Southwark News

• We are as of today at the top of our league for the January challenge with 104 good deeds done so far this month and 832 collective kms run and it is constantly climbing. Blimey! That deserves a big pat on the back

• Next week we're going to Southwark Tigers on Burgess Park to fill a skip. It's a 6km run overall sign up here.

• We just turned 3 years old! In that time we have done some form of good 3580 times, including 1038 coach runs and 249 missions. That's a huge impact on the local community you should be proud to be a part of.

That's enough of the business

Saturday was a MASSIVE day (hence all the photos)! It started at 9am sharp with GoodGym tshirts dotted all over the place at Southwark parkrun. Dom marshalled and caught some snaps of some very happy runners. Nice one Dom!

We then gathered at the rather cosy Southwark Park cafe for a hot drink and in some cases a sausage sandwich. Gradually people began to arrive for the starter session and at 10.20am we started the briefing.

At GoodGym we get fit and do good in three special ways

Those ways are: Group runs, every Wednesday we meet at Old Spike Roastery on Peckham Rye at 18.45 to run to a local community project to do good. Missions: one off tasks done in an isolated person's home that improves their wellbeing eg. changing a lightbulb. Coach runs: pairing you up with an isolated older person in the community for weekly social visits.

After a warm up and intro we set off for the 1.6km to Surrey Docks Farm. On arrival we sought out Rachel who provided us with brushes and shovels and showed us into the goat enclosure. Our mission? Collect up all the poo! The scooped poop then went over to the steaming (literally, steaming) muck heap.

Scooper pooper GoodGym's gonna find ya

Having cleared the area and dumped it on the muck heap we had an opportunity to feed the goats. Some were more patient than others...!

Surrey Docks Farm is a working community farm in Rotherhithe, SE16 that aims to educate local people about where their food comes from and promotes getting active outdoors. From Old Spike Roastery it's quite a long run so we don't get to go too often which Saturday the perfect time!

'You've goat to be kidding!'

Could be heard when a goat chomped Lucy's feedbag in half right out of her hand. We also coo-ed over the gorgeous Oxford Sandy and Black pigs, the sheep and Hermione the donkey.

Time to stop mucking about, we needed a goat-o-shoot

Finished up with feeding, we went back into the enclosure for a team photo. The highlight of this being the moment that Emily leant down to stroke a curious goat and it began to wee - very narrowly missing her!

And now, a song:

Right on the Thames was a lonely goatherd

Lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hee hoo

'Help with this task!' could her loud cry be heard

Lay ee odl lay ee odl-oo

Folks from GoodGym came to help the goatheard

Lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hee hoo

Scrapin' and sweepin' all that lovely goat turd

Lay ee odl lay ee odl-oo

14 GoodGymers ran or walked for 20 minutes and helped Antrim Allotments!

Happy New Year and welcome back to GoodGym Camden, one of the best places to get fit in North London! Welcome along to Sonia and Linda whose first time it was yesterday - lovely to have you along.

After a quick 2019 intro we dropped off our bags at Antrim Allotments and then split into two teams, one led by Katherine (Run Leader) who were off to a 20 minute walk towards Primrose Hill, and the the other group was led by me - we headed up and down the hills to Hampstead Heath to say HEY HEATH!

Done the Gym now for the GOOD

After our 3km run / 20 minute walk we met Michael, whose the Chairman of Antrim Allotment Association. Over the last few years the community has taken more responsibilty for the allotments as the council have had lots of funding cuts. This means helping to look after plots of people who might not be able to do all the heavy work themselves and also taking care of community areas. GoodGym has been a massive help in helping Antrim achieve their aims and maintain their spaces over the last few years, yesterday was no different.

We split into a team of nine and four to get started with our tasks:

Team One: The first task was to clear an area next to the shoes of twigs, branches and debris. Once this was done the group then used pickaxes and spades to level the group - putting the excess soil in bags to be used in plots across the allotments. The long term aim is for this space to be used as a new compost space.

Team Two: The first job was to collect up branches behind the shed and then to cut back raspberry bushes - yum!

After 40 minutes of hard graft in the cold we were done! Group photo taken and of course several pub went off the pub.

Well done guys, see you on Wednesday for our Christmas Tree Collection Group Run!

PB out