LET’S EAT PIZZA! So, GoodGym Camden are going to eat pizza at Happy Face on the 11th December after our run. TODAY IS THE FINAL DAY TO SIGN UP, so please get your name down if you want to come!

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37 (!!!) brave and intrepid GoodGymers made it out to GoodGym Camden on a drizzly Wednesday night for another two-task night. We welcomed a shiny new person to the Camden herd - hello Hanna, I hope you enjoyed yourselves tonight.

Next week's run will be to C4WS again as well as back to Cecil Sharp House - sign up here if you want to get ahead of the game!

After a quick intro, we stretched and split up into two groups - C4WS (the Homeless Shelter) was led by our trusty light provider Hanry, the Scope group by me.

Arriving at Scope just before 7:30, we stormed the shop, met Helen and her incredibly organised list of activities for us to get stuck into before we split into teams:

• Team Jewellery
• Team Shoes
• Team Rag or Bag
• Team Shirley
• And finally, what can only be described as Team Fancy Dress.

A monster task - and one that we’ll definitely have to come back to - was to sort and price jewellery for the shop. No special marks for correctly identifying that this was Team Jewellery’s domain!

Also down on the shop floor there was some dusting, cleaning and organising of a shoe rack to be done, efficiently tackled by Team Shoes.

In the back we had Team Rag og Bag running a tight ship, leading the sort through of donations into bags that the shop will keep and sell and one they’ll recycle. Like a little production line of elves, they worked away right until the final minute we were there.

Upstairs were both Team Shirley (the brilliant husband and wife team of John and Jackie and Team Fancy Dress. Team Shirley were in charge with cleaning the upstairs bannisters, kitchen and floors which they did magnificently if I say so myself.

Finally, Team Fancy Dress! De-facto led by Rosie in a jumpsuit/Oompa Loompa dual-purpose item, there was steaming, sorting through, pricing and tagging clothes to go out onto the shop floor. See the photos for some particularly sharp Christmas suits, great wigs and strong Christmas jumpers!

Just gone 8pm, we waved goodbye to Helen and headed back to the Living Centre to meet back up with Hanry’s homeless shelter team for a final stretch and cool down.

Over at C4WS, the team did a fantastic job of making up 16 male beds and 4 female beds for the homeless users of the church. Jonathan was very impressed with what you achieved, so well done everyone! After the task was done there, it was a run over to Granary Square for some laps and fitness before heading back and regrouping.

We had a particularly good turnout at the pub after the run tonight. Everyone is welcome and it’s a great way to carry on chatting to GoodGym folks over a drink. Abi is the de-facto pub leader, and I know she’d love to see you there if you fancy coming along next time.

COMMUNITY MISSION ALERT: David from Russell Square Garden got in touch to say how impressed he was with our work a few weeks ago in the bulb-planting and fence-post-putting-up and asked if we might be able to come and [clear some leaves this Saturday 2:30-4:30.] Please do come along and help out - Liz is bringing cake!

NEXT WEEK: We’re going to be running back to the Home of Folk (Cecil Sharp) and C4WS again next week for some more leaf-clearing and bed-making. Would be great to see you there and you should definitely sign up now!

LET’S EAT PIZZA: So GoodGym Camden are going to eat pizza at Happy Face on the 11th December after our run. TODAY IS THE FINAL DAY TO SIGN UP, so please get your name down if you want to come.

Happy running,

Ben

On a cold and chilly night, 19 GoodGymers came out to do some good around Camden town.

We welcomed a few new faces to the herd - welcome Cara and Sarah! Hope you enjoyed yourselves and will be back with us on another run soon. If you want to get ahead of the game, why not sign up to next week's run right now?

So, unfortunately the lovely Mel from Kentish Town City Farm was off ill, so we couldn't run up to them to take down the marquees from the Apple Day as we'd planned. Instead, we decided to run to the canal behind Kings Cross and do a litter pick, followed by some laps of Granary Square and a fitness game. After a quick intro and warmup - who doesn't love a good lunge - we headed off to the canal.

