This was my first mission with GoodGym: successfully delivered the food to the charity with Lucy and Laura. A great start to the long weekend!

It's GoodGym Lambeth's 6th Birthday!!!!

So to celebrate we did some GOOD.

Tonight's task was at Jubilee Primary School, mainly to shift some large planks of wood to access a bench(?!) and clearing leaves in the play area out the front, so that the pupils have more space to play in!

We kicked off welcoming our new runners Harriet, Mark, Harry and Charlotte to the gang and admired those runners who've stuck with Lambeth since the beginning!

Then we had a brisk warm up and split into 3 groups to run to the task.

When we arrived we got straight to work lifting and shifting leaves and branches (and a poor deceased bird) into compost piles and moving some of those big blue gymnast mats (you know the ones) from a shed to the car park. And those who took the longer run options dove straight into moving all the planks and rearranging them neatly.

We wrapped up, ran back through windy Brixton and shot off to the pub for a serious beer selection and mostly brownies. 😋

Here's the link to next week's run at the Portico Gallery.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LAMBETH 🙌💪💐

51 absolute heroes were out last night to start the year with a bang 💥

And some of those heroes were totally fresh to GoodGym! Massive cheer to Molly, Lawrence, Charlotte, Lara, Clare, Kirsty, Campbell, Jasmine, Faris, Mitch and Jessica. So great to have you along :)

Our task was simple - give Lambeth council a hand by picking up some of the trees from the roadside (they don’t have enough space for all of them in their van when they pick them up) so that they’re not clogging up the streets - and take them to the TREE-CYCLING (😅) plant in Clapham Common.

And after a quick warm up, we split into 5 fabulous teams heading to different areas to pick up as many trees as we could.

After worrying that we wouldn’t find any, we were blessed with absolutely loads - some on the pavements, some hiding behind bins, some small, some massive and some so dead they must've spent their Christmas getting intimate with a radiator.

Trees in hands, we all descended on the centre of Clapham Common like some sort of weird tree cult. Each tree was ceremoniously thrown on top of a big pile and then we ran back to base with plenty of bonus FITNESS DRILLS thrown in.

TREE-MENDOUS

Amazing stuff everyone and such bravery shown when awkwardly carrying trees through some very crowded areas...

Next week is Lambeth’s 6th Birthday!! To celebrate we’re going to Jubilee Primary School to do some GOOD. Then we’re going to the pub to eat cake. 🙌 Sign up here.

32 brilliant GoodGymmers arrived for our final GoodGym Lambeth group run of the decade!

We started by welcoming some lovely new runners - Lois, Katy, Jack, Sukhi and Ash.

We heard about what's coming up in the world of GoodGym (and beyond):

• Lots of community missions, including the chance to win a GoodGym jumper and a virtual badge (ooooh!).

• Dulwich parkrun and breakfast on Saturday 18th January 2020, as part of our monthly GoodGym Lambeth parkrun socials.

• Cross-country on Saturday 11th January 2020 at Wormwood Scrubs. Always fun, sometimes (aka mostly) muddy.

• Christmas and New Year parkruns - Many areas have extra parkruns on Christmas Day and New Year's Day. Just make sure you check the start time for your area.

After a quick warm-up led by George, we split into two groups:

George and Alfie led a group to Jubilee Primary School to help them with a project to connect the children with nature. Here's what leader George had to say:

"Well, we moved quite a few bags of garden waste from the garden to the car park, and a significant quantity of stone from the car park into a wooded glade (and build the worst dry stone wall). There was lots of wheelbarrow action, and a fair amount of standing around contemplating how to move a massive boulder."

GOOD WORK TEAM.

The rest of us went to Charleston House, a supported accommodation complex in Clapham. We'd been warned that a lot of the residents had gone out for the evening but fortunately, there were still four lovely gentlemen there who were very up for board games and chat. We split again so that half the group did some (actually quite intense, sorry/not sorry everyone...) festive fitness (aka The 12 squats of Christmas) while the other half chatted to the residents. Popular subjects included favourite types of champagne and what's on TV. And then we swapped so everyone got some good and some gym.

Before we knew it, it was time to head back to the base for some final stretches and then to the pub for the GoodGym Lambeth Christmas Social. We enjoyed an epic quiz courtesy of Steve and George, complete with a tad of controversy (what actually is the most common tree in London?!). We were then graced with a poem by our gracious leader Mark, with an added impersonation by Steve that was just sadly missing the hat.

No GG Lambeth Christmas Party would be complete without SPOTY (S*** Prize of the Year). This year, four excellent GoodGymmers were rewarded for their efforts to both the good and the gym:

• Sam has run a brilliant 1427.90km this year (over 100k every single month), as well as doing 60 good deeds this year and maintaining a 33-month group run streak.
• Michael has run an incredible 2434.64km this year (over 200k each month!), including running his first marathon in Liverpool in May and also racking up a 33-month group run streak (coincidence?!), bringing his total number of good deeds to 113!
• Charlotte has done a fantastic 69 good deeds this year, keeping her streaks at 13 months for both group runs and missions. She's also started coach running this year and is already on an 8-month coach running streak.
• Tim has done an epic 74 good deeds in 2019, maintaining a 15-month mission streak and a 30-month group run streak. He also draws the most incredible cartoons that are greatly enjoyed across the GoodGym community. What a talented chap.

SUPERB STUFF TEAM LAMBETH. What a year it's been - from being crowned GoodGym Olympic champions to welcoming a new trainer and many new additions to task force and GoodGym Lambeth to the huge amount of good we all do across Lambeth every week. I'll leave you with Mark's poem to summarise, and to say

See you next decade. Oh, and Merry Christmas!!!

As we come to the end of 2019,

Feel the bond we've shared as a unified team,

So many new faces and people of old,

Coming together within a shared goal.

From Liverpool and racing some bloody big horses,

To Katie departing and tasty kebab courses,

For every deed done and Olympics won,

Lambeth, I love you. Merry Christmas, have fun.

(Gilyead, 2019)