We must be barking mad!

6 Goodgymers helped their local community in Southwark
Zack Akil
Saskia Wickins
Emma McNally
Sam Lefevre
Lindy Macfarlane
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Southwark

Wednesday 8th June 2022

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Emma McNally
Emma McNally

PHOTOGRAPHER

Sam Lefevre
Sam Lefevre

SESSION ORGANISER

PHOTOGRAPHER

REPORT WRITER

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Report written by Sam Lefevre (he/him)

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Running from Peckham Rye station, Sam thought he would be late opening up Old Spike Roastery as he backmarked a group run at work just 20 minutes before.

With about 10 minutes to change shirt and compose himself, Saskia then Lindy and finally Emma arrived. Sam knew Rebecca and Zack would be meeting us there, so he got going with his GoodGym updates before heading outside for a warm-up.

Our ice-breaker question tonight was to do with it being World Ocean Day, so he wanted to know: What is your favourite Ocean creature?

With all the fish in the world, Saskia and Sam both said Sea Turtle whilst Lindy and Emma opted for the intelligent Octopus.


Water you doing tonight?

Over the hill and down across over to Camberwell, the four of us went. There was no need for a backmarker as we kept as a group. Plus, we had plenty of time to get our 2.8k run done. In the end, it took us 18 minutes as we arrived to meet Alice and Paul outside The Wildlife Triangle.

There was a massive pile of woodchip, but we knew there was a task of watering plants, digging and sawing too. Everyone was raring to go, but with only one wheelbarrow on hand and three shovels, Alice had to quickly go and get two tonne bags so that the team could fill them with woodchip before transporting it over to another area on the estate.

Emma, Lindy and Saskia took a shovel each and within less than a minute the wheelbarrow was full. We waited awkwardly for directions as we did not know where Alice and Paul went. After a few minutes, Alice came around the corner with the tonne bags as we filled them Zack walked over. We immediately gave him the task to take the big yellow bucket, which was to be used for filling up with water to water the plants.

Emma, Lindy and Saskia worked together to drag over the woodchip for 2 trips before the latter two stayed on the other side to spread the woodchip whilst Emma made several trips with the wheelbarrow back to Sam who was guarding the woodchip mountain. In all of this, Rebecca walked to the task and Paul gave her the task of sawing an old woody branch near a fence before joining Emma with transporting woodchip.

We did a lot in the 45 minutes that we were there, but to quote Zack, "it didn't feel like 45 minutes". That's because you were having so much fun, Zack!

After putting back the tools and taking our group photo, we said our goodbyes as we dashed off down the more direct route to Peckham. Lindy headed towards Camberwell and Emma and Saskia peeled off at Peckham Library, so it was a sprint back to Old Spike for Sam.


Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came and ran tonight! The same incline route via Grove Hill, but slightly longer than last week. Everyone was willing to get stuck in with the tasks at hand and I am always in awe of that. Alice, Paul and the volunteers of Elmington Estate Community Garden send their thanks to all of you!


Thank You Alice

GoodGym is all about getting fit and doing good! We praise the runners/cyclists/walkers who come to get fit and help out, but we often forget about our task owner. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Alice for inviting us over to help out at your community garden. It seems like the Southwark Council is giving out all the woodchip they have! Looking forward to our next session, possibly in August? Just get in touch with me and we'll make it work.


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Members and volunteers of Elmington Estate have setup a community garden at the The Wildlife Triangle on Brisbane Street to transform this lawn into a wildlife garden.

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