...and the last known survivor paints a bench in the night, and they're painting us all with the stripes of the tiger

18 runners ran 5.5km to paint benches for Tigers RFC

Southwark News

• Tonight is the GoodGym Social at Islington Townhouse 6.30pm til late. It's Pritesh's birthday so give him a wave, enjoy International Pun of the Month and bring your bling for #TreasureThursday - sign up here

• Get involved in the big races GoodGym will be doing in 2019. On 11th October we'll be meeting to decide what races we'll be focusing on next year. It's run by the RaceTeam but everyone is welcome. I'll certainly be throwing my hat in the ring! Sign up here.

• This weekend there's about 20 GoodGymers running the Oxford Half Marathon. If you're there, ping me an email and come for a drink after :)

• Andrew Gilyead did his first mission over the weekend! Give him a cheer by clicking here.

• Next week we're going to Galleywall Nature Reseve and I know I keep saying it and then we don't need them so much but definitely headtorches for this one! They really don't have any lights! I'll have three spares with me.

That's enough of the business

Aaaaah it's good to be home! We were back in Old Spike last night after two weeks being put up by lovely Phil at Batch next door (some serious cocktails guys, go visit and let him know you're from GoodGym, there's a little discount in it for you!). A whopping 18 of us gathered ready to run to Burgess Park to help out our friend Vernon. Vernon realised that parents weren't hanging around after they'd dropped off their kids for his community rugby club and he wanted to change that so... a simple but effective solution... he had some benches put together! It's made a massive difference and creates a community vibe around the club, parents stay to watch their kids and get involved. Wonderful! In January last year we went to give the benches a spruce up - in the theme of Tigers of course. We went back last night to get creative again and make our mark on the benches. We also helped tighten up any slightly wobbly ones (there were a few!).

Cynthia, club chair was there to inspire us with the club tshirt and to judge the most creative bench. Her decision? Everyone wins first prize!

We did get slightly covered in paint but as Helena pointed out, is a GoodGym shirt really a GoodGym shirt without some paint on it? I got the paint off my skin with a little ultrabland from Lush (this isn't an advert but it is my favourite cleanser plus it's totally natural). I hope you managed to get yours out too! I'm not sure it'll be coming out of those tshirts though...

On our route out Helena took us down the Surrey Canal Path and avoided the Rye which is still crazy with road works. On the way back we zipped straight down the Rye as it was quieter and knocked a bit of distance off the journey.

Great work team! Looking forward to seeing you next week.

Lucy J

14 runners ran 4km to help move flood-damaged flooring at Cossall Estate

Southwark News

• On Wednesday morning GoodGym celebrated reaching its 100,000th deed. That's an absolutely incredible amount of good done all across the country. Wow. Congratulations to everyone who's been a part of this amazing feat. Davina McCall made us a wonderful little vid saying well done - watch it here. We are SO VERY PROUD that the top GoodGym runners that helped achieved this include our very own Beth Hoskins who has racked up 617 good deeds. Give Beth some love by clicking 'cheer' and then cheer everyone else because you've all been part of something awesome that has benefited (and continues to benefit) so many people around the country.

• I'm planning a parkrun takeover! Fill out this form to tell me what parkrun you want and when! At the moment we're looking at the start of September. At a takeover you can choose to pace - we try to provide pacers every minute from 20 up to 30 OR you can just turn up in your GG tshirt and be a lovely smiley face. We had a massive reaction from Burgess Parkrun last time and it was a huge amount of fun.

• Task drive! I'm on a task drive! Are there any tasks you remember doing once that were really cool but you don't remember going back? Have you seen a local group and thought "hmmm I bet GoodGym can help"? If so I want to know about it! It must be a not for profit, charity or community group. Send me an email with task location, details of the task owner and contact details lucyj@goodgym.org

• As requested: details of the York Marathon and 10 Mile race - there's a big London contingent and it's officially hosted by the amazing GoodGym Yorkies. It will be super duper fun, you'll meet GoodGymers from all over the country and get to run a really lovely race. To find out more - check the sign up page (and sign up!) and email Egg the York trainer egg@goodgym.org

• I'M NOT FINISHED YET! Phewf a lot of news this week... Last night we welcomed three runners brand new to GoodGym - go on a click 'cheer' for Harry, Chris and Georgia. Great to meet you and hope to see you doing some more good with us soon!

That's enough of the business

Last night we visited our old friends at Cossall Estate to finish a job we started a few weeks ago. A radiator burst in the hall a month or so ago leading to the flooring getting ruined! Luckily the council have agreed to refurb but in the meantime a lot of damaged wood and all the carpet needed pulling up. Nine people got to work on this whilst four set about watering and weeding on the raised planters outside.

We did an absolutely smashing job in the Tenants Association Hall, getting every last bit of carpet pulled up and Jaki was thrilled with how gorgeous the planters looked after our gardeners had a go at them.

A great job well done. Jaki and Alan were thrilled and can't wait to have us back again!

Next week it's a longer run - 8km total - to go and see Barnaby at Camberwell Subterannea. It's been a while so it'll be lovely to go back! Sign up here.

Great work team, see you again next week!

Keep running happy, Lucy