The dark, wet and windy conditions didn't put off 17 wonderful GoodGym'ers from joining me to help out at Springvale Residents Tenants Hall tonight. There weren't any newbies to welcome along tonight but it was lovely to have one GoodGym tourist, Sam join us for the evening.

With everyone gathered we headed outside to the covered car park area for a very brief intro and the weekly news:

1. H&F Community Mission I - Age UK H&F's Christmas party is on Thursday 12th December. Please let Johnny aka Biscuits know when you will be arriving to lend a hand if you've signed up.
2. H&F Community Mission II - Notting Hill Genesis on Friday 13th December from 1-4pm, help sort donated food and gifts, please sign up here.
3. H&F Community Mission III- Operation hall prep for Shepherd Bush Families Project on Tuesday 17th December from 5.30-6.30pm, help move furniture out of the hall, please sign up here.
4. Win a limited-edition GoodGym sweatshirt 👕 - bring a friend to a community mission in December and post the story of your community mission on social media with the tag #winterwarriors. All the details can be found here.

Rebels with a Claus!

Well done to Alice, Speedy, Mo and Andrew for completing the Santa Dash 🎅 at Brockwell Park and to Matt, Eloise and Lucy for completing the Osterley 10k 🙌🏼.

Railing by

We had a quick warm-up and stretch to get the pulses raised before we headed off on our short run over to Springvale Tenants Hall. En route we had a brief stop to regroup and Cookie chose a somewhat uncomfortable 30 second railing wall sit for the group which everyone really thanked him for! Railing wall sit complete we continued on the last part of our run with Matt reminding us that he'd never done a task in the rain!! Surely that streak was about to end tonight?!

Beating around the push

Once we discovered the garden gate was in fact already open and just required a gentle push, we headed inside where we were greeted by the ever smiley, Berni who ran through the list of jobs for the evening:

• Sweep up and bag the leaves from the garden area 🍂
• Move the benches and cover them with a tarpaulin 💪
• Hoover the inside of the hall 🧱
• Clean the mirrors and radiators in the hall 🧽

The group divided in two; one half of the group headed outside to sweep and bag all the leaves, and then move the benches. Andrew, Tom, Matt, Sarah and Katie worked superbly as a team as they swept and bagged all the leaves with only a couple of brooms, a dust pan & brush, and some bin bags. Jackie and Annabel worked their tetris magic as they got two of the benches moved and covered with a tarpaulin with supreme speed and efficiency. Andrew and Arba had obviously taken note as they moved the final two benches with equal efficiency!

Time to reflect

Back inside, the other half of the group were cleaning the mirrors and radiators while Lucy hoovered the floor making sure it was spotless! Some of the group also took a moment to admire the wall of photos from our previous visits, complete with a red GoodGym tee that Berni has created as a thank you from all the residents - what a lovely gesture!

With all the jobs completed and the hall looking spick and span ready to host the polling on Thursday, the team tucked into the impressive array of treats that Berni had kindly provided for us as a big thank you for all our help tonight and over the past year.

Deep in the Sally

Before we headed off back to base we made use of the nice and dry indoor hall for tonight's fitness session. The first was requested by Tom last week (...well that's what I heard anyway!), one of the team's old favourites, 'Sally Squats'! 3mins 25seconds of squatting, what's not to love?! I think everyone felt the glute burn! The next was decided by a very democratic vote, the 'Roxanne press-up challenge', with a press-up done every time Sting sung "Roxanne"...a whole 27 times for those who were wondering!

Fitness session complete we took a very creative and artistic photo in one of the mirrors under the direction of Biscuits and Speedy. We then said our goodbyes and Merry Christmas to Berni and headed back to base for our cool down and stretch off. Great work tonight team, thank you for coming along and for all your hard work.

DON’T FORGET, THURSDAY IS POLLING DAY! 📝

Next week it's our last run of 2019 (and the decade!), we'll be heading up to the Nubian Life Resource Centre to help out at their Josiah Braithwaite Community Garden. Sign up here. Have a lovely rest of your week and weekend. Hopefully see you next week, if not, Happy Christmas and Happy New Year!