35 runners came out in style for GoodGym Camden this week, as we come to the end of a really strong month for attendance!

We had not one, not two but THREE new runners with us tonight - welcome Charley, Michelle and Emily! Hope to see you all back with us very soon!

There was also another cause for celebration (even this was the third time actually celebrating it!); Camden's Sally hit 200 GOOD DEEDS! A huuuuge achievement and one to really cheer her about here! All those hours put to great use for the community; very well done indeed.

Liz had spent a lot time on putting together the most amazing red cape (from scratch!), complete with the GG logo and VELCRO Good Deed numbers (so they can be interchangeable) and the exact same font GoodGym Camden as is found on the website. Photos just don't do it justice and you'll have to come to one of our runs to see it for yourself.

Talking of our next run: Alara has had to postpone by a week so one half of the run is now TBA. We'll still be going to C4WS to make beds again though. Sign up here and I'll confirm that second bigger task when I have it.

C4WS Report (written by Beth)

After a short warm up, 13 runners ran to the American International Church to make beds for their homeless shelter. We got to work quickly and set up 12 beds, then headed to Granary Square for a fitness session. After a couple of laps of the square interspersed with star jumps/squats, we jogged gently back to the Living Centre for cake.

Cecil Sharp House

The rest of us headed north to the Home of English Folk and Dance that is Cecil Sharp House. Susannah was there to greet us and give us the rundown of what needed doing this week. There was branch-snapping, path-sweeping, dirt-collecting and leaf-clearing to be getting on with and the rain luckily held off just long enough for us. We managed to fill 9 bags of branches, twigs and leaves before having to put down our gloves and tools for the night.

There happened to be a lecture on MAGIC happening (ooooooooooooooo) in the room that the choir usually rehearses in at the back of Cecil Sharp. I'm sure it was just a fast-track Hogwarts scheme in disguise (hence the Potter-related pun), but we'll never know. Susannah was certainly keeping her cards close to her chest on this one.

With everything cleared, swept and snapped, it was time to head back for stretches and the MOUNTAINS of cake that awaited us at base, in honour of Sally's 200th.

NEXT TIME

COMMUNITY MISSIONS HERE: There's some plogging in Russell Square Gardens on Friday lunchtime between 12:30-13:10 coming up, as well as some lifting and shifting at Story Garden 14:00-15:30. NEXT WEEK'S RUN: Next week, we'll be back at C4WS as usual and the second task is TBA because of Alara having to shift back by a week. Sign up to stay in the loop.

Make sure to sign up for the NEW Alara run here if you'd like to come along and see the permaculture garden and orchards (plus, who's going to turn down a box of lovely granola?)!

Happy running and see you soon,

30 GoodGymers got in the Christmas spirit last night for another week of running with GoodGym Camden!

We welcomed Laurel to the herd - hope you enjoyed yourself Laurel and found that GoodGym was as good as you'd hoped. Looking forward to seeing you with us again soon.

If you fancy getting ahead of the game and signing up for our last run of the year, get stuck in here!

As with all of our winter tasks, tonight was a double tasker; bed-making at the American International Church and Christmas-decorating at SPCA.

Hanry led the 10-strong group to the homeless shelter to help Jonathan and the team get 18 beds ready for those who needed a place to spend the night out of the cold and off the streets. It's such a worthwhile cause and I'm so glad we can lend a hand to C4WS over the winter when the cold really bites. Every time I speak to Jonathan, he keeps saying how grateful he is that we're doing what we're doing, so thank you everyone.

I took the other half of the group to the Saint Pancras Community Association in the other direction for some light-hearted Christmas decorating fun. We had our work cut out for us - Elaine had left us with boxes of decorations and a few instructions (think a Technical Challenge on Bake Off!) so we had a fair bit of creative freedom with it. The group split again into Team Downstairs and Team Upstairs and everyone got cracking on hanging paperchains, decorating the two Christmas trees, putting out the bunting and sticking snowflakes to the doors and windows.

There were a few Italian fiesta coloured banners which I think we styled out nicely and George did some great work tinseling up the bannisters. The photos tell the story better than I ever could.

After a quick team photo next to one of the Christmas trees, it was time to head back for a cool down stretch and then PIZZA!

It was so great to have so many of you out with us, eating pizza at Happy Face last night and I just wanted to say thank you very, very much for a lovely card and hilarious Christmas outfit. Special thanks to Rosie (and Helen from Scope) from being the organisers of this unexpected treat - the card is sitting on my desk as I'm writing this, I love it!

