14 runners dashed to St Paul's United Reformed Church in South Croydon to help with painting a room. This was not before we celebrated the 50th good deed of Nicola. Conroy surprised her with a huge artisan cookie with a GoodGym 50 good deeds t shirt ( a chocolate one of course) at the centre.

When we arrived at the church we were met by the lovely hosts who had prepared all the paint, brushes and rolls our crew needed. We buckled down to painting and some of the runners even did some squats while painting with the rollers.

thats how we roll, we roll like this

Mohamad was a really speedy with the roller and managed to cover the whole ceiling in no time. Lionel appeared to be a great gymnast manouvering on the ladder while painting.

Rolling in the CR0

Martin was amazed with what we had accomplished, within that short space of time we had painted the entire room. He informed us it would have taken him a few weeks to complete the painting. He was really grateful for our help.

Painting finished we roll out

On our way back we took some nice pictures of the sunset in Croydon and quickly ran back to our starting point where the huge cookie was waiting us. Nicola cut generous pieces for all of us and we enjoyed the chocolate and cherry cream cookie ( with a bit of guilt of course!).

The fitness session at the end was replaced by a calorie burning friendly chat celebrating commitment and good deeds!

Next week we will be heading back to St Augustine's church sign up here

Tonight we welcomed Sheridan, Jamie and Lionel to their first GoodGym group run.

I met Lionel on Sunday night at the Big Sleep Out where we were both volunteering, on telling him about GoodGym he signed up immediately on the spot and tonight came to his first group run. Lionel informed me he cycles a lot and has been meaning to start running but never got around to it, however tonight he was more than up to the challenge albeit 3.8km.

Jamie signed up to GoodGym in search of a running club, glad to report after tonight's experience he went home and become a full member, GoodGym Central, please send his uniform intime for next week's group run, he's at the starting blocks.

After talking about GoodGym so much at work it was about time I brought a colleague along, given the distance between my work and our start point you'd think I would have managed to get majority of the office involved by now.

Nothing happens ahead of its time, and needs to happen always happen

Sheridan is my work colleague and after speaking to her about GoodGym she went away and signed up, on Monday when she returned to work she informed me she would be coming along to tonights group run, I felt pleased that I had managed to get another colleague to sign up to GoodGym. FOllowing her visit tonight watch this space will there be more?

15 (our magic number) runners and 4 walkers set off on 1.9km journey to Park Hill Park, where we were met by Josi who was waiting on us with her boot full of flowers t be planted. She had an array of task lined up for us tonight, planting, watering, weeding and litter picking. Having had our instruction we dived up into small groups focusing on the tasks for the night.

DId you know before planting a plant you had to tickle its bottom?

Josi expertly demonstrated how to tickle the bottom of the plant before planting them which left a few of us in awe, you could see she had years of practice not just on the plants. {-_-}

Bootyfull flowers

I could hear the regular members in between laughter saying to our first timers that we were not always like that referring to the conversations going on of the sheer amusement of of the descriptive words being used. (all above board but funny)

Litter pickers were busy walking up and down the path in search of litter while those weeding got stuck in, I can confidently say that no plants where harmed but they were all given a new lease of life and watered before we were instructed to down tools and return them back to the storage hut.

Josi, the lady with the surprises led us to her car where she had an array of biscuits, teas and coffee awaiting us as a thank you for a job well done, before leaving she informed us of an event taking place on Friday 29 between 3.30 - 6pm in Park Hill Pavillion to celebrate peace where attendees will be helping to paint a mural or write a message of peace to the leaves of the tree in the mural.

We headed back to Solutions for our fitness sessions where the group demonstrated their core strength by doing V-sits and passing around a medicine ball in the circle, just as they were getting use to it a few more balls were added including rolling one, two and three balls under their raised legs while still passing the other around the circle. Each week I throw a different challenge at them and they always rise to the challenge with a smile on their faces.

Join us next week where we will going to St Augustines' Chruch to pick up where we left off last year.