Under a bright full moon, fourteen fabulous runners covered just under 3km and helped sort through and label donations at Living Well food bank.

This week's title pun is pulling together tonight's task and last week's rather unusual and very special community mission, where Louise and Stuart helped out and Jenn and Ben performed. You can read the report here and see some lovely photos.

It's getting chilly and, under a clear sky, we had all added some extra layers and guarded our extremities against the cold. As we gathered in the garden, we celebrated two milestones, with Ian having completed his 50th good deed at a mission yesterday and Clare completing her 50th tonight - well done both of you! I presented them with gingerbread medals, which they wore with pride (I'm sorry if you have previously reached a milestone and not been in receipt of edible bling, this idea came to me today in a flash of inspiration!).

Tonight we had a bigger group than the past couple of weeks, possibly to do with our super task - our visits to Living Well are always very popular. We ran the short distance to Holy Trinity Church and were met by Rowena and Jane, who showed us a very neatly packed container. It seems they have had some help as the donations have been coming in from the harvest festival, so our job was to pull the crates out and correctly label them. A train of strong bodies lifted and shifted crates and checked the contents before labelling, 'beans', 'biscuits', 'tea', 'sweet treats' and so on. Once this had been done it was time to carefully put everything back, so it will be accessible and easy to grab when the bags are made up for the weekly lunch. Once these were in, it was time to put back the many bags of toiletries that were in the doorway, leaving enough space for volunteers to get in and reach the boxes.

Before we left, Jane and Rowena told us about the different opportunities for volunteering and how they are always in need of helpers. You don't have to commit to coming every week, so have a look here to find out how you can get involved.

On our way back, we stepped away from the road and found some space on the edge of the park (the dark park!) for our little lower-body fitness session. Great work on the various squats, lunges and jumps! As we move into winter, we have to make the most of any light spots we can find, so the bike racks outside Penge East station were the perfect opportunity for some push-ups and the nearby wall gave us a great space to tri-dip. As we stretched outside the Bridge House, we chatted about next week's task, at the Upper Norwood Library Hub. I'm excited to be returning here, after our last visit, which involved a Krypton Factor-like challenge with the most complicated shed ever. This time we will be working inside, with some painting and possibly other tasks - don't wear your best kit and bring a head-torch for the run back.

Keep it steady!

An energetic eight took to Crystal Palace Park to clear the litter along the path and to cover 2km of running and a TOUGH abs session.

Yes, it's STILL hot! Really hot. Water in hand, we made our way out of the Bridge House garden (it's oh, so tempting at this time of year to while away the 90 minutes with an ice cold drink in our hands, but our plastic bottles would have to do!). This week we were tasked with the challenge of clearing litter from the path near the train station, leading into the park. We now call this plogging (picking up litter whilst jogging), it sounds so much nicer than litter picking ;)

Joining us this week was uber tourist, Chi, who was completing his penultimate London GoodGym, with tomorrow's group run in Waltham Forest making up the full set (we think it's about 24). Well done Chi and welcome to GoodGym Bromley.Before setting off, we had to congratulate Tim on the success of his Oxford challenge, something he has been telling us about now for while. On Sunday, his nephew Harold, a super-fast marathon runner, took on the almost marathon distance, finishing with a swim across the river to a pub, which you can read all about here, in the Oxford Mail.

As usual, we enjoyed picking up our equipment from the container in the park, filling two wheelbarrows with litter-pickers, bags and hoops, hedge trimmers and gloves. With the barrow boys bringing up the rear, the rest of us ran up towards Crystal Palace Station, passing the little farm on the way (it's well worth a visit, with lots of cute animals to see). The heat was really quite stifling, making the hill hard work! At the station area, we gathered our tools and worked in twos and threes, chatting and picking (and finding treasure, oooh!) and making our way gradually along the path. It wasn't long before time was up and we were heading back to the container, with about six full bin bags. Great work!

It took a while for everyone to assemble, because some people just couldn't stop picking litter on the way back...it's a compelling activity.

Whilst on tour, Chi has become known for his abs. I say his abs, but what he is known for is working everyone else's abs in his 'Abs on Tour', which we were delighted to sample this evening. I say delighted, but it was really hard work, with some serious gurning going on, a fair bit of moaning and a shout from Emily that she had already done an abs session this morning - ouch! During the plank, I noticed all the ants around me and quite soon felt the effects of their stings - it's all very well rolling around on the grass, having fun, but the ants were not impressed! Thanks Chi for the awesome abs attack, I hope everyone feels happy to come back next week (you now know I take it easy on you!).

