Wowers for such an amazing morning!! First up, was the amazing community mission - Take over of South Norwood Parkrun - led by Run leader Conroy (Goodgym Croydon) which brought the joining forces of Lewisham, Bromley, Southwark and Croydon together. With running, volunteering and everything being processed and put away it was time to venture to Lewisham for the second action packed extravaganza community mission of the day.

Sensory Overload!

With a few having to travel a little further, we were greeted by overjoyed cheers and spades. It was digging time and to work all 12 members got, removing the sodden soil into wheelbarrows and finally to a skip located opposite of the school (Squats, standing Russian twists and inclined barrow pushing were some of few "moves" involved)

After many barrow full shifted, a tea break was called and with it brought, Nykolette and Olivia (fresh from her first mission!!) straight from a mission, allowing for turn taking with barrow loads.

Once we had uncovered and shifted many barrow fulls into the skip, it was time to pack up and wipe off the many miles of muck from our shoes.

Great work everyone, All this hard work is paying off and the garden is looking truly amazing!! Hope to see everyone on Monday for our return to Sensory Garden for more barrow fulls (of laughs).

On a brisk Saturday morning, 13 fantastic runners covered around 2km of running and collected 6+ bags of litter.

Thanks again to Oli, our resident punner, for today's rather special title pun and others throughout this report.

Phewee, what a morning! First up, we had Hilly Fields parkrun (or Danson parkrun for Darryl), some running, some volunteering then, once everything had been processed and put away, it was time to switch t-shirts and gear up for some wholesome weekend goodness. We were very pleased to welcome an absolute first-timer, Anna, today and also our first ever GoodGym Lewisham four-legged friend, our mascot, Molly (check out her gorgeous bandana!) Lewisham Love to you both!

The hills are alive with the sound of plogging

Before we got going, we had to warm up, after sitting in the cafe drinking coffee and comparing finish times, with a few fun games (thanks Kim for capturing these on camera!) and a bit of running around. Feeling nimble, we each grabbed a litter-picker (thank you to Jordan at Lewisham Council for lending us this top class Plogging equipment), a few rings and bags and jogged down towards the little nature area, home to the Forest School. This turned out to be quite tidy, but we did manage to engage some very cute and helpful toddlers while we were there.

What a rubbish time

As we worked our way around the edge of the park, we discovered spaces we hadn't previously ventured into, chatted about everything under the sun, compared skills in picking (top marks to Bradley, who seems to be a bit of a pro) and uncovered all sorts of treasures:

• Jacqueline picked up a crystal and a baby's dummy

• Jo found a little skull (maybe a fox cub?)

• Bradley was sorted, with a bottle of red

• Marta made my day by recovering one of our parkrun cones

• Clare was delighted with her roll of good quality tin foil

• Oli got down on one knee to show me his empty engagement ring box (er, thanks)

• Vic. Well, Vic found an intact and fully usable pitch-fork, then revealed her previously unseen puritanical ways

Keep plogging away

Once we had covered a large area of the park and filled at least six big bin bags, we ran down the hill for a Hilly Fields style fitness session. Our drills worked to build muscle memory, encouraging great form and strong arm-drive. We played a couple of games in pairs, working on that powerful arm swing and awesome knee lift. When we knew this was embedded in our minds and bodies, we took it in turns to run hard up the hill.

Great work everyone, I really had fun and the feedback we had from other park-users was so good to hear! Hope to see you on Monday for our third birthday special x

Embracing the bracing air, 28 of Lewisham's finest took to the streets to gather a record number of discarded Christmas trees.

Oli has done it again with his marvellous punning. Also included in this report are puns from Tom and Emma, good work.

January Challenge

Yes, at the start of our run we were in second place on good deeds for our division in the January Challenge (with GoodGym nationwide having the biggest week ever last week!) and, by the end of our run, we are IN THE LEAD! Our winning ways are down to some very committed volunteering and running in the past week, with many of our group over at a community mission on Saturday at Beecroft Garden Primary School, runners tackling parkrun and the cross country and others running off to help in people's homes and to visit their coaches - we are unstoppable!

We had a couple of new faces with us this week - welcome - with all our Lewisham Love going to Holly and Marie.

After a bit of fun warming up and getting to know our teams, we split up into four groups and headed off in different directions - a very big thank you to Caireen, Kim and Emma for leading the other three teams. When I say we ran in different directions, that's not strictly true, because a whole crowd of us headed the same way at first, with my team politely looking the other way if we saw trees outside of our allotted zone, we're good like that.

