24 GoodGym'ers ran 3km as they went back to school to help out Flora Gardens Primary

20 GoodGym'ers met at H&F BetterGym on a grey but thankfully dry evening ready to do good for another great cause. Despite a month's worth of rain falling the evening before it seemed we were in luck tonight as despite the grey clouds the outlook was for a nice dry evening - but where is the lovely sunny June weather?! This week we returned to Flora Gardens Primary, a wonderful local school to help out with some painting, weeding and removal of a very well embedded fence!

Before warming up, we began with a round up of the latest GoodGym news, a welcome back from holidays for Johnny and Sarah and happy birthday wishes for Steph! We also welcomed Morning to the group for their first GoodGym run, welcome along, always lovely to have an extra pair of hands join us to help get the job done!

News

Firstly, well done to Tom who completed his 50th parkrun at the weekend! A big thank you to all those that lent a hand at the 'SOS Mission (Im)possible' challenge at WHite City Adventure Playground - the Play Association have again passed on their thanks to you all.

1. Community Missions - tomorrow at Age UK H&F and on Thursday 11th July for Solidarity Sports - Volunteer Award Ceremony.
2. GoodGym Monthly Long Run - Led by Andy and I along the Wandle Trail, 16/10km run options, for all the details click here.
3. GoodGym Olympics - entries are now open! Click here. Lots of event options! Deadline is Thursday 27th June at 23:59. I will create a Google doc and post it in the Whatsapp group later so we cover off lots of the events!

School runnings

Today's warm up was a quick one involving some high knees, lunges and fast feet, and with no rain in sight we all set off on the short run down to this evening's task.

On arrival we met Jeanette who explained how valuable GoodGym are in helping out with the school. Due to constant funding cuts, any money available goes directly into the education of their students, meaning money for maintenance of the school and it's grounds is limited - enter GoodGym! With an additional four runners joining us at the task, we were now a strong team of 24! Tonight we had two jobs...painting and fence removal.

The team split into two groups and set to work!

The group on the Monet...

Group 1: the painting group...the smaller but perfectively formed group headed inside of 'The White House' to apply the final coat of Gilbert Green to the small room at the back. With the final edgings applied and the clearing up complete, we declared the 'White House' completely transformed from slightly drab and uninspiring white walls to a fresh and bright colourful green and blue!

Fence and fencibility

Group 2: the fence group...the majority of the group were given the mighty task of removing a very embedded and stubborn piece of metal fencing. A coordinated team managed to detach the metal fence, rolling it up and away, just leaving the stubborn metal posts which proved quite a challenge! Matt, Eloise and Johnny used their brute strength to snap two of the posts off - amazing stuff! Mo, Jonny, Katie, Lucy, Alice and Georgina displayed incredible detemination as they worked together on one VERY stubborn post, wiggling, tugging, pulling and digging down and around the post...eventually revealing a huge piece of concrete! The team used the spades to try and leverage the post and concrete out but the shear GoodGym strength led to a spade casualty with it snapping completely in two in Jonny's hands! But the broken spade and concrete didn't stop the team who persevered on and eventually the post was lifted out triumphantly! Fantastic teamwork and a great upper-body work out!

Don't take a-fence, but we won't skip the fitness session

This just left time for a short fitness session led by 'Mr Abs on Tour'- Chi! We started off with a lunging walk followed by a sprint back to some squats, then press ups, burpees, and sit ups, all with a sprint across the playground in between. With all of us nicely warmed up again, we set off on the short run back to base. With everyone stretched and cooled down, we headed inside for cake to celebrate Steph's birthday! A well earned treat! It was also our monthly social so many of the group headed off to Wing Wing because as they say...you can never have too much of a good wing right?!

Thanks for a lovely evening all. Next week we're heading up to a new task at the Nubian Life Centre to lend a hand in their Josiah Braithwaite Community Garden, sign up here. Hopefully see you all there. Have a great week!