Four GoodGymers ran 3.4km and packed 4 bags of leaves for Cecil Sharp House

For GoodGym Camden's second starter session of the year we welcomed Phyllis and Jeremy along. Through my introduction we chatted about how people had heard about GoodGym and what we do to help others in our local communities. It explain again the three ways of doing GOOD are:

• Group Runs - like what we did tonight, going somewhere in our local as a group and doing a physical task.
• Missions - these are one off tasks, generally helping in older people's homes with easy things like gardening. (DBS check required).
• Coach Runs - this is where you are paired with an old isolated person, you run to see them once a week and have a 20-40 minute chat

After our introductions we did an active warm up combining drills like high knees and dynamic stretches like strides. We then headed off north towards Cecil Sharp House, doing a mix of a run and walk when needed. Comfortably covering the 1.6km.

Folk running!

Once we arrived at Cecil Sharp House we met the wonderful Susannah who introduced us and told us some more information including:

• The house was built in 1931 and is the home of English Folk Music & Dance
• It has Permaculture gardens, which is a lot more than an organic garden. It is a system that is focused on closing the fertiliser loop by using waste, and reducing the dependence on inputs by creating healthy soil and diversity of produce.
• GoodGym has been visiting them since June 2016 on a monthly basis and has made a huge impact up-keeping the garden which is used for events like Weddings.

Our task for tonight was bagging up leaves in section of the garden out the back, even in January leaves still populate this area and it's important for it be cleared. We got to work with a bag each and portable lights picking and packing up those leaves!

After 20 minutes we had cleared the flower bed and made it look beautiful - nice one guys! We said our goodbyes to Susannah and ran the 1.8km back to base and stretched.

It was great to welcome Jeremy and Phyllis along, thank you for coming! Hope to see you again soon.

We meet every Wednesday at GoodGym Camden at 18.45pm, and of course GoodGym meets all over London and UK, just check out the website.

Sign up for next week here, we will be making beds for the homeless and gardening for Sheltered Housing (both 5km overall).

PB out.