Monday 30th October 2017
SESSION ORGANISER
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Report written by Anastasia Hancock (she/her)
Darkness falls across the land The running hour is close at hand GoodGymers jog in search of good To help out y'all's neighborhood And whosoever shall be found Without the quads for getting down Must plank and face the whistle from hell And squat until we say farewell....
Anyone walking through Wandsworth last night would have been Thrilled to see a group of witches, zombies, vampires, a werewolf and the one and only Grim Reaper leaping and creeping around the borough in search of terrible tasks and fiendish fitness sessions....
The ghoulish group met at the cobweb-festooned BAC, ready to creep it real. We welcomed Holly to the gang - give her a cheer GG - and it was ace to see Camden's Alex and Lambeth James. Meanwhile Mona the Vampire rubbed shouders with a ghost dalmation from Battersea Dogs' Home, who sniffed out a blood-soaked medic, who was chatting with a couple of rattling skeletons. Just your normal evening in Wandsworth.
After a warm up for the cold blooded, we went round the group to find out our favourite horror films and characters. The twins from The Shining were frightfully popular, as was, erm, Adam Sandler.
With only a short run ahead of us, we set off for our task tonight which was very aptly in a graveyard and community garden. There were a few stares as we made our way down the Wandsworth Road, and we were quite a sight as we mobbed up the steps towards the church.
Benny and Philippa, the head gardeners were waiting for us at Eden Community Garden, a charity whose aim is to create and maintain a sustainable habitat for wildlife and promote bio-diversity by planting British native species and through organic gardening. We divided up into groups, tackling huge piles of leaves, collecting sticks for the bonfire, turning compost full of eye of newt and toe of frog, pulling up hedges and a whole lot of raking.
After half an hour we were done, and set off for Clapham Common to attempt an ambitious Halloween themed fitness session. We split up into five teams - GhostGym, the Ghoulie Girls, the Scary Caterpillars, the Pumpkin Pies and the Halloweeners. The aim was to get through the 14 stations which each had an activity to complete, collecting a letter each time. After all 14 letters were found they needed to be unscrambled to form a phrase. Exercises included doing burpees if you ever owned a cat, sprinting if you were born before Silence of the Lambs was released, doing a press up for every year of the youngest member, a tuck jump for every good deed you'd done, and high knees for the time it took to name 10 horror films. It was a close call, but the winners by a whisker was...drum roll....Team Halloweeners, who cracked the oh-so-original phrase, 'Happy Halloween'! Well done team, the prize of a sense of satisfaction is all yours.
On the return leg we played Race the Reaper. Luke, Nick, Matthew and David were the Grim Reapers, and their job was to try and chase down the rest of the group in a race back to the BAC. After some speedy running and being sold out spectacularly by Dave, it was the GRs who made it back first. The competitive spirits were out in force last night.
During our stretch we took a very official vote on Best Costume, unanimously agreeing that we couldn't possibly choose between Nick the Werewolf and Alex the Grim Reaper and awarding them the joint prize. Great Halloweening, team.
Next week we're finishing off our painting job at a local school, so please bring your headtorches, and bidding a tearful farewell to Sally, who is leaving us for Bristol. Join us to do good, get fitter and enjoy a goodbye social at the bar afterwards.
Tue 31st Oct 2017 at 12:20pm
Great report! Sad I missed out on such a fun session!
Tue 31st Oct 2017 at 2:07pm
For the record Sophie and David M beat the Grim Reapers back to BAC!
Wandsworth
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