24 GGers ran 5km to help Sunnyside Community Gardens shift compost piles and lay a pathway

Welcome to newbies - Constance, Ella and Ewan - lovely to have you along!

In the news this week:

1. A massive well done to James Gilbert who hit 100 good deeds last night. That's over 200 hours of volunteering in Islington, London and beyond. He's run with GoodGym for 2 years, enjoyed many a group run and contributed to our expansion of missions helping older isolated people. He also got a Parkrun PB on Saturday - well done James! WOOP!
2. Another huge well done to Graham Atkins who hit 200 good deeds last night. You don't get a new t-shirt for this milestone but congrats all the same. Keep running those hills, getting a little lost and wearing shorts in winter. #PB4GA
3. Our monthly social will be next Monday - we'll be going to the Coronet Wetherspoons on Holloway Road.

It was forecast to be a wet March evening but that didn't stop GoodGym Islington from doing some fantastic work for our community. This week we were off to help Sunnyside Community Gardens which is run entirely by volunteers, other than the manager Anna. It's a great space nestled in northern Islington, below Crouch End and Hornsey.

Hills + compost = biscuits

On the way up we split into three groups based on speed (sorry I got a bit lost in the park guys). It's a gentle 2.5km up hill to the north of the borough. While I talked to Anna about the task and collected the keys everyone did some lovely hill sprints, organised by Graham 'Yellow Hat' Atkins. Nice one!

The task for the evening was as follows:

• Turning over two piles of compost - turning over is critical to fluff up the organic material. In any case, turning odorous or matted compost heaps exposes more surface area so that air and heat can move again through the pile.
• Path laying - a team of 6 peeps used logs, trunks and more to lay two beautiful pathways - one wider, another narrower. This will help reduce trip hazards and it looks REAL NICE!

With 30 minutes of good work and some biscuit distribution we were ready for a group picture and to head back to base for some stretching and more biscuits - made by James!

Biscuits Round 2

Well done all for another evening of good doing in the wonderful area of Islington, sign up next week when we will be helping Caxton House.

PB out.