Thanks for being so welcoming over the last few months and I hope you're looking forward to what 2020 will bring as much as I am. If I don't see you next week, MERRY CHRISTMAS and I hope you enjoy some well-deserved time off with friends and family.

NEXT TIME

COMMUNITY MISSION: If you're free this evening (Thursday) from 6pm and would like to sing your heart out for a good cause, then join our very own Beth and some others from GoodGym Wandsworth for some good old-fashioned carolling at Kambala Cares in SW11 2LE.

OUR LAST RUN OF 2019: Next Wednesday's session is our last group run of the year and we're going to be sticking together to go down to C4WS as a one big team before we say goodbye ahead of the Christmas break. Festive wear is as close to compulsary as possible and there may well be fitness penalties for those in just regular running clothes - ye be warned!

THE CHRISTMAS BREAK: There will be NO RUNS on Wednesday 25th December or Wednesday 1st of January and our first run back in the New Year will be on the 8th of January 2020.

A few quick words to say: thank you to everyone who came, dressed up, donated to Stephen's House, and partied away. We thought it was brilliant and hope that you agree. Some thank yous:

🎅 to our wonderful DJs Alex and Chi, who did a great job with their alternating sets

🎅 to our amazing hosts Stephen's House, who kept the drinks flowing and were so flexible with every request we had

🎅 to GGB's very own Mumtaz who did SO much work in getting the party from a concept to a reality

🎅 and finally, to our prize winners who made an amazing effort with their costumes: 3rd place was of course Steve in his Elf and Safety outfit (and a whole persona) 2nd was Rosie and her 5 gold rings 1st ~drum roll~ was Beth as a Pig in Blanket!!!

Thanks again. I hope you like the photos and do join us in thanking everyone here when you next see them. Have a brilliant Christmas.

Well, that was something else wasn't it?!

42

Yup 41 of you amazingly wonderful people popped down to Camden on a freezing November evening to run around 5km and help out two wonderful organisations! Give yourself a round of applause!

So where to begin on this wondrous night - well everyone piled into the St Pancras and Somers Town Living Centre and after a far too long intro we split into two groups and so the night began!

The intro:

• We were joined by the lovely Hannah from Red January - she was down to experience a goodgym run first hand and to tell us about the upcoming partnership between RJ and GG. You can read all about Red January here, but Hannah, the founder, told us all about how she wanted to get people to beat the blues in January by using exercise - sounds perfect for us!
• Christmas is coming! Sign up to the Camden pizza party by the 27th Nov here, that's on the 11th December after the run and don't forget to warm up to that by going to the GG-wide xmas party on the 6th December, details here
• Did i say there were 42 of us!? Well a whopping SEVEN of that number were at GoodGym for the first time - a huge GGC welcome to: Alex, Maryam, Layli, Harriet, Laura, Eileen and of course Hannah from Red Jan!
• Finally shout out to Debbie who was indulging in a bit of GG tourism coming all the way from GG Newcastle!

Right, on to the night itself:

• Chris took a total of 16 people to the American International Church to make beds for those needing shelter last night. Whilst we're not pleased with the number it was rather serendipitous that 16 beds needed to be made! Well done to all of you including our walking group of Liz, Rosie and Frances!

• The remainder headed with me to Alara to do various mulch and leaf related tasks. We split into groups and had three teams working to collect leaves at the front of the space and collecting it all into a big pile. Another two teams collecting leaves at the back and transferring those leaves to the compost heap (while avoiding falling into the pond!) and finally we had one team working to wheelbarrow mulch to various parts of the back area. Everyone worked hard and kept themselves warm and before we knew it our time had passed! As ever Alex kindly rewarded everyone with a box of granola and with many thank yous in the air we headed to Granary Square to meet the other team.

G- RUN - ary Square:

• After taking everyone on a sighting run (it is right, right, right and right again) we split everyone into pairs and did a meet and retreat event. It was described with such spectacular levels of poor planning and organisation that it could only work impossibly well and after some initial troubles everyone lined up and shot off in opposite directions and before we knew it everyone was back and warm! Amazing stuff!

With that done it was time for some group photos with Hannah for Red January promotion and then we headed back to base. Once there we bumped into Ivo G, GG's Founder and Top Dog who had sadly missed the entire evening's fun - sad times! He joined us for the stretches and then the evening was done.

It was great to be back and so wonderful to see so many new and old faces - keep on coming and keep Camden great!

Cheers,
Pritesh

p.s. huge shout to Liz for the awesome Stereophonics pun!
p.p.s. apologies my photos are SO bad!