The last week of February turned out to be unfathomably warm, which was lucky for us as we had an outside task. Less lucky for the state of the Earth, however. But if global warming leaves you feeling a bit glum, other than getting behind some great campaigns you could also come to GoodGym and feel better that your excess energy is being used to help your community, rather than power the treadmill!

We began with much celebrations as we found out that the lovely Mark G will be leading the good ship Lambeth from the end of March. We also celebrated 50th runs for Emily, Emma and Andrew and also Tom Hunter's200th good deed. Katie also gave out her last ever Shit Prize of the Month to the brilliant John Hunter, who is on a 50 month run streak for his coach runs. What a gem! Party poppers everywhere!

Mark G led the group out for a warm up and we then split in to two groups. We had the Straight There's and the Round the Houses. The Round the Houses set off, led by Tom H, on a 4km trip to Brixton Road Youth Centre, whilst the Straight There's went, well, straight there, led by Mark and Katie. On arrival, lots of leaves that were in black bags mixed with rubbish needed emptying into green sacks for recycling and the rubbish put in different bags. More leaves fallen around the yard also had to be gathered up and put into bags. Our big team set about this with enthusiasm and in no time we had sorted MANY BAGS!

There are so many bags that we have sorted! Said everyone

Team Straight There ran back to base and did some circuits, whilst the Round the Houses stayed to finish off. On return to base we did some stretches and headed home after a lovely evening. Well done Lambeth!

Our first run of the year was a total blinder, with loads of fabby new people, some fabby old people and a new trainer - the very lovely Esther who is going to be starting up with Poole very soon.

Trainer Katie waffled on for ages introducing her task force and telling everyone about our jaunt to Liverpool - coming up soon in early March. Do come along!

I've got Tate membership and there is a Tate in Liverpool! Said Tim, giving us yet one more reason to go there in March

We did a nice warm up outside and then Katie led one group 1.5km to the Grove Adventure Playground, with Nicky leading a walking contingent and George and Jim heading off on a longer run towards Clapham Common to pick up any pesky Christmas trees that had been left out and about.

On arrival at the Grove, we got about scraping the paint from around the windows so that they were nice and neat, whilst others did some great sweeping and mopping. We did some ankle conditioning with some simple but actually quite tricky heel lifts.

George and Jim set off to fetch some trees and Phil grabbed one straight away and dragged it to the common as part of some sort of personal resistance training. Once a bit closer to the common, the rest of the group collected up more trees - 15 to be precise - and took them to the recycling depot on the common. As it was Clapham, the sight of 20 runners carrying trees received no less than a Macbeth quote:

Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane...

According to George this means that "everyone carring the trees looked like the army carrying trees as they moved forward to attack Macbeth (the witches said Macbeth would be king until the wood reached Dunsinane)." So there we go lads, a bit of Shakespeare for you. As well as running, George led a fitness session and an 'extra special extra run after a dubious people’s vote'.

It's what the people wanted! Said George

Not the first time we have heard that in recent history.

On return to base we all did some nice stretches and headed off home. Thanks for a lovely evening, we got loads done!

The BIG NEWS of the evening is that party poppers were popped for the brilliant Tim, who completed his 50th run last night. Give that man a cheer - he sure deserves it!

This evening we had two lovely runs - a small group led by Lucy and Nicky went 1km to Brixton Orchard - where a spare spot of land on Brixton Hill has been turned into a lovely, well, an orchard! There was a lot of woodchip mulch that needed spreading across the site and this crack team of 8 worked hard to get it all done.

I sure am going to miss Clapham Common! Especially the workout Katie makes us do on the benches! Said Issy.

The rest of us headed 2.5km back to Clapham Common for our final session of the year. The final strips have been dug and soil turned over - all ready for wildflowers to be planted. We can't wait to see what this looks like next summer. GoodGym have visited this site a number of times since March and have been a key part of the effort to create a tranquil, bee-friendly area on the Common. Hooray! After some lovely strength work, we all ran back to base for stretches.

What bakes! Said everyone.

On return to base we were treated to FOUR different bakes from Nicky, Issy, Sarah and a surprise chocolate fudge from GG Camden visitor Liz. YUM! After dining out on the sweet stuff, what more could we want than a social night at local pizza place 500 Degrees? Our backwards meal was highly recommended and people tucked into some delicious oven-fired delights. Some people had the classic Margarita. Freyja added olives to hers - an Olivita! George C had the terrible FUNGHI but he seemed to like it. Nelly had a vegan tomato and no cheese pizza. Elise accidentally ordered a white pizza so took some of Nelly's tomato base! Many of us enjoyed their home made ZINGY lemonade! It really kicked off. Thanks Steve for organising and thanks Lambeth for a great evening of tasking and feasting.

