It was a big night for one runner who reached his 100th good deed. Nice one PHIL WOODALL. An incredible achievement and looking absolutely fly in those angel wings 👌

Tonight’s task was at St Michael’s Fellowship. They host vulnerable families for a few weeks and get counselling etc. It’s really fab.

But first we had to get there.

We split into three groups, taking short, medium and long routes and were all blessed with a deceivingly long hill up to our destination - ideal for improving fitness levels.

We visited to help with a few jobs that would help brighten up the place. Expecting to have just a couple of tasks, we were given a lovely loooong list of things to do. Perfect for this evening’s rather large group.

🎨3 walls to be painted: sunshine yellow, pearly white & DEEP PURPLE.

🎁 Wrapping presents for the residents. It turns out we have some very neat wrappers in Lambeth and it was decided that the BALL PIT was easily the best present.

🛋 Steam cleaning the chairs. It made them quite wet but the steam team decided that was probably the idea

🧼 Cleaning the windows

🧴Cleaning the skirting boards

🧽 Dusting the surfaces and cobwebs.

I think that was it.

Everyone was very swift at getting their tasks done, apart from the purple painters who took their sweet time but did a very thorough job.

We all ran back and had a quick stretch.

Don’t forget next Tuesday is our Brixmas party where there will be a banging quiz from Steve and George as well as 2019’s S*** PRIZE OF THE YEAR.

We also have a group run before with options of gardening jobs at Jubilee Primary or playing board games with the residents of Charleston House. Sign up here.

A WHOPPING 39 RUNNERS braced the 3-degree chillz 🥶 to help not one but TWO organisations on Tuesday night.

One group turned into a postie 📫 squad for the evening and delivered almost 1,000 flyers ✈️ for a local primary school around the Brixton area, whilst the other group headed up to Stockwell to shift a lot of earth 🌍 for a community garden.

We warmly (once we were inside) welcome some fantastic new runners this evening, so head over and give a cheer to Anna, Jon, Ranulph, Sarah, Shauna and Becca! 👋🏽👋🏻👋🏼👋🏿

INTERMISSION: Please find below the mathematical equation that validates this report's pun:

DOUBLE TROUBLE: we split into TWO groups, doing TWO tasks and thus helping TWO organisations

TOIL: the Spurgeon Estate group was subjected to some gruelling lifting on-task and some pumping bodyweight drills afterwards. The Richard Atkins group had to shift over 900 flyers in 30 minutes.

AND: a truth-functional operator of logical conjunction

RUBBLE: we had to move a shit tonne of rubble

Please send pun of the month award and / or prize money to: Goodgym Lambeth, Papa's Park, Brixton

Ok, onto the actual run reports. First, Tom Benson and the Richard Atkins Primary flyering squad:

So me and a merry band of 16 Goodgymers hopped on the good foot and jogged up Brixton hill to Richard Atkins Primary School. Where we met Owen who gave us our mission, which was he had 1,000 leaflets promoting their early years centre which had spaces available in January and they wanted us to spread the word around the area.

As every single person in Tom's group said,

I believe I can fly(er)

So getting into teams of 2, folks splits up and got leafleting. Within 20 minutes we had covered the surrounding area all that was left was the long road home. So split into two teams we efficiently worked like a goodgym caterpilla and made our way down the 1 km road making sure we posted to every door. All in all we delivered around 900 leaflets. All that was left was to jog back and stretch it off. Nice one team, you were all great posties.

And then, the Spurgeon Estate team:

23 of us headed 1.8k up to Stockwell to meet Fred, an organiser of the Spurgeon Estate community gardens. The gardens have recently expanded, turning an area called 'The Secret Garden' from a locked-up wasteland into a productive and beautiful garden with raised beds (which we helped build back in July) and lots of edible nature that goes straight onto the plates of those on the Estate. Fred needed a huge team to shift some displaced earth and rubble, which had been bagged up in the garden and was soon to be taken away - but guess what IT NEEDED TO BE OUT ON THE STREET FOR COLLECTION. Not a problem for these guys.

As Fred said when she saw us arrive,

I knew you moved rubble when you came in

There's only so much you can say about moving sacks of dirt but the highlight was one of the most highly-functioning (and sassy) GOODGYM LAMBETH HUMAN CHAINS ever seen. A lot of people had a go at thinking of chain puns because we were so proud of the chain. Here are but a few:

1. A chain of scenery will do your good
2. No chain, no gain
3. A chain is as good as a rest

And then we ran back to Papa's for the classic 3-team competitive bodyweight drills. Everybody won. The end.