36 incredible people joined me in Camden, helped Scope in their charity shop, ran over 6km, walked and celebrated TEN years of GoodGym!

Well what an evening that was! We returned to our usual home at the St Pancras & Somers Town Living Centre, we celebrated Kat and Rosie turning three, Rosie hitting 100 good deeds AND GoodGym's 10th birthday... AND we introduced everyone to Ben Hansen-Hicks the shiny new Camden trainer... and breathe!

As part of the #GG10 celebrations we had our lovely GoodGym flag with us and because we just do things better in Camden we had some shiny gold balloons to join our run for both Rosie's 100 and of course the 10th birthday. We also had copies of the wonderful Fit Together the book produced by GoodGym with stories from the first ten years.

After a huge intro with all of the above fitted in and news on #SuperSaturday (A day full of missions for every area this Saturday) and of course the health and safety and info on the task we headed on out and got warmed up!

On a celebratory night like this it was great to have everyone together and whilst it is always hard to manage we all safely walked and ran to the Scope charity shop. Once there Helen had us all queued up and divvied out roles. Tasks tonight:

• Donation collections outside
• Mannequin dressing
• Various cleaning work
• Shoe sorting
• Trouser measuring
• Clothes tagging
• and a whole lot more...

Half an hour of hard work later we were all piling out and getting ready for the next stage of the evening. With our flag with us, ably looked after by Ben, we headed off to various locations to get some fantastic photos for the GG10 celebrations.

• Camden Road Bridge
• Gasholders at King's Cross
• Francis Crick Institute
• Somers Town Coffeehouse

Thanks to George, Liuba, Ben and Steve for co-ordination and direction and phone-lending for all the photos.

Finally we stretched and then we headed to the pub to celebrate with cakes made by Liz and Rosie, some prosecco from the pub and party poppers from Sophie!

All in all a wonderful night of celebration with TEN and ONE HUNDRED being the key numbers!

Cheers,
Pritesh

30 amazing people joined me in Camden as we headed to Antrim Grove allotments for the last time this year and ran over 7km too!

We welcomed first time runners Niamh and Rosie Y and talked GoodGym's 10th birthday plans as well as the usual health and safety and general intro!

With that done and much bug spray sprayed we split into two groups with Rosie A leading the more keen runners and myself taking the more sedate group. We took different routes but ended up at Antrim not too far apart. We were split out into various task from weeding, to digging, to chopping and the remainder joined Kat outside to do some conditioning exercises!

With the light fading fast we swapped people over to do the fitness work and before we knew it it was 8pm and time to head back. We posed for a group photo in the dark (turns out my camera's night mode is terrible) and then we said our goodbyes. We split the group again but both took the same route, Rosie A leading a primrose hill posse and me taking the rest around the hill. Once back to base we stretched and then some headed to the pub and others home.

Next week we are celebrating 10 years of goodgym - there will be cake!

Cheers,
Pritesh

57 GoodGymers ran 6km to help Kentish Town City Farm, broke the Camden Attendance Record and I said farewell to you wonderful people!

On my first Wednesday living in London back in May 2014 I enjoyed GoodGym Camden, I found a welcoming community of runners who were like minded people. I was honoured to become your trainer in January 2016, something that's always been more than a job to me. It's a passion; to bring people together, learn about our bodies, help the communities we live/work in and then go to the pub afterwards. You guys are the best!

Thank you so much for last night, the amazing group of you that came in the rain to say goodbye (and hug the goats) and for such wonderful presents.

Okay back to the normal report... welcome along to the newbies Lisa and Xanthy - lovely to have you along!

In the news this week:

1. A huge well done to GG sisters Kat Kelly and Liz Pang for hitting 100 good deeds, I am privileged to call them my friends and proud of what they've achieved at GoodGym Camden over the last 3+ years.
2. Go along to CREOS Community Mission in Islington this Sunday - it's a great one that ends with a free picnic!
3. So I have two races planned that I'd love for you to be apart of - Rother Valley Running Festival (near Sheffield) on 16th November. Also we'll be going to Kiev in May 2020 for the next #GGxEuro Trip! More details about both coming soon.

