20 Goodgymers ran 4-6k to help Ramsey Flowers Group and Mildmay Community Centre!

Welcome along to Haus, Amelia and Heather whose first time it was last night - woop woop!

In the news this week:

1. Well done to Graham who did Finsbury Park 5k on Friday and Sally who did the Maverick 15k on Saturday!
2. This Saturday is the Night of the PB's - more details here and sign up to volunteer here.
3. We've got a couple of Community Missions coming up: helping CREOS and Notting Hill Genesis

Mildmay Community Centre Report:

A group of us ran to Mildmay Community Centre where the very well prepared gardener took us out to the garden where we'd be working. After everyone eventually found a left and a right glove we got to it - weeding around the edge of several planters, removing ivy from a fence line, and clearing the ground around a rare apple tree then surrounding it with fresh compost.

Weed-free

There was talk of a competition to see which of the planters could be rendered the most terrifically weed-free, but in the end it was pretty obvious that we'd all put in a winning performance. Nice work team.

Ramsey Flowers N1 Report:

Ten of us headed to Ramsey Flowers N1, which are a local group who look after the area behind the Rose Bowl - including St Paul's Walk. We met Becky who gave us a few tools and bags, and then tasked us with wedding and sweeping the park area.

We focused a lot on generally cutting things back and tidying up the borders of the flower beds. During our tidy up we saw Dawn and people from Rose Bowl, they are lookikg forward to us helping next week. Over 30 minutes we got tons done, bagging up 7 bags of weeds and debris.

Next we took on a conditioning and sprints game, took a group picture and ran home. An all around great evening of Goodgym!

Sign up for next week here when we'll be helping the Single Homeless Project and Rose Bowl.

PB out

20 Goodgymers ran 5km to help Caxton House Community Centre!

Thanks for coming along on a rainy evening - wings, rain and cake!

In the news this week:

1. Both Alix and Sally hit 100 Good Deeds - these guys have achieved so much and done amazing things for their communities with GG.
2. Well done to Graham who came 16th at Race the horse and beat lots of horses - amazing! Plus a big well done to Aidan and the other 40 people who went on the trip.
3. Next Monday there is going to be a social after the run, it'll involve food and drink - come along.
4. On Sunday there is our monthly community mission helping CREOS, this usually ends with a picnic!

After celebrating all of the above we headed outside to warm up, then heading off 2.5k up the steady hill to help Caxton House Community Centre, a place that offers lots of services, support and programmes to the local community.

Upon our arrival we met Rose, who first off gave us biscuits, and then gave us our tasks for the evening:

• Chain Gang - Dharmesh, Steve, Graham and Rob pulled up old fence posts and collected together it's chain.
• Thistlers - eight people delicately removed the thistles from the front garden and cut back a bit of the wild flowers.
• Bush People - everyone else clipped back and tidied the bushes near the back entrance - lovely shape.

As each group finished their separate jobs we collected together to cut back more of the area of trees and bushes we started on last month - clipper happy! Dom and Alix found an unopened bottle of prosecco in the shrubby - wow what celebrations!

Chain Gang!

We collected together inside, ate some of hundreds of thousands (New Zealand originals), took a group photo and headed home - oh it then really rained, it proper came down. We stretched inside and ate cake, blondies and fudge as part of the 100 celebrations - thanks to Liz for making this all.

Sign up for next week here - we'll be helping Barnsbury Square Gardens and maybe SHP.

PB out

Peanut Butter and White Chocolate Blondies:

Ingredients 125 g plain flour 1 tsp baking powder 100 g butter, at room temperature, plus extra for greasing 150 g crunchy peanut butter 175 g light brown sugar 1 egg, beaten 1 tsp vanilla extract 100 g white chocolate, chopped

Method 1. Preheat the oven to 170C/gas 3. Butter the sides of a 20 x 20cm square cake tin and line the base with greaseproof paper. 2. Sift the flour and baking powder into a small bowl and set aside. 3. In a large bowl, cream the butter and peanut butter together until very soft. Add the sugar, egg and vanilla extract and beat until well combined. Add the flour, baking powder and the chopped chocolate and mix to form a dough. 4. Place the dough into the prepared tin and bake in the oven for 25–30 minutes, or until golden brown and almost firm in the centre. 5. Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tin, before removing and cutting into squares.

First, a big congratulation to everyone who took part in Sofia and a extra applause to James and Sally who did the run with us yesterday even though they just did a long run the day before. We also had Laura turn up after doing a casual 80 mile bike ride with a big fall of the bike in the middle. Glad she was able to make. You all deserve a nice rest.

During the introduction, I realised we had quite a few new runners. So welcome once again. As a quick count with everyone saying their favourite food and drink (Mainly Cheese and Gin with a surprising Pina Colada vote), we were off to the Rose Bowl.

It was a short 15 min run with the beautiful weather giving the runners a reason to smile and talk about. It was great to see the current GoodGym runners talk to the new ones. As we entered the venue and had a look around, we knew that we were going to be in for a mighty task of weed clearing.

The teams were unevenly split in two with the smaller group tackling the face of building and the larger taking on behemoth edge of the bowl which looked like a full on weed invasion with the paths and other paved parts looking less than inviting.

As I was walking past trying to capture the perfect profile picture for some of the runners social media, the discussions I came across included:

-What some people work as which included office jobs and community jobs.

-Other runs that people do which i think i heard someone mention about their parents showing off their parkrun time to their son as a sign of encouragement.

-The UK citizenship test which one of the GoodGym runners has passed (Well done). The test consist of some pretty serious questions that could have an Nigel Farage questioning his Britishness. One of the runners has tried to take Citizenship test from around the world and and the UK one is one of the hardest.

-One of the groups was just working in silence with determined faces to complete the job before the time is up.

There was a pretty significant job that had been done. We can now see the pathway edges and also the hidden bit of pavement that was being covered by green hue of weeds but it looks like we might need another visit to finish the job.

On the way back I decided to do squeeze in an easy fitness sessions to make Paul proud. This included planks, sit-ups and leg raises.

Thank you all for enduring me. Hope to see you all again soon for a fitness session. Paul will be back next week.