Another winter run, another sudden burst of water from the sky right when we were about to start running. SIGH. Never mind as it tailed off quickly and we were ready to get on with our task of helping the good people of Age UK, who have got a new 'Food 2 You' programme. This volunteer-led programme will help older people to do their weekly shop across Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark. A great idea and very aligned with GoodGym's mission. We were helping to spread the word about this new service by putting up posters in local libraries and shops.

We split into four teams, one walking, one covering 3km, one 4km and one 5km. Each team also had some nice fitness challenges to carry out along the way. After an extended warm up we were off, spreading the word around Brixton, Clapham High Street and Stockwell. After some nice stretches on return, we finished off and went home happy.

Southwark News

• Next week is the last task before the Christmas break. We're back on 9th Jan 2019 (eeek!). Next week we're finishing 2018 with a visit to Anca at Crisis, come along for a well deserved Christmas drink after. Sign up here.

• Haaalllooo and welcome to Andrew and Naomi who joined us for the first time last night!

• We're on social media! @ggsouthwark on Twitter and @goodgym_southwark on IG.

That's enough of the business

Last night 10 runners ran 6km to sing carols and raise money for Link Age Southwark.

A chilly old eve... But we sure warmed it up! We took a homemade box out with us to sing carols at train stations and collect for Link Age Southwark, is a vibrant local charity providing friendly volunteer support to over 600 isolated, older people in Southwark. Their services include befriending, activity groups with volunteer transport and work with local schools.

Decked out in Tinsel we headed first to Peckham Rye Station which was a relative success! We discovered there that we were pretty darn good at Jingle Bell Rock. We also met Billy Brindle who showed us his Christmas song that might be in a Christmas movie next year! Keep an eye out for this one.

Next, onto Queens Road Peckham Station. This one was a bit of a flop - not many people coming out of the station but we gave it a good crack anyway. Onto New Cross Gate (not technically Southwark) where we finally realised that ditching the accompaniment music (my dodgy use of youtube and a rubbish speaker) was what we needed. Silent Night was a particular hit and we sure made a lot of people smile. Money or no, that's definitely a good deed! Check us and out doing our thaaang here.

At the end, Emily did a count and we all took a guess at what we'd raised - ranging from £11.11 to £21.40.

The total? £25.73!!!

Link Age is a small charity and they'll be so grateful, I can't wait to take it down to them!

Great work team, see you next week.

Lucy J

We had lots of lovely new people this evening and indeed lots of lovely regulars, amounting to over 40 human beans that were kicking off their December in style with a monster GoodGym Lambeth session helping out our old friends at Vauxhall Foodbank. It's a 3.5km run each way and on arrival Alice had some Christmas tunes and mince pies waiting for us - nice!

The Foodbank helps families and individuals facing short term crisis. Unfortunately the number of people relying on foodbanks in the UK is rising and the festive season is also a time when many people are in additional need. This means it's a busy time for the staff and volunteers, so our help was needed to sort out their bumper supermarket collections. You may have been given a list at your local supermarket and asked to buy a tin of something to donate to your local foodbank. Vauxhall is no different and there were crates and crates of food to sort out into categories. This time there was an additional complication of also separating by use by date. It took a little while to get the system set up but then we were really cooking on gas.

Now we're really cooking on gas! Said Freyja, who was in charge of proceedings

Katie took half the group outside to do some beautiful fitness that everyone LOVED and one the crates started filling up it was time to get weighing. We ran back in three groups at three speeds, so everyone could get a comfortable pace going. As the 'in a hurry' group were getting ready to leave ANOTHER load of donations were delivered. So the team also helped to get these into the building.

Alice did her sums and it turns out we sorted nearly ONE TONNE of food, which was quite amazing. On return to base, we enjoyed our last Bake Off treats - Freyja's delish pistachio and chocolate cake. YUM!

Merry Christmas Vauxhall Foodbank - we love coming to visit you but at the same time, we hope that maybe next year there won't be so much need for your services. Now that's a Christmas wish we can all get behind.

On a hot July morning, two Pauls and a Sarah arrived to help Mrs D with her garden.

Mrs D was a great host, supplying us with cold water and just the right tools.

We weeded the garden, cleared up the leaves, and moved the potted plants which got a well-deserved bath. The Buddha and panda were also visibly happy to get a soak.

We also went round the front to help clip the rose bush and hedges, and Mrs D was very pleased and grateful we'd come to help.

We were pleased with our work ourselves -- all in all a job more appealing than appaulling.