23 Goodgymers ran to help Cecil Sharp House and St Pancras Community Assoccasion!

Welcome along to newbie Annie - great to have you along.

In the news this week:

1. Danny spoke about volunteering at the Fulham 10k next weekend, full details here.
2. Come along to the social tonight in Bethnal Green - see more here.
3. A massive well done to Abi whose 50th Good Deed it was last night - amazing!

SPCA Report:

After only a 1km run a group of 13 arrived at St Pancras Community Assoccasion, this fantastic charity help the local community through support, programmes and sports activities.

We met Graham who split us into three teams; Katherine and Sarah were tasked with laminating Yoga Posters and putting them up around the streets of Camden. Natasha joined them on the run around town, they put up 15 posters and made it to the canal!

Team two (Cordelina and Rachel) hooved, swept and mopped the floor in the children's playroom. This helps the caretaker massively.

GOODwork!

Everyone else was tasked with gardening - trimming back overgrown plants, digging up roots and sweeping up soil and leaves. The team worked over two areas, one in the main garden area and the other alongside the netball courts.

After a group picture and thanks from Graham we headed off for a run along the canal and back home.

Cecil Sharp House:

Frances led a team of ten to the wonderful regular task Cecil Sharp House, the task this FALL was to clear all the leaves from the pathways in the walled garden and from the entrance. Overall the team collected 15 bags of leaves that will go to be composted into leaf mould (fantastic for the plants!).

Susannah wanted to pass on many thanks to everyone for their hard work! On the way home the guys did some intervals between lamposts and a sprint finish to finish - nice!

Sign up for next week here, we have a new task helping Belsize Park Library and another task (tbc).

PB out

17 Goodgymers ran 6km to help Kentish Town City Farm pack up from their Apple Day!

Welcome along to Tom whose first time it was last night - great to have you along!

In the news this week:

1. Well done to Abi Perrin who ran her first half marathon at the weekend - amazing!
2. The GG London Christmas Party is on 1st December and the November Social is on Thursday 8th November in Bethnal Green, come along!
3. Amazing work to Liz who hit her 50th Good Deed on Friday while on a mission, she brought some biscuits to celebrate - yum!

The evening was started out by Hanry sharing some vegan chocolates with us, it was his treat as it's World Vegan Day today (Thursday)!

After we warmed up we headed the 3km up hill to Kentish Town City Farm, this wonderful local charity had a very successful Apple Day on Sunday. We helped them prepare for it last Wednesday, well this week our task was to pack everything up. When we arrived we admired and hung out with the pigs - according to Abi one is confident and the other shy.

We split into tree teams:

• One group started to carry the tables and chairs down to the office building near the entrance of the farm.
• Four people sorted, grouped and packed up the poles and parts of the Frelighters gazebo that had already been taken down.
• The final group of 8 deconstructed and bagged up the KTCF gazebo.

Goat Massage!

Once the 2nd and 3rd groups had completed their tasks everyone got to work moving stocks, bags of muck and everything else to where it needs to live!

After 30 minutes we were all done and went to play with Rosie the Kid (goat), some of just got a stroke, others admired her jumping skills and one lucky Hanry got a back massage - hope you feeling good this morning!

Thanks to everyone for coming, next week we are off to help Cecil Sharp House and St Pancras Community Assoccasion - sign up here.

PB out

27 GoodGymers ran between 4 and 12km to help St Christopher's House and Kingsgate Place

Thank you for coming guys, no newbies this week but lots of new and old faces!

On Mental Health Awareness Day it's as ever important to #runandtalk like we do each week, and remember the positive impact running has on our mental health. Read (and share) Tower Hamlets Trainer Laura article on this very subject.

In the news this week:

1. Cross Country Season starts this Saturday, there is 5 races for £5 over 5 months. It's awesome! You need you be a member of the GoodGym Raceteam - see details here.
2. There is a Community Mission helping Crouch End Open Space next Sunday (21st) where you'll be laying a woodchip path and will be rewarded with a picnic - sign up here.
3. On Sunday 21st there is also the monthly long run - this time led by Simon Fitzmaurice and goes from East Finchley to Hackney Wick - see the run here.
4. GG November drinks with be on Thursday 8th in Bethnal Green - more details to come!

