29 GoodGymers braced the drizzle with GoodGym Camden on Wednesday night's run up to the Kentish Town City Farm.

Turning up at the Living Centre to locked doors and nobody at Reception, we decamped to the main Crick Institute reception for our intro. We had a load of new runners with us tonight, as well as a group of tourists from GoodGym Tower Hamlets. Welcome Andy, May, and Khaliun! You certainly picked a good night to join us, and I hope you enjoyed yourselves.

We'll be running back to the Kentish Town City Farm next week for the marquee takedown by the way - get your name down for some goat petting and manure-bag moving!

After a rapid fire intro and warmup we got going - so the question was asked of the new runners to find out what actuallyis the difference between a community mission and a mission? Do you know? Answers at the bottom of this report please!

Our task

Arriving to the sweet smell of wafting manure, we met Mel from the City Farm who told us all about the task:

• Assembling and erecting the two marquees ahead of their annual Apple Day on Sunday.

We split into two teams and got stuck in, using wheelbarrows, people power and our headtorches - thanks again this week Hanry - we marched up to the field to get them built.

Teams seem to be becoming a regular thing in these reports, and this week was no different; Marquee Team A were pitted against Marquee Team B in the battle of the marquees.

Which poles went where proved to be a challenge for both teams, but with the best GoodGym minds at work both marquees were up in 15 minutes flat, with Team B being the far and away winners. With both marquees up, it was time to gather the manure bags to tie to the bottom of the poles to make sure they didn't fly away in a gust of wind.

With our task completed - and 24 bags of poo tied (pendulously some might add) - we assembled for a team photo and after an extra 5 minutes petting the goats and checking on the piggies we said goodbye to Mel and sprinted back to the Living Centre for a cool down and - for some of us - a trip to the pub.

Next time

COMMUNITY MISSIONS GALORE: As mentioned on the run, there's not one but TWO community missions to get stuck in with this week. Thursday (24th) will be another trip to Story Garden. Turn up from 5pm and help do some good with Abi. For those of you who can't do weekdays, Mel and the team would love to see you up at the Kentish Town City Farm on the Apple Day itself this coming Sunday from 11am-4pm. Liz is organising this one - head here to sign up. Don't worry if you can't do the whole time, just comment on the signup page which hours you can do.

NEXT WEEK: So next time, we'll be running back up to the Kentish Town City Farm for Apple Day Part 2 (The Takedown!) to take down the marquees we put up last night. It's yet another opportunity to pet the goats and see the oinking pigs, so there really is no excuse good enough not to attend.

Happy Running!

Ben

*28 Goodgymers ran 4-11.5k to help SPCA and St Mungos! *

Welcome along to newbies Emily, Ellie, Catherine and Ellie - lovely to have you along!

In the news this week:

1. There are Community Missions helping Somers Town Community Festival next Saturday - details here and here!
2. It's the Night of the PB's this Saturday at Hampstead Heath!
3. Monthly Social today in Kilburn from 6.30pm; go along and have fun! Full details here.

St Mungo's Long Run:

Fourteen brave GoodGymers volunteered for GG Camden's longest run ever! I did the intro early and rather fast (Steve said it was my best ever haha) so we had more time to get over to West Hampstead. We set off on an adventure, up past Cecil Sharp House, around the side of Primrose Hill, over to Swiss Cottage and then up Finchley (lands that I've never been before). We kept a really good pace and everyone did brilliantly.

Perfect amount of task

We arrived and met Janice who gave us gloves, bin bags and water. Our task was to weed and clear the entire back garden. It was overgrown and clearly unused by the residents of the St Mungo's hostel. This fantastic homeless charity helps house and support people from across the community. Our help will mean they can now use the the garden and perhaps even plant some flowers/veg.

Over 20 minutes we made piles and piles of weeds, debris and dead plants. People took in turns to empty bin bags in the green recycling bin out front. In no time at all we were finished, group photo done and then we headed back home along the same route.

Leafleting task for SPCA:

Fifteen awesome GoodGymers, led by Frances, went to leaflet for the fantastic St Pancras Community Association (SPCA). We've helped these guys lots before with Christmas decorations, dancing and even a core class! This time we were leafleting over 400 flyers for their Community Festival which is happening in late July - nice!

Greece Lighting!

The group first ran 1km to the centre, collected the leaflets from Nicola and then split into groups of 4-5 to deliver them across the designated areas in Camden. After successfully delivering all of the leaflets the team collected together and headed to Granary Square along the canal, where they suitably got distracted by Greece showing on the big Wimbledon Screen (fair enough guys)

Another brilliant night of GoodGym, sign up for next week's run here when we'll be helping Story Garden!

PB out

28 GoodGymers ran 4-8k to help St Christopher's Place and St Mungo's!

Thanks for coming along guys! The GG Monthly Social is tonight in Old Street at the Prince Arthur from 6.30pm - sign up here.

I'm sad to say I will be leaving my role as Camden Trainer in August, I'm going to be moving to Sheffield to do a Masters. I'll miss you all very much and of course we'll have a leaving party!

St Mungo's Report:

Eleven of us headed of to help a new task up near Swiss Cottage - St Mungo's! This is a fantastic homeless charity that has sites all over the London and the UK. We had a lovely run up there, avoiding Primrose Hill and passing some big houses. Upon our arrival Kat and Will met us to make our group thirteen!

Our task was simple but effective to clear all and any weeds in four parts of the garden, open up the back garden as it was heavily outgrown and bag up any dead plants that were already piled up. Splitting into two's, three's and four's we got to work and made a huge impact in 20 minutes - Abi said it was the hardest she'd ever worked at GoodGym - nice!

Overall we collected up 17 bags of weeds, debris and rubbish - well done! After a group picture we headed home via Primrose Hill for the view and lesson of running downhill - all the fun.

Poo Hand Kate

St Christopher's Report:

The other group went to St. Christopher's where they pulled up weeds (assisted by "the weed lady" and a small child), cut down a sapling that had pretensions of being a tree, and swept/cleaned the area. Katie unfortunately seems to put her hand in cat poo, and then proceeded to do the run after with her hand stretched out to one side trying not to hit anyone haha.

This was the first time we went to help this task for over a year, they are connected to Camden's Origin Housing consortium and always appreciate our help. After the task was completed Frances led a 3.5k run via the canal and Granary Square to home.

Sign up for next week here when we'll be helping Cecil Sharp House and another task (tbc).

PB out.