We were back at the Farm in the sunshine for our monthly mission. This time, we were were joined by Lydia from the Jo Cox Foundation as part of The Great Get Together weekend. The Farm needed our help sieving and mixing the compost for the vegetables greenhouse before we joined the piglets for feeding time!

Running from Peckham Rye station, Sam thought he would be late opening up Old Spike Roastery as he backmarked a group run at work just 20 minutes before.

With about 10 minutes to change shirt and compose himself, Saskia then Lindy and finally Emma arrived. Sam knew Rebecca and Zack would be meeting us there, so he got going with his GoodGym updates before heading outside for a warm-up.

Our ice-breaker question tonight was to do with it being World Ocean Day, so he wanted to know: What is your favourite Ocean creature?

With all the fish in the world, Saskia and Sam both said Sea Turtle whilst Lindy and Emma opted for the intelligent Octopus.

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Water you doing tonight?

Over the hill and down across over to Camberwell, the four of us went. There was no need for a backmarker as we kept as a group. Plus, we had plenty of time to get our 2.8k run done. In the end, it took us 18 minutes as we arrived to meet Alice and Paul outside The Wildlife Triangle.

There was a massive pile of woodchip, but we knew there was a task of watering plants, digging and sawing too. Everyone was raring to go, but with only one wheelbarrow on hand and three shovels, Alice had to quickly go and get two tonne bags so that the team could fill them with woodchip before transporting it over to another area on the estate.

Emma, Lindy and Saskia took a shovel each and within less than a minute the wheelbarrow was full. We waited awkwardly for directions as we did not know where Alice and Paul went. After a few minutes, Alice came around the corner with the tonne bags as we filled them Zack walked over. We immediately gave him the task to take the big yellow bucket, which was to be used for filling up with water to water the plants.

Emma, Lindy and Saskia worked together to drag over the woodchip for 2 trips before the latter two stayed on the other side to spread the woodchip whilst Emma made several trips with the wheelbarrow back to Sam who was guarding the woodchip mountain. In all of this, Rebecca walked to the task and Paul gave her the task of sawing an old woody branch near a fence before joining Emma with transporting woodchip.

We did a lot in the 45 minutes that we were there, but to quote Zack, "it didn't feel like 45 minutes". That's because you were having so much fun, Zack!

After putting back the tools and taking our group photo, we said our goodbyes as we dashed off down the more direct route to Peckham. Lindy headed towards Camberwell and Emma and Saskia peeled off at Peckham Library, so it was a sprint back to Old Spike for Sam.

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Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came and ran tonight! The same incline route via Grove Hill, but slightly longer than last week. Everyone was willing to get stuck in with the tasks at hand and I am always in awe of that. Alice, Paul and the volunteers of Elmington Estate Community Garden send their thanks to all of you!

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Thank You Alice

GoodGym is all about getting fit and doing good! We praise the runners/cyclists/walkers who come to get fit and help out, but we often forget about our task owner. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Alice for inviting us over to help out at your community garden. It seems like the Southwark Council is giving out all the woodchip they have! Looking forward to our next session, possibly in August? Just get in touch with me and we'll make it work.

With a three day working week, everyone was in high spirit! Sam had arrive at Old Spike Roastery fairly early as he does, but this time sporting a Union Jack bowler hat. Of course! It was the start of the Jubilee weekend.

Javier (Old Spike Roastery manager) and Sam were talking away when Daryl and Gemma walked in. Daryl had mentioned Gemma many times, so it was great to see that she actually exists 👀 It was a pleasure to have Gemma come along for her first Good Deed on a special group run. To add to the celebrations, Saskia arrived shortly afterwards for her second group run/good deed in a row! Benjamin, Emma and Nelly also meet us at Old Spike and Anna joined us for the last of the warm-up before our introductions...

Our ice-breaker question tonight was to do with the Queen's Platinum Jubilee. He wanted to know: What is your favourite thing about the Queen, the Royal family or if you are a "republican"; favourite thing about Britain?

We started off with Coronation Chicken and ended with her dedication to serve the interest of Britain in a role she was thrown into. Others provided: the Jubilee weekend, Meghan Markle and her beloved Corgis.

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Secret Escapes

Our group run, which was led by Sam and backmarked by Emma (thank you) both ways covered 4k in total, but the outbound run took us to our favourite hill to get us to Camberwell in the shortest amount of time as our run was covered in 15 minutes.

Alex and Anna (who had cycled there after our warm-up) were already in the Secret Garden with Cadence. Noticing that Emma was missing, Cadence gave a background to the Secret Garden whilst she took out the tools from the shed. After a few minutes, Emma finally found her way and we all set off to plant some hedges.

Cadence gave us some tips about planting hedges before we all took a shade (or fork) each and 1-2 hedge saplings to plant. With some "Best of British" playlist beltering out, we planted and watered the hedglings within 10-15 minutes. We still had 20-25 minutes on the clock, yet Cadence had a few tasks up her sleeve. She got half the group to weed outside the entrance of the Secret Garden whilst the other half took the smallest shades they could find to shovel some woodchip in a tonne bag to bring it back to the Secret Garden.

Sam being a stickler for the time called the session at 19:55 giving enough time to put away tools and take a group photo before the cyclists and runners split off. Yet, most pf us met back at Old Spike due to the social we had afterwards.

No HIIT or Squat session this time around due to the social, but it will be back next week!

Our social was supporting our (Old Spike's) neighbour, Bo Kiri, by buying can drinks (alcoholic and some non-alcoholic) before we walked over to find a "sunny spot" in Peckham Rye park.

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Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came and ran tonight! Our traditional route with the added incline (Grove Hill) was back! It's a pleasure to get the numbers that we had as the task owner (this time, Cadence) can really see the benefits of GoodGym. Thanks to all those who stayed for the social in Peckham Rye Park too!

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Thank You Cadence

GoodGym is all about getting fit and doing good! We praise the runners/cyclists/walkers who come to get fit and help out, but we often forget about our task owner. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Cadence for thinking on your feet after we completed the main task that we came over for within 10-15 minutes. It is always a delight and we're looking forward to our next session in a month or two.