St Christopher's Report by PB:

A team of 17 headed to help a local Origin Housing Project St Christopher's. We took a round about way to get there as it was seriously too close.

Upon our arrival we met Dave from No.4 who let us into Dave's at No.1 where all the tools and bulbs were. Getting into teams we did the following:

• John, Steve and Katie planted some mystery plants in 5 places over the courtyard
• A team of 8 planted 40 daffodil bulbs across two big planters: digging 3cm down, placing the bulb in the hole and covering it up again.
• We swept and bagged leaves and weeded all over the court.
• Abi and Frances clipped back trees, bushes and plants around the garden.
• A different Abi watered the whole garden!

Last summer we went to St Christopher's to help them pull away and cut back all the overgrown thistles, brambles and other nasty things that covered the garden area. Now the flats look beautiful and lush, our help today meant the garden can be maintained for Autumn - good work.

After Steve Lee took a group picture we headed to Granary Square for a fitness session, first some conditioning and then x3 90 seconds will an acceleration over the last 30!

Kingsgate Place Report by Rosie:

The lovely Diana greeted us with a selection of drinks and snacks which we enjoyed after the task. We split up into two teams of 4 and 5 to plant some bulbs in flowerbeds outside the flats. Rosie, Tom, Ellie and Stevie C were on bluebells and snowdrops, while Hanry, Alex, Josie, and Jason took on the daffodils.

Flower Facts

We learnt that daffodils have to be planted at 15cm depth, bluebells 10cm depth and snowdrops 5cm depth - interesting! Throughout the run and task we chatted about #runandtalk. As ever we admired the view from Primrose Hill: hazy but still beautiful!

Next week we are off to help Scope Charity Shop sort donations and clean the shop - sign up here.

PB out

26 GoodGymers ran 3-6km to help Cecil Sharp House and St Marys

Welcome along to newbies Julie and Alba, and welcome back to several second timers too - great to have you along.

In the news this week:

1. The Monthly Social is tomorrow at the Islington Townhouse - see full details here.
2. GG Raceteam are looking for race suggestions for 2019, so far they've got 15 suggestions and would like a few more. See the form to suggest more here.
3. Join the Unofficial GG Facebook page here and GG Camden Facebook page here.

St Mary's Report:

A team of 11 went off on an adventure to run with warm bags of compost through the streets of Camden, aka bags of hot stuff! However upon our surprise the Camden Compost Pile outside Alara was gone! Nowhere to be seen - ALAS!

So after that shitshow we headed off to St Mary's to see what we could do for Jon and the community there. Over 30 minutes we swept leaves, litter picked, replanted a beautiful plant, weeded and emptied old containers of soil.

Running through the station!

On our run to Granary Square we ran through St Pancras Station to advertise the GG brand to the commuters! Nice! We then smashed a progression run around Granary Square before heading home to stretch.

Cecil Sharp House:

Pritesh and Katherine led a group of 15 to Cecil Sharp House to do our monthly task of tidying the garden. With the nights closing in and weather a little colder we’ve started on leaf duty.

One change in the back garden was the state of the lawn, usually pristine it was looking bare (our hard work in the spring reseeding was ruined!). Susannah said that it wasn’t the hot summer, but 70-80 children using the garden daily as a play area over the summer holidays! Probably going to be a re-turf needed.

After 40 minutes of tidying Susannah reminded us that the work 15 of us achieved would equate to a whole day for her and she really appreciates our support. After a quick school photo we ran back to base for stretching.

Sign up here for next here when we have a NEW TASK helping Kingsgate Estate and gardening for SPCA.

PB out

With Paul away, run leading duties fell to me this week, and unfortunately it didn’t quite all go to plan. After a gentle run to Castlehaven community centre, we were due to be collecting leaves and weeding. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find out contact with the keys so we couldn’t access the tools and bags!

Katherine kept the group busy with some fitness – including some yoga and a plank-off – while I ran around trying to locate the keys. Unfortunately, after a little while we had to accept it just wasn’t our night – so we decided to make the most of the opportunity for a steady run on the canal. We split into two groups, with a slightly longer group led by Steven Coman, and we went for a nice run before ending up back at base for a stretch.

Thanks for coming everyone, Paul will be back next week, and fingers crossed it’ll all go smoothly!