It'll be all pine on the night

I can only really tell you about the experience of my team, Team 3, who showed their might and dedication to the cause straight away, by engaging in some pretty serious teamwork to retrieve all the trees that had been thrown on top of bus stops by young tikes. Good thinking from Marie, who created a human step for Will to balance on - part of the team from the start! We jogged these first five trees along Adelaide Avenue, then continued over to weave up and down the roads off Brockley Road. There were rich pickings along here, with some trees of colossal proportions, which created the need for us to form a chain, weaving through pedestrians who were clearly perplexed by this sight!

Watch out, needles about!

It was at this point that we saw some treachery going on, as Marta and Andy appeared in our zone and took an actual tree from the actual hands of a member of the public, can you believe it?!

Cutting it pine

Throwing our final finds onto the pile at the foot of Hilly Fields, we waited (in a squat, of course) for the rest of the teams to return. Bouncing trees appeared and smiling faces, who had clearly had a lot of fun. We heard stories of Itmari running with a tree on each shoulder and Conroy apparently managing three, we had a chuckle at the tiny tree that Caireen had found and wondered if it counted (yes, of course) and we all waited with baited breath for the final count and I asked 'How many trees did yule log?' (thanks Emma!).

• Team 1, led by Caireen...12

• Team 2, led by Emma...10

• Team 3, led by me, 15

• Team 4, led by Kim...drum roll please...16!!!

Amazing work everyone! That's 53 in total, so a whopping 31 more than last year! I would love to see the look on people's faces when they open their curtains tomorrow morning...

Less trunk in my junk

Everyone was so pleased when we realised that we had enough time left for a fitness session, 'Woo-hoo!' they shouted! It was pretty obvious that hill repeats awaited, so off we skipped. There was some really strong effort on that tough hill, with the last one taking us up and over towards home. Next week is our THIRD BIRTHDAY! I really can't believe it, all that goodness! We will run to Crofton Books for our annual birthday run and will head over to Mama Dough in Ladywell for a post run pizza (please sign up if you are definitely coming, so we know how many to book for). In the meantime, you can get in an extra good deed on Saturday, with a fun 'plogging' starter session in Hilly Fields, sign up here.

See you soon for some more of the same x

For our last group run of 2018, 22 runners covered 5k and helped dig, shift, sweep and gather at Beecroft Garden Primary School.

Thank you once again to the punmeister, Oli, for this week's title and some puns within this report. He should probably get the award for most commitment to punning in 2018...

We've had a bumper weekend of festive missions, with Emma and Monica helping an older person with their garden and Tom, Marta, Nykolette and Conroy helping at a community mission, distributing the King's Christmas Trees...where Nykolette took her commitment to another level. Ahem.

Well done to Oli, who bagged himself a Hilly Fields parkrun PB, hot on the heels of his New York Half-Marathon last weekend. Great work!

Brick and tired

After some knee-tag fun and drills to warm our bodies (it's getting hard to plan a warm-up or fitness session that doesn't cause people to fall over!), we ran up and over to Crofton Park, with our wonderful back-markers, Caireen and Marta keeping us together - thank you. As we arrived, we were greeted by a gorgeous ginger cat, who seemed wholly unconcerned by 20+ bouncy people wandering in (cue me having absolutely no resistance to picking him up for a cuddle). The Sensory Garden is coming along nicely and we could see the steps now taking shape, but there was plenty more digging to be done.

Christmas sledging

With our most eager diggers grabbing gloves and tools, another group waited patiently to lift and shift the heavy soil to the sacks, a great upper-body workout! A smaller team worked swiftly on breaking up a twiggy branch, snapping and twisting...and chatting, whilst around the front, Jo and Olivia worked on leaf-clearance with a junior helper. Time ticked by quickly, with the bash, bash, bash of sledge hammer on brick helping everyone keep time, like a very well behaved chain gang!

Once tools were put down, Gemma's son proudly announced that they had festive treats for us and everyone made their way over to enjoy mulled wine, mince pies and delicious fruit - thank you so much, what a treat! I felt a little mean breaking up the Christmas party, but we did have to run! With a glow in our cheeks and a smile on our faces, we made our way back to Glass Mill, for a festive-themed fitness session, that of course involved 'Fiiiiiive bu-urr-pees!'

Well done everyone on an amazing year - it's our third birthday in a few weeks, so we will do a proper round-up of the year then - and I look forward very much to seeing you all again for our first run of 2019, on January 7th. In the meantime, keep running (there are parkruns as normal and additional runs on Christmas Day and New Year's Day) and do get in touch if you need a few words of encouragement!

See you in 2019!