Well done to all our Big Half runners this weekend - I assume your noticeable absence this evening was due to recovering from all that fantastic running yesterday!

Your love, lifting me flyer // Than I've ever been flyered before

Cracking dedication to the double-digit (just!) group of runners that made it out in the cold this evening to deliver flyers for the wonderful Marsha Phoenix Memorial Trust. You can read more about their fabulous work here, and buy a ticket to their charity comedy night here.

So post it up // Quench my de-flyer // And I'll be at your letterbox, forever more

We did a quick mexican-wave of warm-ups, which went exceedingly well now that everyone is getting used to the format before setting off up Lewisham Way. We split out into three groups to cover off the warren of streets around Hilly Fields, regularly reconvening at pre-agreed meeting points.

Now once, I was down-and-out-of-flyers // Disappointment, was my postest friend

Thanks to this evening's map-wielders Oliver, Michael and Michael - great working interpreting my somewhat questionable instructions and making sure no-one got lost. Thanks also to Caireen for back-marking on our way out and back, much appreciated!

But then you posted and it soon departed // And you know he never // Showed his flyer again

We soon ran out of flyers, so with plenty of time to spare I treated everyone to some reps of Hilly Fields. I set people off at 5 second intervals, within a 90 second timeframe so that everyone could pick their pace and recovery time, trading one for the other. It also meant that everyone could run out and back together, for a bit of friendly motivation along the way.

With a quick stop off at the crest of Hilly Fields to admire the twinkly view across London, we were back at Glass Mill with plenty of time to spare, and a relatively earlier dinner time than usual!

Have a great week everyone, see you all soon.

Turns out song titles make great flyer-related puns. The observant among you might remember this flyer pun from a previous run report. Song suggestions for our next flyering task will be gratefully received!

It was the first group run in what felt like forever that it wasn’t raining!! But it was still windy, can’t win them all I guess.

A quick warm up of trying to make sure we didn’t get blown away and we began to make our way to Chelwood Nursery School which is mostly uphill...but that means it’s downhill on the way back!!

We were met at the task by a couple of GoodGymmers sheltering from the wind in a classroom, near the bananas and Kit Kat’s!

There were some big tasks to get stuck into, these were: - Raking the sand pit and checking for buried treasure - Moving the sand from the giant bag to the sand pit and spreading it out evenly - Wheelbarrowing a giant bag of bark to various points in the playground - Removing Velcro ties from the railings

Everyone got stuck into the tasks and it was great to see all the giant bags of sand/bark reducing in size and being delivered around the playground.

Emma was enjoying moving sand from a very large bag with 2 very tiny spades (or shovels) so much that I thought I’d have to leave her there to finish the job...until a larger spade was found for the task!

Before I knew it, it was time to finish up and we headed inside for a group photo which looked rather like a school photo!

On the way back I asked everyone to have a chat with someone they didn’t know to find out an interesting fact about each other and the most exciting would win. There was no prize but I didn’t say that and got to hear some very interesting conversations on the downhill run back to Glassmill.

Good luck to everyone running the Big Half at the weekend and like I said if you want to forward plan by a whole year then because we live in a borough it runs through and volunteer with GoodGym then we usually have community places available for £10.

Otherwise in less than a years time there’s volunteering options at the Hackney Half in May and plenty of missions - check out the website for more details.

Welcome to those running their first group run with us last night, I hope you enjoyed yourselves!

A super quick warm up (off the grass as it was pretty muddy) and we were on our way to GRACE. It's a pretty busy road that we follow the whole way there so not exactly picturesque but we kept together as a group with Ian doing an excellent job of backmarking.

We arriving at GRACE, picking up a couple of extra goodgymmers that had met us at the task.

Season's Sortings

The task for this evening was to sort the winter clothes (that had already been sorted once, so I wasn't expecting any of the usual random finds) into categories of: mens, womens, girls and boys and then sort further into sizes.

Once the sorted sorted clothes were in their crates, we needed to bag them up and label them. There was an excellent labeling system going on, making it all very streamlined.

I couldn't resist putting on some plastic gloves myself and joining in the sorting.

Spring, Summer, Autumn, Ski-suit

Winter was done and all in the correct bags ready to be shipped, we can forget about winter now, it's gone. Time to move onto summer!!

We made a start on the sorted cage of summer clothes with only 10 minutes left, we didn't quite make it through the entire cage but we gave it a good start.