Our task

Splitting up into pairs, everyone grabbed some gloves, a bag, headtorch and a partner and got stuck in with the litter pick. 30 minutes of solid litter-picking later, we regrouped with some interesting finds including two snapped bank cards, a SIM card and... none other than an actual working mobile phone. After some button pressing, it turned out the phone belonged to a guy called Juan (the run report pun makes sense now, right?) who turned out to be a football-loving American - oh what you can find out from a notifications screen. As we couldn't call him - but found an email address to get in touch with him - we handed it in to the Granary Square security team who are looking after it until Juan goes down to collect it. Well done CJ for spotting it!

I've also sent Juan an email explaining that we'd found his phone. I'll give you updates on the situation. Let's hope Juan and his phone are reunited soon.

Anyway, we're going off on a tangent...

And so, on to the fitness. After everyone was rounded up in Granary Square, it was three laps of the big loop to get everyone warmed up again after what was - by a country mile - the lowest intensity task I've led so far. Following on from this, and to round off the session, we had a good old round of Rock, Paper, Scissors (fitness edition) in two lines. It turned out to be a brutal competition of 3 quick rounds of the age-old game, before the winner would sprint a shuttle run while the loser would do press ups until the winner returned. You'd then move one along the line and switch partners, until everyone had been all the way along the line.

After one more victory lap around the Square, we all headed back to the Living Centre for a cool down stretch and - for some of us - a trip to the pub.

Big thanks to Liz for supplying the bags and gloves for the litterpick and Hanry - as ever - for being the head-torch-bearer of Camden.

A word about head torches from Hanry: It seems that someone might have accidentally run off with one of his headtorches. Could you please have a root around at home and bring it back to the next run?

Next time

COMMUNITY MISSIONS: Just over a week away, there's a great community mission coming up at the Russell Square Gardens - you'll be helping to plant some flowerbeds for David and the team. The task will be from 10am-4pm but if you can only stay for an hour or two, I'm sure the team would be very glad to see you. Sign up asap so we can send numbers to David!

NEXT WEEK: So next time, we'll be splitting the task; it will be the inaugural run of the year to the wonderful people at the C4WS Homeless Shelter. We're going to be making the 10-15 beds they have for local homeless people to get a good, warm night's sleep and it could not be more of a worthy cause. We'll be running to them every Wednesday until they close their doors again in February and will be splitting the group with a different task alongside the Homeless Shelter each week. The other task for next week is still to be confirmed.

Happy Running!

Ben

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

29 of us GoodGym runners assembled at the Life Centre on Wednesday night for what was to be my first run as your new GoodGym Camden Trainer without stabilisers - thanks for all your help and support Pritesh!

We welcomed two new runners to the ever expanding posse that is Camden - hey Olivia and Rebecca, we hope to see you on another one soon.

Tonight was also special for another reason for someone else; Abi! Our run tonight was her 200th good deed(!) and with everyone else clapped and cheered, Sally duly presented her with the beautiful GG Camden crimson cape with 200 sewn on in big silver numbers. 200 good deeds is such a brilliant milestone and I hope you'll all pile in on Abi's page and give her some good cheer and congratulations; that's 200 times you could've otherwise said no or not bothered to get stuck in, and it's a wonderful achievement. Whether you're new or old to GoodGym, keep doing what you're doing and the good deeds will soon add up.

Tonight's task was Alara Wholefoods, just up the road and over the canal.

After listening to Alex from Alara about what we needed to do, we split up into Team Mulch, Team Wheelbarrow, Team Weeding, Team Harvest and got to it in the best GoodGym production line you could possibly dream of. With two wheelbarrows and spades, mulch was dug out, loaded onto the wheelbarrows and sprinted round the corner to the nearby orchard. Here another team was in place to scrape around the trees and load up the mulch - 2 loads per tree. Elsewhere Team Weeding were doing an excellent job of tidying up a path and some of rubber tire planters. Down the road and through the trees, Team Harvest were getting on with plucking as many apples from the trees (with Alex's permission!) and clearing a bean field.