Corrr blimey there was so many of you! Such a big group, in fact such a big group that we broke the Camden Group Run Attendance Record and were just a few people short of breaking the GG World Record. Next time.

For the run up there we formed two groups of 25-30 people, with brilliant Run Leaders and Taskforce Peeps leading, middlemarking (cheers Steve) and backmarking each one - thanks to Abi, Kat, Chris, Aidan, Patrick, Steve C, Frances, Rosie and James for all there help leading groups through the wet streets of Camden. Meanwhile Mr Lee and I formed good-cycle again and helped direct at various points along the 3k route.

Ciao now Bown cow

Upon our arrival at Kentish Town City Farm Mel told us the brilliant news about the mean old trustee board had been removed, new guys had come in place and £100,000 being donated by a very kind donor. The farm has been saved, a hollywood ending! Then she set us to work with four tasks:

• Three people collected up debris in the goat area
• Twenty-Five people removed old decking from around the pond, and then chain ganged it all the way down to the bin at the bottom of the farm.
• Fifteen people shovelled muck, bagging it up and re-piled it
• Finally thirteen people racked and evened out the ground up at the Arena

The farm was full of activity for 30 minutes, we got so much done and Mel was really pleased! Thanks for working so hard in the rain, muck and more. Next it was GOAT TIME - we hugged them, said hey to little Rosie and fed them - all the fun! After a special group photo we headed back to base for stretches and then onto to pizza + beer! Thanks for Kat, Rosie etc for organising that!

Bown-ding into the future

What a special evening to end a special time for me personally at GoodGym ( both Camden and Islington). As I said last night I started without a beard and not really knowing what was up, the community that is GoodGym has enabled me to grow into who I am today. Thank you so much for the fantastic presents, the messages, the individual farewells and for just being you. You guys are my family, I love you and I'm going to miss you so much!

See you at a GoodGym Event sometime soon!

PB over and out for the final time.

*28 Goodgymers ran 4-11.5k to help SPCA and St Mungos! *

Welcome along to newbies Emily, Ellie, Catherine and Ellie - lovely to have you along!

In the news this week:

1. There are Community Missions helping Somers Town Community Festival next Saturday - details here and here!
2. It's the Night of the PB's this Saturday at Hampstead Heath!
3. Monthly Social today in Kilburn from 6.30pm; go along and have fun! Full details here.

St Mungo's Long Run:

Fourteen brave GoodGymers volunteered for GG Camden's longest run ever! I did the intro early and rather fast (Steve said it was my best ever haha) so we had more time to get over to West Hampstead. We set off on an adventure, up past Cecil Sharp House, around the side of Primrose Hill, over to Swiss Cottage and then up Finchley (lands that I've never been before). We kept a really good pace and everyone did brilliantly.

Perfect amount of task

We arrived and met Janice who gave us gloves, bin bags and water. Our task was to weed and clear the entire back garden. It was overgrown and clearly unused by the residents of the St Mungo's hostel. This fantastic homeless charity helps house and support people from across the community. Our help will mean they can now use the the garden and perhaps even plant some flowers/veg.

Over 20 minutes we made piles and piles of weeds, debris and dead plants. People took in turns to empty bin bags in the green recycling bin out front. In no time at all we were finished, group photo done and then we headed back home along the same route.

Leafleting task for SPCA:

Fifteen awesome GoodGymers, led by Frances, went to leaflet for the fantastic St Pancras Community Association (SPCA). We've helped these guys lots before with Christmas decorations, dancing and even a core class! This time we were leafleting over 400 flyers for their Community Festival which is happening in late July - nice!

Greece Lighting!

The group first ran 1km to the centre, collected the leaflets from Nicola and then split into groups of 4-5 to deliver them across the designated areas in Camden. After successfully delivering all of the leaflets the team collected together and headed to Granary Square along the canal, where they suitably got distracted by Greece showing on the big Wimbledon Screen (fair enough guys)

Another brilliant night of GoodGym, sign up for next week's run here when we'll be helping Story Garden!

PB out