No one seemed to want to stop so I had to announce that whatever you're holding....you have to wear. No, don't worry, just had to get it into its correct pile and be in position for the group photo.

We began to make our way back to Glassmill and at that point I realised Emma wasn't with us and I was sure I was the last person to leave GRACE. Turns out she wasn't spending the night sorting clothes, she'd just got the bus home.

A quick stretch in the warmth of Glassmill and working out just how short of a run next weeks task is, it was time for one more document check (4 in one evening, got to be a record)!

If you'd like to take part in missions that require a DBS check or you'd like to start coach running, please bring your ID documents to a group run so that I can check them.

On a chilly January evening, 25 runners and walkers covered 5km to help out at Crofton Books

It’s our birthday! We are four! That’s four years of making a big difference in Lewisham. We have helped numerous community groups, rain or shine, our runners have visited older people in their homes to help change a light bulb, tidy up a garden or move some heavy furniture and we have visited isolated people for a weekly chat.

Just take a look at the stats:

Good deeds: 6,816

Coach visits: 1,478

Missions: 352

The amazing thing that happens over time, is that we not only help others deal with isolation, we help ourselves feel less isolated, building up this incredible community and making what will probably be lifelong friends. Our runners have joined us sometimes as beginners and have gone on to build up their distance, strength and confidence, some smashing goals they didn’t think they could reach. Well done to everyone who has come along over those four years, you’re amazing.

Talking of amazing, two of our runners have completed 200 of those good deeds between them! Congratulations to Clare and Rebecca, who have both earned their wings this week.

On Saturday we had a starter session after parkrun in Hilly Fields, picking litter and keeping the park looking lovely. You can read all about this here. This coming Saturday there is another opportunity to join in during the day, with a community mission in Luxmore Gardens - if you have never visited this space, it’s well worth joining in, it’s pretty special.

Tonight saw our annual birthday visit to Crofton Books, with Emma kindly leading the runners after a little warm-up (and my, did we need it, it’s certainly turned a bit colder!). Thank you also to Caireen (who has been with us since day one, as has Jacqueline!) for back-marking and keeping us all together.

On arrival at Crofton Books, Jason talked us through the various jobs, with some more physically challenging than others. We had:

• shelf shifting
• book lifting
• poetry writing
• shelf shining
• book sorting
• love seeking (searching out books for the Valentine's shelf)

As always, time slipped by at pace and we found ourselves gathering to hear the beautiful words of John and Stephen (sadly, I didn't get a copy of all of the haikus and Stephen's poem, but they will no doubt be on display in the shop).

No visit to Crofton Park would be complete without a little run up and down Hilly Fields finest incline. Well done everyone on pushing hard and working on your form!

After our run, some of us headed to Mamma Dough in Ladywell, to tuck in to some delicious pizza and the gorgeous birthday cake they had made for us - a nutella-stuffed doughy number four, with four candles (or fork handles...?). Thank you!

Next week will be business as usual, heading out to continue our good work. Our task is yet to be confirmed, but sign up anyway and take a lucky dip!

See you soon x

Wowzers, what an evening! Huge kudos to every one of you who battled gale force winds to make it out for our group run this evening! A special welcome to Olivia who joined us for the first time after an excellent recommendation from her sister who runs with GoodGym in Brighton. And welcome back to Sophie who had such a lovely time last week that another group run was totally worth braving the weather for!

After a relatively chaotic bit of route planning we split into teams, with the rather biased choice between Team Run-Far with me, Team Most-Trees with Kim and Team Fingers-Crossed with John (ably assisted by Magda who is much more familiar with the local territory).

We headed outside for a not-so-warm then with the rain lashing down, we set off towards Hilly Fields to comb the local streets for rogue trees and drag them to the drop-off points at the corners of the park.

• Team Run-Far traded kilometers for trees, finding only 4 trees (one of which had been abandoned literally over the road from the drop-off point - we lucked out with that one!)
• Team Most-Trees lived up to Kim's confidence, dragging in a winning total of 9 trees
• Team Fingers-Crossed didn't get lost (hurrah!) and managed a solid 5 trees

Not quite as magnificent as last year's total of 53 trees (even accounting for this year's smaller group size - I've done the maths) but doubly as impressive given the weather!

Take a look at the starter session coming up after Hilly Fields parkrun this weekend, and next week's lovely group run at Crofton Books followed by our 4th birthday social at Mamma Dough.

Happy running everyone, have a good rest of the week!