10 Girls, 1 Guy, a 6k run, 30 Petunia's, 2 odd encounters and 1 big fun night at GG Brent.

Rain, rain go away, at least by 7pm anyway...... oh great you did thanks for that! After a thankfully dry end to the evening and No April Showers in sight, GG Brent and it's merry band of women and one man, congregated at the Queensbury Pub on Willesden High Road for a joyful and high spirited start to the week.

Sadhana's upcoming first marathon led the discussions as the crew planned the logistics of getting to Brighton to support...... and to eat fish and chips hurrah, but obviously the first thing more important LOL the fact Sadhana will be running 26.2 Miles in 6 Days!!!!!! Woo HOO.

With housekeeping in check and a warm welcome outstretched to our 2 new ladies - Andrea and Gillian, we set to work, pounding the pave the 1.8mile route over to Harlseden High Street to link with our favourite pastor Marcia Tull for a spot of planting after our galavanting.

Leading from the back and welcoming the new starters coach Ellie was lucky enough to have coach-runner Clairey-Bell on hand to step up to the plate and lead from the front and putting the leading pack through their paces by the sounds of things!! The back pack cruised the streets and were joined by a local character on a bike who invited us in for tea and a slice of his Battenberg...... We hope he meant cake!! Declining we powered on!!

In no time at all the flurry of red tees had descended onto the high road and were greeted with the best smiling face ever - Marcia, with boxes and boxes of beautiful spring flowers that we would be tasked with planting in the front garden of the church!

Harlesden Methodist Church is a crucial part of the community and serves the people of Harlesden in more ways than one, offering guidance, a safe space and worthwhile outreach to the community on a regular basis. What better way to give back then to brighten up their surroundings as the Spring comes in!

Off to work we set, to the soundtrack of Mariah Carey and Tom Petty, a musical feast for the ears, while we Got Diggy with it on task.

30 minutes of hard graft included: * The discovery of 10 foot worms * Laura's rat cage * Hidden Treasures - Gin Bottles and Cork Screws to name but a few

Before long the time was up and the merry band of Do-Gooders were on their way once more, but not before some lung busting sprints up and down the high road and star-jump squats for good measure!!

On route back and there was sharing and caring, thrills and puddle spills, giggles and gumption...... But just a typical night for one of the best groups of people in the land, where the running and the do-gooding go hand in hand with the community and friendship that's blossomed over the year.

A Fabulous evening, terrific task and job well done from the Brent Brigade

Until next time folks........

Do Good. Feel Good. Inspire

RUN REPORT BY THE ONE AND ONLY LAURA SHARPLES x x x x

Tonight the Brent Goodgymmers were showing that it is indeed 'Girls, Girls' who run the world...! As Ellie, Laura, Claire, Lizzie and Clare were the fab five that made up tonight's Brent Crew.

Tonight was track night! But before we could get down to business, we had work to do and off to St Andrew's Church we went.... Heavens Above! Our task was to clear up all the rubbish from the front of the church ready for the community gardening day on Sunday.

As we rushed at high speed through the busy streets of Willesden we arrived to a photo finish from our good friend Yay-braham!

Gloves on and pickers in the mix, we set to work and powered through the flower beds in 30 minutes. It's safe to say Abraham was in seventh heaven with our pile of bulging bin bags, hallelujah!

With songs of praise ringing in our ears, we tore off in the direction of Willesden sports centre, ready for track.

After a bit of limbering up we were ready for action. Team work was the name of the game tonight and we worked as a well oiled machine to ramp up the pace and run 3 increasingly fast 400 meter laps.

As gravity pulled us back to The Queensberry, it was time for a bit more female bonding and we really showed how nuts we are about goodgym by chomping down on cashews with a side helping of female empowerment.

And with that concluded another great week from the goodgym Brent crew.

Cash-who (cashew- geddit) will join us next week...?

A massive thirty three of us gathered for a brand new task this week: a trip to Sunnyside Community garden up in Archway. Sunnyside is a community-led garden that is open to all, but specialises in therapeutic horticulture for people with physical and mental disabilities.