Lambeth News

• Saturday is the first Cross Country fixture of the year! Mud, fun running and beer (afterwards). What's not to like! If you're part of the GoodGym RaceTeam we need you at Claybury. Sign up here.

• The October long run will be 19.3km along the Capital ring - East Finchley to Hackney Wick. Get some kms in with goodgym cheer and food after! Sign up here.

• Hello and welcome to Lisa and Jessica who joined us for the first time last night!

• Next week Katie is back and there'll be two tasks again - one to spread woodchip at Brixton Orchard and one to finish off digging at Clapham Common. Sign up here.

That's enough of the business

Two tasks go to war

Last night we split into two, one group headed the 1km to Wyck Gardens, one headed the longer 4km to Crisis in Elephant and Castle.

Here's what happened at Wyck Gardens, in the words of Beth Hoskins:

We planted about 10 plants which was a multi-step process: Dig a hole, put some compost in the hole, put the plant in, more compost, water, put cardboard on top (to stop the weeds), cover with woodchip, water some more. Done.

A tidy job!

Group number two had various jobs to do at Crisis - sorting DVDs, organising bookshelves, tagging and hanging donations, steaming new donations, hoovering, mopping, dusting and cleaning. Blimey! We swarmed in full of enthusiasm and Jordon got us to work. We very nearly finished tagging a huge pile of donations, got over halfway through the DVD box (there are some corkers in there, I highly recommend a visit!) and had the floors squeaky clean (although some of us accidentally walked over the freshly mopped floors on our way out...woops!). One group was sent back at 20.00 at a more leisurely pace and five(ish) minutes later the rest of the group set off at a speedy pace. We finished the run with a game of chase the hare. George was our hare and didn't get caught! Next time I won't give you so much of a head start...!

After a stretch we all indulged in this week's baked goods - biscuits and welsh snails (don't ask).

Thank you for having me Lambeth it was a blast!

Lucy J

We had loads of lovely new runners this evening, giving it a decidedly 'back to school' feel, just without the new pencil cases. If only.

There were two run options, the first group were led by JKB up to the community growing project at Agnes Riley Gardens. he said:

We navigated the dense and cumbersome mesh, mainly there to keep birds out, in order to water KEY VEGETABLES. We trimmed back rose bushes to make them less hazardous, but the thorns proved tricky. Navigating the bush in the dark was not so easy so it's time for a JKB TIP which is BRING HEADTORCHES. Its getting dark!

The rest of us were led to the Portico Gallery in West Norwood by George, who was celebrating his 100th run. After the 4km mainly uphill climb we reached our destination and began sorting gazebo sides into dirty and need cleaning or OK. These are used for the monthly West Norwood Feast, which takes over the town in the summer months.

On running home, we all enjoyed some banana bread from Lavinia as her #GBBO2018 offering and then we went to the pub for some food and a drink. Lovely stuff.

We had two lovely runs this evening, one was back to the historic Brixton Windmill. Tucked away off Brixton Hill, lots of people don't even know this windmill exists but it does and it is a great place of learning, surrounded by a peaceful garden. Beth led a group on a 1km route to the mill, whilst those wanting a longer run took the 4km Tom Benson run bus.

Here's what Beth had to say:

For those of us that took the direct route up Brixton Hill there was some chat on the way there about how few of us knew that Brixton had it’s own fully functioning windmill. On arrival we were a little disappointed to see that the sails had been taken off the windmill but once they are repaired they’ll be back on and it will be looking more functional again soon. Jean handed out tools and showed us what needed doing. A large group neatened up the edge of the path, a group of three started digging a spot for a new tree and there was also trimming of some overgrown plants to be done. Once the reinforcements arrived in the shape of Tom’s long run group there was even more digging going on and plenty of sweeping and bagging up of weeds.

The rest of us went 2km up to the Tulse Hill Estate. Hidden amongst the buildings is an incredible polytunnel that serves as an educational food growing project for the whole estate. Over the summer, hundreds of tomato plants were cultivated and given out to residents to grow on their balconies. The project gets lots of reclaimed wood that is used to make pallet beds for growing but at the moment it was all piled up next to some garages. Presenting a fire risk, it needed to be moved so we squeezed into the small space and started pulling them out and taking them to a safer space. The pile was quite big and there were bits of timber, old fence and even a fireguard that we pulled out of the way. It was a fantastic effort made all the better by not scratching the very nice VW Golf parked precariously near to the work area.

On arrival back to base, we tucked into some Bake Off treats from Tess and Sarah. It was all delicious and we headed off home happy.