28 GoodGymers ran 4-8k to help St Christopher's Place and St Mungo's!

Thanks for coming along guys! The GG Monthly Social is tonight in Old Street at the Prince Arthur from 6.30pm - sign up here.

I'm sad to say I will be leaving my role as Camden Trainer in August, I'm going to be moving to Sheffield to do a Masters. I'll miss you all very much and of course we'll have a leaving party!

St Mungo's Report:

Eleven of us headed of to help a new task up near Swiss Cottage - St Mungo's! This is a fantastic homeless charity that has sites all over the London and the UK. We had a lovely run up there, avoiding Primrose Hill and passing some big houses. Upon our arrival Kat and Will met us to make our group thirteen!

Our task was simple but effective to clear all and any weeds in four parts of the garden, open up the back garden as it was heavily outgrown and bag up any dead plants that were already piled up. Splitting into two's, three's and four's we got to work and made a huge impact in 20 minutes - Abi said it was the hardest she'd ever worked at GoodGym - nice!

Overall we collected up 17 bags of weeds, debris and rubbish - well done! After a group picture we headed home via Primrose Hill for the view and lesson of running downhill - all the fun.

Poo Hand Kate

St Christopher's Report:

The other group went to St. Christopher's where they pulled up weeds (assisted by "the weed lady" and a small child), cut down a sapling that had pretensions of being a tree, and swept/cleaned the area. Katie unfortunately seems to put her hand in cat poo, and then proceeded to do the run after with her hand stretched out to one side trying not to hit anyone haha.

This was the first time we went to help this task for over a year, they are connected to Camden's Origin Housing consortium and always appreciate our help. After the task was completed Frances led a 3.5k run via the canal and Granary Square to home.

Sign up for next week here when we'll be helping Cecil Sharp House and another task (tbc).

PB out.

31 Goodgymers ran 6km to help Kentish Town City Farm pack up from their May Day Celebrations!

Welcome along to all the newbies - Carolyn, Abby, Lucy, Ollie and Shelley - lovely to have you along!

You can read and if you'd like sign the farm petition here.

In the news this week:

1. Join the GG Camden Facebook group here.
2. GG Monthly Social tonight in Peckham, come along for drinks and more.
3. Well done to Will Bourchier for hitting 50 good deeds last night - Will has been a committed GG Camden member for over 3 years. Well done Will!
4. Great work to Katherine who completed London Marathon last weekend, her first, in sub-4 hours - woop woop!
5. Team Track - every Thursday at 6.30pm at Regents Park Track Kat leads a friendly track session. I set the sessions and you guys for them. Join in. #TeamTrack

Okay lots of news. Back to last night - after warming up we headed 3k to Kentish Town City Farm to help them pack up from their May Day Celebrations. They raised over £5000, the best event they've had in 47 years!

We met Mel who explained what we needed to do but also that the Trustees are trying to bring in redundancies and close some of the programs. To read more and to sign the petition go here.

Gazebo fun

Our task this week was to take down all the chairs, tables, stands, boxes and more from the top field to the bottom of the farm for storage. Half the group did that, while the other half took down the gazebo. We had some initial problems with height but it all worked out in the end.

Once we were finished we hugged the goats and took a group picture before heading home.

Sign up for next week here when we'll be helping Cecil Sharp House.

PB ou

28 Goodgymers ran 3-5km to help the American International Church and Age UK Camden

Welcome along to newbies Beth, Rachel, Asher, Stephen, Amanda and Ian - thanks for coming along. We also had tourists from Stockport and Lewisham - amazing!

In the news this week:

1. There will be a GoodGym Social next Thursday, sign up here.
2. The GoodGym Olympics is going to be on Saturday 3rd August this year at Parliament Hill Track. Sign up here and represent Camden.

What a good night! We had two wonderful tasks help older people and the homeless in our community. Both tasks involved beds!

Age UK Camden:

15 of us headed around 1km away to help Age UK Camden, a fantastic charity. Our biggest challenge on the way there was crossing Euston Road, I have no idea where all those people are going!!

Upon our arrival Abul tasked us with emptying five planters of soil and dismantling the wooden containers which kept the soil in. It was a great task, our only issue was the lack of tools. We used forks, spades, plastic containers and even our hands to collect soil to pile up on one side of the garden.

Let's Get Physical

Working on three of the planters at once we got tons done over the 45 minutes we were there, taking apart and piling up lots of old wood but also emptying the planters we worked on. Talk about physical!

After finishing up we headed for an extended run home taking in Coram Fields and Russell Square.

American International Church by Pritesh:

13 of us headed off to the American International Church for our weekly trip to make beds for their homeless shelter. Kat was leading and we weaved our way through the streets to get to the church as fast as we could.

Once there we had a stirring speech from one of the organisers explaining the impact our 15 minutes of volunteering really makes – the stories really brought to life the hardships of those that have to use the shelter but also how much good can come from giving up our time and effort to help. With not much time, as ever, we worked quickly to get duvets covered, pillows stuffed in cases and hospital corners fixed on all the sheets!

Impact

With everything done we posed for a group photo and then Kat led us for a high intensity fitness session in Russell Square before we headed back to base, stretched and some headed for a well deserved drink.

Sign up for next week here, we'll be helping Alara and the homeless shelter.

PB out