Next week we are heading to Forest Hill Station to do some watering, a nice 5k round-trip and we might even go and see that steeple on a hill that Tim keeps telling us about. Have a great week and see you soon :)

On a very special evening, eight awesome athletes took to the local park, to clear brambles, weeds and rubbish, rounding off with a celebratory picnic.

One year?! How can it be?! GoodGym Bromley started back in April 2017 in Bromley central, but we have been running from our start point in Penge since July last year, an anniversary well worth celebrating! In the year or so that our group have been together, we have totted up some pretty impressive totals.

• Good deeds: 340

• Group runs: 66

• Coach visits: 31

• Km run: 4350

• Organisations helped (approx): 20

That's an awful lot of very positive acts, to make a difference in our local community and a lot of hours spent getting to know each other better en route. A shout-out to those in attendance tonight, Stuart (who was there at the start!), Hannah, Louise, Jane, Clare, Rachael and Bradley. A shout-out also to Louise, who was unable to join us, but completed her 50th good deed the other day, whilst on a coach visit! Well done Louise, only our second runner to reach this milestone!

As we were in the party mood and laden down with treats for our post-run picnic, it was a leisurely saunter up to Crystal Palace Park for us tonight, where we stored our supplies in exchange for some loppers, shears, litter-pickers and gloves. Penny showed us where our attention was to be focused this week and thanked us for returning here one year on. Grabbing whichever tool took our fancy, we quickly found a role to embrace, with a few people cutting back brambles, bindweed and nettles and others picking litter...a task that can become truly engrossing (I find), especially when people have been releasing party poppers onto the grass...

Clare and Stuart worked hard in the entrance to the Secret Garden, making sure the area was passable and safe. We all commented on how early the blackberries were and took advantage of their ripeness to have a mid-task treat. Bag in hand, Jane did some blackberrying, with the help of Stuart and his handy extendable snipping tool, teamwork. As always, we were so engaged in our individual jobs that we failed to notice time passing quickly and were soon heading back to the container, to pack up before our fitness session (yes, a fitness session - some thought we were cutting straight to the picnic!).

Plank you very much

A few old favourites to warm us up, some knee-tag and a very competitive game of cones. This was followed by a 1km chain gang run, with sprinters catching up from behind, a good exercise in pacing. Continuing this relay theme, we revisited a popular (mwah-ha-ha-ha!) plank game, where everyone showed great determination.

How lucky we are to have our 'Pengiversary' in July and to have such a wonderful space to enjoy our celebrations! Thank you to everyone for entering into this in true GoodGym spirit, bringing, sharing and joining in. There were some lovely treats and a bit of birthday fun with candles, singing and all :) We talked a bit about our favourite tasks, with the food bank at Living Well being popular (with the run on January 2nd being particularly memorable, in freezing rain!), I have fond memories of the time we all turned out in the snow and ice and, as it was too dangerous to run, walked together, chatting all the way. It seems adverse weather is popular!

On Saturday and Sunday this week we have an additional opportunity to do good, with a community mission to the Upper Norwood Library Hub, to try and progress the development of the shed. Why not sign up?! Next Tuesday I will be away, so the group run will be led by Paul, the trainer for GoodGym Camden and Islington. Have fun and make Paul feel very welcome!

Thank you all for a wonderful year and here's to many more fantastic group runs together!

A nifty nine covered around 4km of running (including a very big hill!) and got busy with the most complicated shed ever.

(Thank you to Bradley and Vic for sharing some photos).

We didn't have any newcomers joining us this week (maybe we need to introduce a 'bring-a-friend' week...?), but it was lovely to welcome Vic, who cycled a very long way on the promise of shed action. Vic normally hangs out with our neighbours at GoodGym Lewisham, but fancied a bit of tourism. Welcome!

On such a gorgeous evening, it was very tempting to stay in the pub garden and enjoy a refreshing drink, but that's not why we came! Off we went to Crystal Palace Park, where we played a game of It Squat, then a bit of round and round, up and down thingie...but it was really rather warm anyway, so off we headed, in the knowledge that this run would include a very big hill. I'm sure that hill has got steeper since we last ran up it, but we found our way to the top and were only a short way from our destination, at the Upper Norwood Library Hub. We found ourselves straight away in the Library of Things which, as you can see from the photos, is a treasure trove of useful items, to be borrowed as and when you need them (Tom, who is organising our GoodGym Olympic Games this week, borrowed a sander from here, to smooth the edges of the GG medals!). We were really pleased to be provided with ice-cold water, perfect after our uphill run in the heat, thank you!

A shed-load of fun!

