An awesome 33 GoodGymers ran between 4-9km to help Cecil Sharp House, delivered 500 leaflets for Veg Box and collect Christmas trees

Welcome along to Alejandra and Farrah whose first time it was last night, we also had lots of second timers who attended last week and various regulars out for some January fun!

In the news this week:

1. TODAY there is the first GG Monthly Drinks of the year at the Beehive in Tottenham, hosted by GG Haringey - go along!
2. On Saturday there is the GG Islington Starter Session helping Comption Square Gardens (NEW TASK) - bring your friends!
3. JANUARY CHALLENGE - GoodGym nationally is aiming to complete 5000 Good Deeds and run 50,000 KM's - get involved and get those numbers in for Camden

We split into three groups to do three tasks across Camden. Here is what you did:

Group One to Cecil Sharp House (4km) led by PB:

Covering 2km on the backstreets of Camden on the way there we arrived to see Susannah and prepared everything as normal. This has been a monthly task since June 2016 and it's a great one. Splitting into three teams:

1. Freya and Frances swept and cleared the front of the building of cigarettes and other nasty stuff.
2. David and Lucy bagged up twigs, branches and sticks which had littered the lawn with the recent windy weather.
3. Everyone else scoured the huge flower bed, clearing it of leaves left over from December.

After cutting up a Christmas Tree we ran back to Somers Town, on our way picking up two trees for recycling!

Biggest leaflet sesh ever!

Group Two leaflet-ed for GG & Vegbox (8.5km) led by Katesh:

Combined they are Katesh, Kat and Pritesh led a team to Kentish Town and the Gospel Oak area to ditribute 500 leaflets for Vegbox and 100 leaflets for GoodGym. They covered an impressive 9km around the area and got rid of them all, that's amazing!

Vegbox is a fantastic local scheme organised by our partners Green Gym - read all about it!

Group Three Christmas Tree Collections (7km) led by Krosie:

Rosie and Katherine, both awesome taskforce members are now known as Krosie. They led a team of eight people to the Kentish Town area to find, collect and recycle Christmas trees. This is the last week we will be doing this fun task - everyone has done great!

Market tree-research

I hear Hanry and Ben climbed a lot and Team Krosie got an impressive 29 trees!

Lots of fun guys, thanks for coming - see you next week we are off to Castlehaven and Skip Garden - both regular faves! Sign up here!

PB out.

What a year it's been. We've seen the group go from strength to strength, have helped countless charities and community organisations, covered many, many miles and had a pretty great time while we did it. We've seen the first ever 50 milestones reached in Hounslow, cheered our members through races and PBs and celebrated our first birthday. 2018 is shaping up to be a truly brilliant year.

Our last run of 2017 was a very festive one - not only were we feeling very Christmassy, but we also had Hanukkah to celebrate. Double the fun! So we jingled all the way outside to warm up, and to hear about each other's favourite points of 2017. Reaching 50 good deeds, joining GoodGym, traveling to exotic places and simply that it's almost over were our highlights.

'Borrowing' the lovely Ealing group's idea, our run to the task tonight was accompanied by a festive quiz, which included questions like how many good deeds have been done across the whole of GoodGym (73 112!) and who is top of the Hounslow leader board for good deeds (Remy and Andy). Each incorrect answer resulted in a fitness-based forfeit for the team, and there was one unfortunate moment when the roles were reversed and the questionmaster was punished with a mean old set of tricep dips. That wasn't supposed to happen!

We soon arrived at our task, which was to pick up and deliver a pile of leaflets for a community Christmas concert happening in Brentford. We're well practised at this particular job now, and so as soon as we got the leaflets in our chilly little hands, we set off into the local streets, stopping only for a quick snap in front of Brentford FC's home ground.

We still had a two mile run back ahead of us, so after we had had got rid of all the leaflets we set off in the direction of home. The drizzle started not long after, putting the future of our fitness session (the 12 days of Fitmas) in peril. By the time we got back to Turnham Green it was coming down pretty badly so we decided to do the festive thing, and head inside. A good job we did for two reasons. The first was that shortly after the heavens opened and the rain became apocalyptic, and the second was much much nicer. Thank you so much team for all the amazing words and treats - you are a brilliant bunch. We saw off the night drinking prosecco and toasting the year we've had, before retiring to the pub to spin the dreidel and eat the incredible spread of delicious things that Remy kindly brought us. It's been a wonderful year, and it's all down to the people that every week dedicate their time to make other people's lives better. That's you! Here's to 2018 xxx

There was so much good news last night, we barely knew where to start.