We mulched, we weeded, we cleared, we stripped bean poles and we harvested some apples. Special shoutout to Hanry for providing the lion's share of the headtorches for tonight's task - we would have been ruined without them!

How much fun did we all have? Toooooo mullllchh fun!

By 8pm (perfect timing!), we'd managed to mulch an orchard, picked a lot of apples from the trees, stripped the bean poles back and done a lot of good weeding and sweeping and it was time to run on. As a special treat, Alex had some boxes of granola ready for us. There wasn't enough to go around, so he invited us into the granola warehouse (actual heaven for some of us) to pick up some more. A few group photos later, we waved goodbye to Alex and motored on.

Down along the canal, with our headtorches beaming and granola rattling, we hit Granary Square for a few laps before jogging back with our granola boxes as our maracas, for a cool down stretch. Some of us headed on to the pub for a celebratory drink and a piece of John's homemade vegan brownies - it was his birthday on Tuesday (and they tasted delicious by the way, John!) - and others headed home.

If you enjoyed yourself last night, why not sign up to our next run?

And don't forget we've got a Community Mission coming up on Thursday 3rd October at Story Garden - you can sign up here

57 GoodGymers ran 6km to help Kentish Town City Farm, broke the Camden Attendance Record and I said farewell to you wonderful people!

On my first Wednesday living in London back in May 2014 I enjoyed GoodGym Camden, I found a welcoming community of runners who were like minded people. I was honoured to become your trainer in January 2016, something that's always been more than a job to me. It's a passion; to bring people together, learn about our bodies, help the communities we live/work in and then go to the pub afterwards. You guys are the best!

Thank you so much for last night, the amazing group of you that came in the rain to say goodbye (and hug the goats) and for such wonderful presents.

Okay back to the normal report... welcome along to the newbies Lisa and Xanthy - lovely to have you along!

In the news this week:

1. A huge well done to GG sisters Kat Kelly and Liz Pang for hitting 100 good deeds, I am privileged to call them my friends and proud of what they've achieved at GoodGym Camden over the last 3+ years.
2. Go along to CREOS Community Mission in Islington this Sunday - it's a great one that ends with a free picnic!
3. So I have two races planned that I'd love for you to be apart of - Rother Valley Running Festival (near Sheffield) on 16th November. Also we'll be going to Kiev in May 2020 for the next #GGxEuro Trip! More details about both coming soon.

Corrr blimey there was so many of you! Such a big group, in fact such a big group that we broke the Camden Group Run Attendance Record and were just a few people short of breaking the GG World Record. Next time.

For the run up there we formed two groups of 25-30 people, with brilliant Run Leaders and Taskforce Peeps leading, middlemarking (cheers Steve) and backmarking each one - thanks to Abi, Kat, Chris, Aidan, Patrick, Steve C, Frances, Rosie and James for all there help leading groups through the wet streets of Camden. Meanwhile Mr Lee and I formed good-cycle again and helped direct at various points along the 3k route.

Ciao now Bown cow

Upon our arrival at Kentish Town City Farm Mel told us the brilliant news about the mean old trustee board had been removed, new guys had come in place and £100,000 being donated by a very kind donor. The farm has been saved, a hollywood ending! Then she set us to work with four tasks:

• Three people collected up debris in the goat area
• Twenty-Five people removed old decking from around the pond, and then chain ganged it all the way down to the bin at the bottom of the farm.
• Fifteen people shovelled muck, bagging it up and re-piled it
• Finally thirteen people racked and evened out the ground up at the Arena

The farm was full of activity for 30 minutes, we got so much done and Mel was really pleased! Thanks for working so hard in the rain, muck and more. Next it was GOAT TIME - we hugged them, said hey to little Rosie and fed them - all the fun! After a special group photo we headed back to base for stretches and then onto to pizza + beer! Thanks for Kat, Rosie etc for organising that!

Bown-ding into the future

What a special evening to end a special time for me personally at GoodGym ( both Camden and Islington). As I said last night I started without a beard and not really knowing what was up, the community that is GoodGym has enabled me to grow into who I am today. Thank you so much for the fantastic presents, the messages, the individual farewells and for just being you. You guys are my family, I love you and I'm going to miss you so much!

