Caroline and I had another three-hour session at the Community Hospice Shop out the back helping with the sorting of donated bags. You just never know what's going to turn up. Sometimes its beautiful, unworn, still labeled, designer gems. Sometimes its a case of eeeuugh! Some people clearly have a very low bar for what they deem as recyclable. Seems to me the folks running this place could do with a few more of us volunteer sorters as there's quite a big build up of donated stuff as far as I could see. We always keep our eyes out for something unusual or amusing. I found this cuddly crocodile which I rather liked. Caroline couldn't resist donning this blingy Roman helmet. We were both bemused by the shark with three shoes on and wondered at the creative thinking behind that. The joker popped by to monitor progress but apart from that it was just another fun session Goodgymming!

On Wednesday evening, George, Paul and Victoria headed to the Phoenix Cinema to join local community members for a screening of the People’s Emergency Briefing, an event that GoodGym Barnet helped bring to life.

The People’s Emergency Briefing is designed to be shown at community screenings, encouraging conversations between local residents and highlighting how much people within these communities care about the climate emergency. This screening sold out, bringing a full house together for the climate conversation.

Several Barnet-based community groups, including Barnet Friends of the Earth, Finchley CND, Chipping Barnet Foodbank, Barnet U3A and many more, attended the screening and took part in discussions afterwards, sharing their reactions to the film, their concerns about the climate emergency, and ideas for addressing the challenges ahead.

Afterwards, much of the group headed to The Bald Faced Stag for drinks, further conversation, and a bit of community building. George and Victoria even shared their thoughts to help Dave McCormick - who compered the event with Silvana Kohon - write a report on the event for The Archer.

Delayed by the rain last week, Pauline's pickers were at it in fine weather this week, joined by myself and Daniel. Fortunately (I guess??), someone had got to our target streets first, so we had a quick re-routing, heading down the High Road to Summers Lane, then to the back of Summerside School, back up to Sandringham, then as far as Kenver Road then back to the High Road.

One of our trusty pickers had spotted a very bad dump by the Granville Road bus stop on the High Road, so we quickly popped back there so Daniel and I could crawl into the bushes and clear the patch. Then, job done, we head on our merry way with the sunshine still beating down, stopping only briefly to snap some fly-tipped furniture on the corner of Churchfield Avenue.

George kicked off the run with a question about gigs, inspiring Rachel and Beattie, two stalwart GoodGymers, to give this report a slightly musical theme.

Beattie took a walk on the wild side with Patricia, while the others set off running, with Victoria as back marker. Richard went past like a flash—ah-ah!—and George once again wondered whether Richard had ambitions for leadership.

All the leaves were brown and the sky had a greyish tinge as the GoodGymers set to work for a while on an autumn day.

We raked the leaves with abandon and bagged them up, then tucked the bulbs into the soil, leaving them “dreaming Spring”. We pictured a host of golden daffodils to come, taking a moment to look up at the stars.

We made these memories for ourselves, with Theodore capturing our usual photos.

Finally, we laid down our tools and returned to the cinema, where we celebrated Richard’s 400th outing with pizza and popcorn.