Welcome first timers and first timers to Islington Chris, Heather, Libby and Paul. Great to have you along on this rather chilly evening.

Now, everybody knows that when you're shaking like a leaf the best prescription is to start kicking leaves. So that's what we did to warm up ourselves up. And it worked. Snug (almost) we set off to our three different tasks:

St. Luke's

Kike led a gang to St. Luke's Community Centre. A brand new task for us. She explains what went down:

Also braving the chilly conditions 6 Goodgymers set off for a new task at St Luke's community centre on central street.

Apart from a nasty drain cover which tripped one of us over it was a nice pleasant down hill run which we mostly spent trying to not talk about food. Kike gave everyone a run down of the best things on the community centres lunch time cafe (which is definitely worth a visit as all proceeds go back to the centre and the food is delicious) and Steve explaining how he's learnt to make sushi.

Once at the task we quickly discover with the help of the caretaker what needed to be done, namely emptying a shed and moving some chairs. We got stuck in to the shed first with torch bearer Alex providing illumination it was a quick job. Next it was up to the roof terrace where we usefully had just the right people to chair ratio to do it in one trip.

All complete we had time for a quick photo and to let the staff at st Luke's know the range of things we can help out on before heading back up to Highbury. At the point it felt like the temperature had dropped so we kept a good steady pace and extended our route to include an extra bit of Highbury fields to make sure we'd really earned our biscuit.

Kike

Whittington Park

Frances took a group up to Whittington Park Community Association for what was supposed to be sweeping leaves and window cleaning. We had a bit of a challenge on our hands since there seemed to be nobody there to meet us!

After 15 minutes of frantic searching we decided to keep ourselves warm with some squatting and sprinting reps which everybody absolutely loved of course.

Just as we were about to head home we managed to locate our contact, who provided us with brooms for ten minutes of frantic leaf clearing outside the cafe. Phew - speed volunteering indeed!

Grenville Road

The rest of us went to Grenville Road Gardens to spread some mulch around flower beds and have a bit of a rake up (more leaves!). We split into two groups for the efforts, with half working while the other half chose their own exercises. Squat jumps and burpees a popular - or maybe not so popular - option.

Aidan led one team back and included a speedy surge around Emirates while Simon's lot played Secret Surges and Kirsty showed us she laughs in the face of oncoming traffic.

Back at the pool (those of us that hadn't slipped off home to their log fires) we stretched and biscuited.

The big debate! What's the best type of firework? Best answers were a multi-firework package that was supposed to be buried but wasn't (thanks, one-armed Paul), one that turned into a face and Catherine Wheels got a couple of votes as well.

See you next week, when we're at HNP
Simon

P.S. There are drinks after the run next week