On a mild, but wet night, it was a great delight to see thirteen GoodGymers show up for a group run as they all piled into the warmth of Old Spike Roastery.

We welcomed back Clare, who came back for her second good deed. Yet, we had a few firsts - Josh had been to two other GoodGym sessions before, but this was first ever group run and we also welcomed back Natalia who had been away for half a year. That's the beauty of GoodGym.

After explaining all about GoodGym and the amazing tasks that are coming up, Sam tossed everyone out in the pouring rain and down the alleyway to get warm.

As we introduced ourselves, Sam's ice-breaker question tonight, was to do with the fact that it is Day of the Dead or Diandes los Muertos today: What do you want to be remembered by?

A few people didn't want to be remembered (waste of time) and others by their actions or generous nature, but we had Natalia say for her cakes.

---

Booked

With our headlights on, we ran down to the middle of Peckham Rye park and did a U-turn back towards Peckham before heading off to the right towards Nunhead. During the run there was a light to moderate amount of rain, but it didn't out us off!

We arrived at Salvation Army Nunhead to find Katy and Vic as they made their way to the task.

After more introductions and a foreword by Polis about the task, we all got stuck in. It was simple enough and most of us had been to help out before. We had to get a bag of books from the spare cupboard room which was full of bags of books and sort them by hard backs, soft backs, children's, travel and cooking books.

Since we had just half a room full of bags to empty compared to last month's, we smashed this task within 30 minutes to the tunes of Taylor Swift's new album, Midnight.

Almost everyone at the end of the task, took a book with them. Yet, everyone had to rush and sprint to Old Spike as by this point it was tipping it down.

We were meant to head to Prince of Peckham for our November social, but opted for Angel Oak, which was closeby due to the rain.

---

Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came out tonight! You all braved the weather as it was a pleasure to run with you. We managed to get the task done in 30 minutes which was incredible 💪 Thanks to those who came for drinks and wings 👀

---

Thank You Polis

GoodGym is all about getting fit and doing good! We praise the runners/cyclists/walkers who come to get fit and help out, but we often forget about our task owner. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Polis for inviting us back to finish off the task we started a month ago! We are back on our Christmas social night and looking forward to seeing what you have installed for us.

What happens when a GoodGymer doesn't come to a session for over a year?

Well, nothing much as that's the beauty of GoodGym's model, you can come as often or as little as possible and still feel welcomed! That's how Josh felt after coming back to Thorlands after a year and seeing the changes.

Our task today with Lucie and Simon was to collect abandoned real estate posts from the community centre on the other side of the estate and bring them to the secret workshop that I only found out about for the first time (after 18 months....). However, Simon had troubles finding the keys and then the key would fit in the lock, but not turn....so after 45 minutes, we agreed to dump the posts in the back garden courtyard through some dodgy means.

We had planned a few more tasks for the session, but ended up doing two more quite rushed. Firstly, we moved a bundle of straw to the Walled garden before collecting tools to start digging more areas to put down the cardboard and leaf mulch as Sam brought more cardboard from home (all those Hello Fresh, Amazon and Bother orders came to good use)! Yet, time was not on our side and even staying a further 10 minutes; Josh and Sam had to leave Lucie and Simon to finish off the job. Until next week!