What a wild night of painting the town GoodGym red!

This week's task involved putting up posters for Age UK's Food2You initiative. They recruit volunteer drivers to pick up an older person's weekly shop, and then take it round to them, staying for a chat while they're at it. Such a cool idea!

We started off welcoming new GG-ers Sean, Anna, Holly, Eduardo and Verity to the crew! And we then had an impromptu visit from Lambeth councillor for volunteering and previous Lambeth mayor(!) Donatus who came to say thanks for what we've done across the borough!

Then we split into 5 teams with taskforce taking the lead. Samantha took a team to West Norwood via Herne Hill. Nicky lead a group to Oval and Stockwell. George's team headed to Clapham. Team Victoria ran to Streatham and my team went through Brixton to Loughborough Junction.

We covered so much ground between us and were pleasantly surprised by how happy most places were to let us put up the posters!

On our return, we were treated to some deliciously moist beer cake (that'll be the Guinness) from Frances and some fabulously flavoursome cinnamon buns from Rebecca. 😋

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Join us next week as we head to Brixton Road Youth Centre for some classic leaf clearing and helping to sort through their lock-ups! Sign up here!

This evening, 26 GoodGym runners ran to help the Salvation Army in Camberwell.

We welcomed newcomers, including Lauren, Ian, and Emily; it was lovely meeting you, hope to see you again soon! We were also celebrating quite an exciting double centenary, with Girija and Katie both hitting 100 good deeds this evening!

Before long, we headed off for a warmup and headcount (where we each voiced our preferred pizza toppings - only a few controversial choices!) before running over to the task.

When we got to the Salvation Army hall, we met Janet, who briefed us on our task. As the hall is used regularly for a toddler group, they often end up with their lovely selection of toys and play equipment covered in toddler goo; to help keep the setting and the toddlers clean and healthy, we were cleaning the toys off with antibacterial cleanser, getting them dried up, and stored back ready for the kids' next visit.

It had to be some of the most efficient work I've ever seen at GoodGym Southwark; within 20 minutes, the toys, play house, mats, the balls, and even the furniture were all sparkling and clean. With some time to spare, and Janet kindly keeping the hall open for us to do so, we cracked on with a quick fitness session, tackling a couple of flavours of squat jump, some plank taps, and my new favourite - the inchworm! Since the group were having such a good time, we even threw in some social plank taps with high fives in.

With some amazing work done for some of our friends in the community, and a nice workout, we headed back to Old Spike where we stretched off and (before some headed next door for a recovery beverage), mentioned some exciting upcoming dates:

10th October: October social in Islington - a lovely opportunity to have a drink and talk to some other GoodGym runners

16th October: GoodGym Southwark group run: Salvation Army clear up

And if you're curious about running in races with GoodGym, there's more here.

That's it for this week, it was great getting to cover for such a big, lovely group - keep up the good work!

In the week that we celebrate GoodGym’s 10th birthday, 36 of Lambeth’s finest met inside Papa’s park ready to run and do good.

After welcoming a few new runners and giving temporary custody of the Lambeth good deed wings to Sam we marveled at how much good has been done since GoodGym started back in 2009 - over 165,000 good deeds in case you’re wondering.

With the introductions out of the way the first thing on the agenda was to get some pictures with the GoodGym flag so we all headed off to pose in front of David Bowie and the Ritzy and then split into two groups. A small group headed back to our base at Papa’s park to do some weeding and sweeping to give the place a bit more curb appeal. The other group headed up to Hillside Gardens hoping to also do some weeding but the failing light meant they unfortunately weren’t able to get the task done so had to turn around and head back. Luckily for them we had a freshly warmed bread and butter pudding waiting for them courtesy of Paul and we also enjoyed some tasty focaccia from Mira.

Happy birthday GoodGym!