19 GoodGymers ran 7.5k to help One Big Family helping the homeless charity in Victoria.

Great to have you all along this evening for a fun filled Wednesday run in Westminster!

Weaving a steady 3.5 route South through the bustle of Central London life down to the Ebury Estate in Victoria.

Meeting Mike who set us up with our job for the evening. With more and more being asked of the small Charity, resources are coming in and going out at a crazy rate!

All the clothing we sorted 4 short weeks ago that filled a storage shed have been donated to Westminster’s homeless and vulnerable. It was time for the next influx on donations to come in. But before we could do that space was needed!!

With a flat on the Estate being vacated on Saturday the contents are being donated to the charity so they can give to needing individuals and families.

We had to play Tetris wars cramming 3 storage sheds into 2! Piling boxes and boxes of nappies, bedding, tables and anything else needed while separating the baby food out to be taken to a family day centre on Friday.

35 minutes flashed by and we had successfully completed the task! Allowing vital help to be given in terms of donations to Westminster’s most in need. And clearing the decks so that the now 4 times a week Homeless food run in Victoria to take place smoothly.

Adding a bit of pace into the run on the way back we zipped up to Buckingham Palace before summoning our efforts for speedy dash up the Green Park drag!

Thanks for all your hard work, see you next week for our trip to the Canal and River Trust to maintain our adopted piece of Little Venice Canal.

Have a great week!

Joel

Last night we had a round 50 superstar runners to help Lambeth celebrate FIVE YEARS of running to community groups and supporting isolated older people across the borough. We've had a cracking time of it and achieved so much, so a massive THANK YOU to every single person who has been part of our half decade!

John H led a lovely warm up, including the DANGER GAME where 50 people run at random around a dark space then say Hello to new people. It's quite the health and safety risk but surely worth if for all the nice new people we meet along the way.

We had options coming out of our ears this evening - some people chose to walk 1km to the Remakery led by Tom Benson; others chose to run that distance with Katie; some ran as far as Loughborough Farm with Steve, where they did a solid job of spreading woodchip across all the paths; yet more still went on a 4.5km long way round run to the Remakery led by George. Something for everyone, I think you would agree!

Massive thanks to GoodGym for record time scattering woodchip at Loughborough Farm! Said Karen

On arrival at the Remakery, Miguel had lots of moving and sorting for us to do. This fantastic space rescues stuff that would otherwise go to landfill and provides tools and training for people to make wonderful new bits of furniture and other useful things. We've been helping them for a few months as they have a bit of a spring clean and this evening was no different. The woodwork room got a big sweep and hoover, lots of big bits of furniture got taken out of the way and we moved the tool cupboard from A to B and filled it up with tools again. What a great job!

Back at the farm, Steve was leading a crack team of woodchip spreaders, who were also taking the time to pose for a Birthday Shoot on the woodchip pile - we think you'll agree Andy and David look wonderful.

And with that we were all back to base for a bit of fitness and some stretches then the main event: CAKE! Nicky and Phil are fundraising for their London marathon efforts and they had baked a lot of delicious things, as had Beth. We gave our pennies and our pounds and stocked up on delicious stuff. Everyone was a winner and it was a truly celebratory way to finish the evening. You too can sponsor the running duo by visiting their fundraising pages. Sponsor Nicky and Phil as a birthday present to Lambeth!

Here's to the next 5 years!

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.