It’s definitely headtorch season! On a dark and not-too-chilly evening GoodGym Islington assembled at our regular spot in the Arsenal Emirates, with Steve Lee leading the run while regular Islington Trainer Paul Bown was away on holiday eating lots of those lovely Portuguese custard tarts.

A few quick announcements, including next week’s GoodGym Islington Xmas Party (sign up here) and a nudge to sign up to missions in the coming weeks - there are slots available in Islington and it’s the time of year that can make the world of difference to the people we do missions for.

A quick warm-up and we were headed north a few quick km to the Single Homeless Project (thanks to James, Claire and Steve C for back-marking!)

SHP’s Sam was waiting for us with a smile and a shed-full of tools to get to work weeding, bagging up leaves and tidying the back gardens of not one, but two housing projects. The Single Homeless Project work across London with vulnerable and socially excluded people going through difficult times in their lives to provide a much-needed safety net of care and housing support. Having a nice garden area to relax in and tend to is a real benefit.

Sam and Steve flitted back and forth between the two garden groups and despite the dark evening, could see a lot of good going on. Paths and beds were weeded, patios were tidied and swept, and we nearly ran out of bags for the leaves that will be mulched (GoodGym provides us with some cursory gardening knowledge over time but our best working definition of mulch was still George’s ‘mulching turns plants into cannibals’).

We took a different route on the way back - a bit less road traffic but more pedestrians to carefully weave our way through - and in no time we were back at our GG Islington base for a stretch, and of course, biscuits (thanks to Kike for bringing us the spoils of an online shopping delivery error - delicious!).

Paul will be resuming our regular programming next week, and don’t forget to sign up if you’d like to join us for the GG Islington festive dinner at the Italian restaurant we have booked!

Have a great week everyone!

GoodGym Greenwich smashed all previous records AGAIN last night with a whopping 33 of you running 8km to help the Scouts!

Last night was AAAAAAMAZING. The weather was slightly nicer than the complete washout we had last week, plus we had our biggest turnout EVER in Greenwich. It doesn't seem long ago that I had Taylor Swift in my head after 22 of you came... never did I think it would continue to grow this much... you guys are AWESOME!!!

We welcomed quite a few new faces to the group last night which is GREAT! Big thanks to recruiters Helen and Mridula for bringing their colleagues Maria & Irina. We were joined by two lovely gents Pulin & Nick. We also welcomed back Amy G after a little break and the wonderful Jack from Wandsworth who travelled quite a distance to get to Greenwich, but we're worth it aren't we Jack :) GIVE THEM ALL A CHEER!

HOLIYAY

The headcount used to take about 4 seconds, now it has become part of the ritual and takes a good 5 minutes to go around everyone! Favourite thing pivoted slightly last night to next holiday destination (inspired by the sunshine obviously) and it was great to hear where you're all off to. There were some pretty exotic ones, Swindon in particular, Alex and Steve please could you take me in your suitcase????

We dropped off our stuff, did a quick little warm up and split into 2 groups. Ben with the hat and Ben with the hat led a fast group who we lost sight of in about 40 seconds. The rest of us went at a slightly more leisurely pace :) We went through the park, everyone smashed it up the hill, had a 60 second breather and then pushed on!

20 minutes later we arrived at the scouts. Group 1 had already got themselves stuck in which was great to see! Scout Leader Alan explained the tasks that needed to be done. Arguably the most exciting of which was putting up the flagpole! This is something that has been on our list of things to do the last couple of times we've been here but we've never actually got round to doing it. But last night it was ON! George got started and he dug deep... literally.

"Tonight Matthew, I'm gonna be..."

With a little help from Christian, Elliot & Steve the cement was ready to go in, which created a lovely Stars In Their Eyes puff of smoke. Steve filled a bucket with "water" and chucked it down the hole and 5 minutes later it had set... JOB DONE.

In the meantime, other people were painting shutters, weeding in the jungle, filling fox holes (don't worry Nina there were no baby foxes in there), axing trees... literally everything was going down. 8pm approached and it was time to get going. We had a group photo by the wonderful flagpole which kind of looked a bit naked without a flag on it, just a white stick in the ground basically.... but it had to be done. We headed back the way we came, by this point the sun was a little less fierce which made for a lovely chilled run back. Since we were a bit later than planned and everyone had already run 8km, we skipped the fitness session and went straight into some nice stretching... you're welcome :) Trying to up my game after hearing other GG groups do yoga in their sessions haha!

Brownie points!

We went to stuff our faces with some amazing brownies baked by the equally amazing Mridula! Then we parted ways.... until next time gang!!!

For those of you who are new, here is the link to our ever growing Facebook group where people post about races and missions and well, anything really! Please join :)

Amazing job last night everyone! Thanks for getting stuck in as always, that would have taken Alan a whole day (if not more) to get everything done that you did in half an hour so really well done!!! And congratulations on, once again, being a part of our biggest ever run! YOU GUYS ROCK!! XXX