Six Brent GoodGymers ran 8k to Sufra Community Food Bank and Kitchen to weed an area of community garden.

On a bright and airy bank holiday Monday we had a evening of GoodGym firsts! With Elle away on holiday I had the privilege of leading the fine Brent GoodGym crew for the First time, on day release from Team Hackney we set about navigating our way to the Stonebridge Estate. For the First time for any of us on a GoodGym run there were more males than females and it was also the first time I had broken the 8k barrier on a GoodGym run! Top running guys!! 🏃🏽🏃🏃🏻🏃🏿

Following the 4K run to Sufra Community Food Bank and Kitchen we got to work collecting the tooling from the quickly developing community garden and were super impressed with the progressed made. We gloved up and speedily removed all the weeds from a soon to be herb garden digging out and pulling out every weed in sight. In 30 solid minutes of work we dominated the task and cleared the flower bed of 2 full bin bags of weeds.

After a huge thanks from Dina from Sufra we headed back to base with improved pace and navigation making up time as we powered our way home.

A top evening of GoodGym action was rounded off with a series of static stretches before we headed off into the night with a job well done.

Thank you for looking after me and working so hard on the task!

Hope to see you at another Brent Group run soon or if you fancy coming out East Team Hackney would love to welcome you to H-Town on a Tuesday evening.

Elle will be back next week for some more fun on the fun.

Enjoy your week, and good luck to those racing the Hackney half! See you on the start line!!

Smooth Running

Joel

This week 25 glorious good-deeders graced the streets of Islington for our third journey to Sunnyside Community Gardens. An amazing community garden in Archway that is for all to enjoy and specialises in therapeutic horticulture for those with physical and mental disabilities.

Among us were first timers Nadia, Del, Katherine, Ceiran, Kim, David and David. A very warm welcome!

We split into three groups for the journey up: fast feet folk led by Graham, medium men and women taken by David and philosophers with Simon.

On our journey up we discussed how we all had an axe to grind with drivers. Apparently lots of things bug us about them: not indicating, tailgating, middle lane hogging, opening car doors on cyclists, stopping for no reason, not stopping at zebra crossings, not pulling over far enough, speeding, cutting up cyclists, and simply existing. Stupid drivers.

Anyway, we made it to the task without getting run over and met our hosts, the ever-keen Yvonne and Alan, who had plenty for us to do.

Half of us continued cutting back brambles and branches from the garden's corner. Loppers and secateurs were in action as usual, but some of the slightly thicker branches needed an AXE. Check out the photos and tell me these guys aren't having fun. There were a couple of wheelbarrows and buckets in action as a few of us carried the discarded foliage to its resting spot.

At the other end of the garden the rest of the GoodGymmers wielded shovels and spades (yeah, axes aren't the only things you can wield) and set about clearing a path of woodchip and made a gigantic pile held in place by some of the logs we shifted a couple of weeks ago.

Today's biscuit break took the form of a Bourbon Cream. Quite a popular choice.

Before heading off Richard showed Simon the "Skunk Cabbage" (Lysichiton americanus) in the garden's pond (see photos). I've read up on it and apparently "... it contains calcium oxalate crystals, which result in a gruesome prickling sensation on the tongue and throat and can result in intestinal irritation and even death if consumed in large quantities" Glad we remembered the Bourbons.

For the journey back we got into the same three groups. David's group sped off, Graham added in a few hill reps before zooming home and Simon's group played secret surges and took the blurriest selfie ever.

Another week of getting fit and doing good. Excellent tasking and running everybody. That's what it's all about.

Next week we're off to Barnsbury Square Gardens. Don't miss it!

Simon

P.S. William's head was not chopped off by an axe in the group photo.

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.