See you at a GoodGym Event sometime soon!

PB over and out for the final time.

34 Camdenites helped the Story Garden for one hour to prepare the community garden for the opening on Saturday!

Welcome along to Rhiannon, Ana, Theo and Laura whose first time it was last night - fantastic to have you along!

In the news this week:

1. Kentish Town City Farm has been saved! YAY! The petition and media attention worked - the old trustee board has been removed and a new one put in place. PLUS a very kind donor has given £100,000 to pay off the farms debts and given it a great basis to go on from. Read more here.
2. We've got lots of community missions this Saturday helping to set up, pack up and look after a GoodGym Stall. See all the community missions here.
3. Join the GoodGym Camden Facebook Group here.

Wow what a night of GOOD, we really put the GOOD and the GYM in GoodGym! We helped the wonderful Story Garden, which is run by Global Generation, get prepared for their public opening this Saturday - chiefly making the site safe for the public.

After 200 metres of running/walking we arrived at the Story Garden, lots of volunteers were already at work drilling, building sheds and more. Martina explained we were the biggest group they'd ever come to help and they really appreciated that. She split us into five groups:

1. A huge team shovelled and wheelbarrowed woodchip from the HUGE pile to all over the garden. Once wheelbarrowed over people were there to spread to across.
2. A team of eight moved sheds from one corner of the site to the other - there they will be built and then laid out in their positions. Some strong shifting going on!
3. A team of four shifted huge containers of soil from the tonne bags over the build planters in the centre of the garden - feeding those new plants and making it look more like a garden!
4. Another group of four shifted huge bags of compost in the pollytunnel to their correct position and then joined team one to shift all the woodchip.
5. The final group of eight moved scaffolding and odd bits of wood over the corner. These will be used to make an array of things - including a fence, planters and anything else going.

King of the Woodchip!

There was so much constant movement going on, GoodGymers walking every which way on their individual tasks. It was awesome to see - particularly from on to of the huge pile of woodchip. Now that's some POV! Over one hour we got absolutely tonnes done, literally 34 hours of volunteering work - that is fantastic, well done all. Martina was so pleased by our efforts :)

With 20 minutes left of the session we did a quick dynamic warm up and then went for a 3k run around the canals and Granary Square. Lovely stuff. We then finished the evening with a brilliant pub trip!

Next week we are all going to help Cecil Sharp House, sign up here.

PB out

24 Goodgymers ran 4km to help the Story Garden lift tons!

Thanks for coming along, no newbies but lots of regulars and recent joiners :)

In the news this week:

1. Go along to the Community Mission today helping Camden Helpline - see details here.
2. Sign up for the GG Olympics here, you haven't got long to enter your events to represent #TeamCamden
3. Also people are going to do the Scottish Half Marathon in September, see full details here.

Well what a night, we were back at the new task - Story Garden - a community garden that is currently under construction. It's changed so much in a week and will keep on changing over the the next year, it opens as part of the Somers Town Community Festival in July and then Skip Garden will move over to the site in October.

Martina gave us two tasks last night:

• Moving those huge Oak sleepers (big planks of woods) - these will be used to make 10 planters which community projects will adopt to look after.
• Shifting through soil and stones to find large stones (not concrete) which will be used to make paths - kinda looked like we were preparing to make a Roman Road.

As described by Thomas shifting the oak sleepers was some of the hardest work we've done at GoodGym Camden - lots of heavy lifting! Involving 2 or 3 people lifting each one (unless your Hanry). Over 30 mlinutes we moved at least 60 of them. Caz described all this rubble and wood lifting as quite a biblical task, a short time after that the heavens opened and rain descended upon us.... Luckily we were running by this point and it didn't get too heavy.

We did a nice 3.5k loop + the 800m time trial at Granary Square - lovely! After a slight early finish we stretched and headed to the pub.

Next week we are helping Antrim Allotments (6k overall) - sign up here.

PB out