Refreshed and ready to get stuck in (I had a sneak-preview of the instructions and realised we really did need to get on!), we headed outside to the car park at the rear of the building. Here, we found the ready-built base and a part-built shed. In my head, I had pictured wooden panels, which you could slot together, making an instant shed - ta-daaaah! How wrong was I?! For a while we all stood and stared, not really knowing where to start. Nate though, being level-headed and methodical, picked up the instructions and made a start. With help from Bradley and Rachael, he built one of the strips that supports the roof panels (we think). While the rest of us waited to move onto the next section, we did a quick litter-pick around the car park, not wishing to waste our valuable time. Once the shed-building got going, there were three teams working on lengths of roof struts, while others counted out nuts and bolts and others kept everything orderly. Tim took lots of photos of the instructions, so that we could spend some time outside the task to get to know our way round them...I think we have all been spoilt with Ikea and Lego instructions, which really are a doddle!

The nuts and bolts of it

Just as we worked everything out and got a system going, it was time to leave(!). We decided that we really do want to see this project through and will arrange a community mission one weekend to make it happen (you definitely need longer than half an hour for this one). Handing back the instructions and saying goodbye, it was time for us to run downhill, back through the park. Now, there has been a lot of talk of the GG Olympic Games but, as we are aware that lots of people can't make it (we have groups all over the country now), there is another opportunity to join in the fun, through the Nationwide Race. This is a 1km race, that you can do anywhere you like, any time between now and Thursday June 28th. What's really great about it is that you don't have to be speedy (though there are prizes for this), because you can win on elevation, creativity (create some Strava art?), take a great photo of the view you see, or you might be lucky in being drawn out of the hat to win the raffle. Every winner receives a medal in the post, how lovely is that? To give everyone a chance to join in, we visited our 'Time Trial' area and those who wanted to (Stuart, Louise, Vic and Tim) ran the kilometer or so as fast as they could - really strong running from everyone!

Next week we will return to Forest Hill Station to water the no doubt very thirsty plants on the station platform. This will be a run of around 5km and a great task that you can view from the train. Sign up here to join us.

For 90 minutes of impressive play (and graft), nine super goal-focussed runners took on 4km and cleared a bed of weeds and rogue plants.

No first-timers tonight, but it was great to welcome back Ian, who has been on his travels, this time doing what sounds like a GoodGym task taken to the extreme. Spending time in Argentina with Habitat, Ian worked with a team of volunteers to help families build their own homes. He told us about the challenges they faced, wheeling supplies, materials and equipment across a muddy space each day before they could even get started. All this hard work paid off though, with the foundations fully in place and ready for the next team to come in and help build the walls. What an amazing experience, well done Ian!

Ian also mentioned this race, that's happening tomorrow evening at Norman Park. Short notice, but if you're feeling 10k-ready, you might like to join in!

As this week's task was taking us into Crystal Palace Park, we headed that way for our warm-up, playing a little game of Shark Attack. Great work from our team of sharks, Louise, Hannah and then Jane, who ran hard to try and catch their prey.

It's always lovely to run alongside the lake, sweeping up and around, then to grit our teeth to take on the hills that lie ahead. It felt particularly challenging this evening, in the heat, so well done all! We were met at the Crystal Palace Museum by Mehul, who showed us the area that we were due to clear. As you can see from the photos, it was incredibly overgrown, with sycamore, buddleia, dandelions and grass taking over, in between the plants we were to leave intact. I was very pleased to get a 'before' picture on this task, because the transformation is quite something!

Clocking on

As everyone got stuck in, I wandered over to the 'shed' to collect some more tools and was delighted to have a little behind-the-scenes look inside the space that used to be used for timekeeping, where you can still see 'in' and 'out' painted on the wall.

With heads down, everyone worked incredibly quickly, pulling up weeds, raking away grass, digging up sycamores and sweeping it all away, with Stephen working solidly on wheelbarrow duty. Gathering up the last bits of greenery to be taken to the compost heap, we all paused to watch a local park rat having a good sniff around - eeeeeek! - then asked a few questions about the space, which Mehul kindly answered for us. I think we'll have to come along one Sunday to learn some more!

Run for the hills!

Our position put us in a great spot to run along the top of the park, towards a nice little (but steep) hill, for our fitness session. We did have to pause en route to capture a line-up with the transmitter in the background :) Partnering up, our teams took it in turns to run up and down the hill, with partners working on strength, through walking lunges, push-ups and sitting squats. Feel the burn!

Next week we have a very interesting task lined up, at the Upper Norwood Library Hub, home to the Library of Things. This will be the first time we've built a shed together, so maybe study some flat-pack instructions to gear yourselves up for this construction challenge!

See you soon!