help protect it

• Wheelbarrowing new TURF ROLLS across the site to help beautify some of the open green spaces

• Critically, carrying the picnic table and a WHEELBARROW FULL OF GRUB to the open meadow for the all-important post-mission feast.

• Filling in HAZEL HOLES where new hazel saplings had been planted, to help them establish, and bedding in some LOGS AND STUMPS to make them a bit safer for kids (and GoodGymmers) to jump and hop along

CREOS is a fantastic organisation and has, in various forms, been maintaining this wonderful mini-wilderness well within London metropolitan bounds for around 45 years. Maintaining the wooded areas, the meadows and facilities isn’t just for present enjoyment: Without this care, this area of desirable London land might lose its status and fall into the hands of developers.

In particular springtime requires a lot of work and effort, which can really pay off in enjoyment of this beautiful area over the summer months. The CREOS team was out in force, and besides our 15 GoodGymmers we were also joined by TCV (The Conservation Volunteers) who were fantastic colleagues to work alongside.

And of course, then there’s the picnic.

CREOS do treat us well and we all enjoyed some delicious hot soup and bread, fancy cheese, hot and cold drinks and a liiiittle bit of cider for those having a more laid-back Sunday. Speaking of which, about half the group headed afterwards to a pub on the outskirts of the park for a couple of well-earned beers and, if reports are to be believed, delicious roast dinners.

Well done everyone!

14 Westminster GoodGymers ran 7k to make food for the homeless with One Big Family- helping the homeless charity in Victoria.

A great turn out this evening, awesome timing to celebrate Rhys 50th GoodGym GoodDeed!!

Rolling South weaving our way through the Super Central London back streets and past many tourists attractions we made our way to the Ebury Estate!

Meeting the team we split into two groups of sandwich makers, the Jammy bunch and the cheese tastics!!

Two perfectly formed and well oiled production lines of butters, fillers and bagers made light work of the 10 loaves of bread.

With everything bagged up and ready to be given out tonight on the Wednesday night food run around Victoria to the areas homeless community. It was time to rewarm ourselves up now the sun had gone so we picked up the pace on the run back to base!!

Throwing in a quick body weight conditioning burst outside Liz’s house and burst of pace up the Green Park drag we were soon back with a great group run complete!

Next week we need your help on the Special Easter treat Homeless good run!! Where we bring along some Easter treats to give out to Westminster’s homeless community!! Be great to have you along!!

Joel

On a Special GGxWWF Run 27 Goodgymers ran 5km to help Spitalfields City Farm

Thank you all for coming and I hope you had fun! Welcome to newbies - Sam, Heidi, Grace, Luke, Jack, Jie, Non, Holly and Karolina - great to have you along.

So on a rather warm spring evening GoodGym was partnering with WWF in celebration of Earth Hour. This is a global campaign overseen by the WWF to raise awareness of environmental issues. It takes place this Saturday 30th March at 8:30pm-9:30pm (local time), join millions around the world to turn off the lights and speak up about why nature matters.

We collected together from 5pm and then did some introductions - first Rachel explained all about WWF and Earth Hour. Remember to tell your mum all about it when you call/see her on mother's day!

Then we got moving and grooving with a big dynamic warm up plus some conditioning + running in pairs - nice! Feeling ready to go we headed up and over Tower Bridge, and then onto Aldgate and Whitechapel. Everyone was really agile in the crowds and kept a good pace up between the traffic lights.

Environmental Impact!

Upon our arrival at Spitalfields City Farm we met Emily and her team, she explained the tasks which were as follows:

• Shovelling muck, to be wheelbarrowed away to make way for a toilet or bagged up and sold on.
• Organising an area of planks, wood and materials.
• Shifting tons of logs from one place to another
• Sweeping and tidying up

Over an hour of lifting, shifting, moving, grooving, shovelling and sweeping we made a massive difference to the Farm and helped them to prepare for the Cambridge & Oxford Goat and Sheep Race! There were 27 of us so that's 27 hours of volunteering done for our local community - absolutely huge!

After finishing our tasks we enjoyed seeing the various animals - including a 11 hour old lamb! We collected together and took a group photo before running down hill home - fun!

Thanks for a brilliant evening guys! Sign up for GoodGym Runs near you here.

PB out

10 Westminster GoodGymers ran over 7k to Little Venice to remove 15 buckets full of rubbish and plastic from the canal with the Canal and River Trust.

Great to welcome 3 new runners to our merry Wednesday night crew!

With one of our longer runs we got moving swiftly. Running North West at a strong pace probably beating most of the cars along the Marylebone Road!

Reaching our tool shed at the Canal and River Trusts HQ we got buckets and grabbers then set off with the main aim to remove as much stuff that shouldn’t be there from the canal itself. So much plastic!! Most of what we could grab was plastics which would obviously do so much harm!

With light running low it was such a surprise as to how much we managed to grab out of water and surrounding canal side.

With everything tipped out into the bins and the very strong hand sanitisers deployed we were on our way back to base!

Great effort from everyone to keep the pace strong and smash the final few K’s after 90 minutes of relentless physical activity.

Hope to see you next week!

Joel