As well as ten newcomers Samah, John, Dami, Mariam, Chris, Toby, Fedja, David, Jade and Emma we had tourists Kevin from Hackney (soon to be Bristol) and John and Jackie from Camden and a few journalists included in the mix as well!

After a round of applause for Graham for completing 50 good deeds and another for Patrick for completing 150, we travelled up in three separate groups. Simon and Graham led the speedsters, with Patrick and Aidan taking a medium-paced group and John and Ama looking after the philosophers.

Up at the centre we were greeted by Yvonne and Alan, who were delighted to see so many keen faces and tooled us up ready for the evening's work.

We got stuck in for a good half hour. One group tackled shrubbery around the side of the centre with choppers, loppers, secateurs, scissors and all manner of cutting tools with a couple of the team being led back and forth with wheelbarrows by the enthusiastic Alan.

Round the corner muscle-bound volunteers were ripping rotten logs out the ground with their bare hands (and a mattock) while a third group tackled some very stubborn roots.

All this while Mariam & Dami and Chris carried out their interviews. We’ll post links when the video and article are out. Looks like they got some great material from us all.

The really amazing thing was we managed all this without stopping for a biscuit. This is unheard of in Islington (Simon is obviously a bit rusty after being away for a while and had left them back at the pool). Oh well, a good reason to run back quickly.

And it was FOUR groups for the run back. The original fast, medium and philosophers, plus a special “press” group led by Graham after we realised that having people carry back lots of recording equipment with the fast group might be a bit of a struggle.

The fast group worked extra hard with secret surges, the “lunge, skip, run” game (what could that involve?), stair running, hill running and a little obstacle running. Chris was desperate for some core work to offset the aerobic insaneness. Next week, Chris (and everybody will now know who to moan at when our abs are shot to shreds).

Back at the pool just a little bit later than planned we multi-tasked by holding stretches while receiving biscuits: a true test of balance, agility, coordination and greed.

Finally a vote on the evening’s hot topic of debate. Mice: vermin or cute adorable little critters. Definitely a few votes for vermin and a few stories of cats bringing them in in various states of mutilation, but the majority thought they were delightful creatures and just wanted to give them a mouse-sized cuddle. Next week: Are cats complete psychopaths?

A great first task at Sunnyside. We’re heading back there in a few weeks, but in the meantime we have another brand new task next week. We’re visiting West London Mission for some more gardening joy.

Great to be back. See you next week,

Simon

P.S. Should have a few more photos later on.

24 GoodGymers ran between 3-7km to help Thornhill Community Garden and Caxton House:

Report written by Caroline and Aidan.

Caroline - Operation Twig:

11 Goodgymers went to Thornhill Square and helped out Anna to remove massive ELDER (weed) trees. We managed to remove quite a lot in a short amount of time, release a good amount of stress and got to use some quite cool tools. Doing it in the dark adds to the challenge! After the task we did some gradual intervals around the square before heading back to base.

Tonight's debate was if you had a two course dinner what would you prefer out of starter, main and dessert? All combinations were mentioned depending on whether people prefer savoury or sweet. Also having a cheese board option could be a deciding factor as well.

Paul forgot the biscuits again. However, Aiden and Caroline brought the same type of biscuits for both of the groups without having spoken to each other first about first. It's like they can read each other minds... or simply get the same thing on offer from the co-op. They were caramel chocolate digestives. They didn't go down as well as the double chocolate digestives.

Aidan - Operation Speed Gardening:

13 of us set off to Caxton House led by Patrick with his musical lantern blasting the tunes.

Enjoying the music and the slightly up-hill run we made it there in great time but sadly the lovely people at Caxton weren't expecting us this week. Luckily after a few phone calls Rose, who lives close by, was able to come and meet us with tools in hand and got us set on task.

Two tasks were set, one group tackled one of the mighty bushes with secateurs whilst another worked at de-weeding the flowerbeds.

The time flew by and after a clean up we celebrated with a biscuit and a group photo. Everyone enjoyed the run back a bit more as it was all downhill. Lucky us!

Meeting up with the other group we stretched out and called it a day. The thoughtful Caroline had spare biscuits for us (little did she know we had already had some) and by sheer coincidence she had bought the exact same delicious caramel digestives...spooky.