7 awesome do-gooders ran 3km to help clear leaves in Russell Square!

Firstly thanks to Sammy for pun credit! That has saved me 4 hours this morning trying to think of one! So cheers!

Wow great work yesterday everyone! What a lovely afternoon for a run. We met at Brock St and headed down to Russell Square dodging the people traffic on our way. We arrived and met with David one of the volunteers who firstly greeted us with bad news saying we have no bags and few rakes as the park keeper wandered off... but thankfully he returned just in time!

We handed out gloves, rakes, leaf grabbers and huuuuuge bags and walked up down to a section of the park that had been pre-prepared for us to make leaf collecting even easier!

Another volunteer group also arrived, not the most chatty of bunches but we tried nonetheless. Then we had some general members of the public getting involved too... isn't that a wonderful thing!

You might think Russell Square is managed by Camden Council and for the most part it is, but they rely heavily on volunteer groups for big tasks like this which go a long way into helping preserve the plants and wildlife in the park so what you did yesterday was a MASSIVE help.

After about 40 minutes, the place had been truly transformed. Yes there was the odd leaf still lying around but we had filled about 15 sacks full of leaves which is really amazing!!

We dragged them all to the side, had a group photo and watched as the park keeper cycled around with his rather sad and now broken bell trying to get people out of the park! We had a little jog back to the office, some light stretches and we were done!

Great work everyone! David was delighted with all the work you did, so huge thanks! See you next time!

Five Goodgymers ran 4-5k to help the Story Garden in Somers Town!

Welcome along to newbie Mercedes - great to have you along!

This month's addition of the GGxFacebook Run we were helping the wonderful Story Garden, a new community garden that opens next week. There are run by Global Generation, who are an educational environmental charity that teaches local kids about growing/gardening, and supports the local community.

Massive help!

After a 1km run we arrived, checked in with Martina and talked through their big plans! She set us to work with four tasks which we did in turn:

1. Shifting bags of compost that will be used to fill planters in the polly tunnel.
2. Next we moved some heavy oak sleepers and laid them out in position for the big planters to be made.
3. Following on we split into two teams - one pair collected up cut ends of woods to pile up. The space will be used to put up a yurt today!
4. Lastly we collected up and piled up big pieces of rubble, which will help to make the site be less like and building site.

Martina and the team at Story Garden are so appreciative of our work, you guys are really helping to build a local community garden from scratch. Come back in a few weeks and see how much it's grown!

After all that fantastic work we took a group picture and then headed to Granary Square for a progressive lap - nice!

We are arranging our next run for early August, keep an eye out and bring your friends!

PB out

8 Goodgymers ran 5km to help Cecil Sharp House

Thanks for coming along to the GGxFacebook Group Run. Welcome to the newbies!

So a bit about GoodGym, Ivo Gormley founded this wonderful charity nearly nine years ago for people to do good and get fit! Our mission is to help our communities with physical tasks and reduce loneliness through projects with older persons. There are three ways of doing good with us:

1. Group Run - First way is a group run, which you went on last night. As a group we meet in 45 areas around the UK on a weekly basis, we run to local charity do something physical for 30 minutes and run back.
2. Missions - these are one off and happen with 2-4 people, the idea is to help older persons in their home with something like setting up a hospital bed, moving furniture or gardening.
3. Coach Running - this is where you go visit an old isolated person once a week to have a chat and keep them company.

After a quick intro we warmed up and were rearing to go. We headed go Cecil Sharp House via Regents Park, still having the opportunity to run in the light at 5pm through the Royal Park. On the 2.5km run out the lead group stopped twice to do squats and shuttle runs - nice!

We arrived at Cecil Sharp House and met Mimi, she told us about the Home of English Folk Song and Dance, a charity that provides educational programmes and activities to the community. It also hosts weddings and events to keep the charity growing, making the permaculture garden vital to the space.

Armed with an array of tools we headed to the lawn to do some good! The target was yet again leaves, it is Autumn so they are everywhere! We raked the lawn with Katherine's special technique, brushed between the pavement cracks with the best tool in Camden and we collected up leaves on the stairs and pavement surrounding the lawn.

Over 30 minutes we collected together 10 bags of leaves that we will be used to make mulch/compost that will in turn feed the garden.

After a group picture we headed to Regents Park Inner Circle for an out and back challenge, and a 1km time trial -nice!

Well done to Julia who ran the furthest she's ever ran - 5km!

Thanks for coming guys and see you soon.

PB out