First all hail team (Tom) Cruisin' About, Doing Good for they reign supreme as winners of the inaugural Mission Possible. That's right, Remy, Andy and Michelle saw off all the competition to complete two great deeds and a whole scavenger hunt on Sunday. Way to do good! You should have seen their human pyramid.

We had some fabulous running as well as good doing this weekend, with Remy smashing her 24th and last half marathon of the year. Some of the Hounslow team were lucky enough to be there to watch her do it, and can confirm that she powered across the line in fine form. Well done Remy, a fantastic challenge completed. Will 'PB' Yates also showed us how it's done this weekend, with not one but two personal bests over 5k and 10k at the weekend. Fantastic stuff, keep it up!

Yes, we were unprepared for some of the biggest news of the night, but that did not stop us being massively impressed by none other than the gorgeous Vix who casually rocked up for her 100th milestone. You total superstar! 100 good deeds is an incredible achievement and shows huge dedication to making other people's lives better. Give that lady a cheer, she deserves it!

Our task last night was a slightly different one, but we did our warm up as usual, finding out at the same time what the best winter drinks were. Peppermint mochas, black forest gateaux lattes, Baileys, mulled cider, mulled gin, mulled wine (anything mulled) and Harvey Wallbangers were all top of the winter pops.

We then ran around the corner to the library to pick up two huge sheets of aluminium which are going to make up the beautiful new mural under Turnham Green Bridge - the very bridge we had scrubbed free of graffiti a few weeks ago. We divided up into two teams, and after a very thorough health and safety briefing plus demonstration (ahem), we set off down the road to deliver the new artwork ready to be displayed in local schools.

Past the beautiful Christmas lights we went, under the underpass and along the A4, attracting a few odd looks as we went on our merry way. Precious cargo deposited, it was only a short run back to Turnham Green, doing some extra and unexpected good on the roads along the way. It took until this point in the run to discover that Andy had spent the day hobnobbing with royalty, having a very interesting discussion about chip fat with Prince Charles. WHAT! Two crowns in a matter of days, Andy, you are so regal.

After a short run we had plenty of time to do a lovely fitness session, which started with a game of Chase the Hare. Remy was our sprinting hare, just pipped to the post by Andy and Will. After that warm up we launched into everybody's favourite test of speed, the bleeping Bleep Test. This is a really hard but effective exercise, and great for speed and endurance building. If that wasn't enough, we finished off the evening with some conditioning exercises to build up strength to support all that lovely running we're doing. After that, it truly was job done, and we finished with some stretches and a chat about next week's task. Well done everybody, a task well done and a tough session to boot. Same again next week?!.

Clad in hats, gloves, and some rather natty new headtorches, a group of 10 intrepid runners did not let the bitter cold put them off last night.

We started off the night talking about the amazing Mission Possible this weekend, where teams of three will be taking on a mass volunteering effort, spreading good all over the city! Good luck everyone, see you in the pub afterwards...

Braving the cold, we stepped outside and dived straight into our warm ups whilst discussing who we would ask round for dinner. Charlie Brooker, Stephen Hawking, David Beckham and Alan Shearer were all lucky enough to score an invite.

The night's task was at the Waterman's Centre, and independent charity which aims to bring art to the local community. It was just under a 2.5k run, and we set off briskly. 20 speedy minutes later we were there, ready to get stuck in.

We were handed shears, bin liners and brooms, and tasked with the job of clearing leaves and cutting back the branches in the car park. It was quite a labour intensive job, which was good, because we needed to keep warm. Half an hour later and several bin bags later we were done. Or were we?

No, we were not. There was the small matter of hill sprints to do. Now, after talking about the possibility of hill sprints for several weeks, if not months, we had to take what we could get. The small incline in the carpark would have to do. In pairs we tackled five reps, keeping our chests high and taking care to pump our arms but to keep them at a 90 degree angle behind our body. You all looked like superstar athletes.

The run back was smattered with some lovely conditioning exercises, just to keep things exciting, and we stopped just short of the Town Hall to do our final bit of fitness. In two teams we assumed plank position, passing the golden satsuma along the line. When the satsuma got the end, somebody shouted 'burpee', and the whole team had to do said burpee, increasing by one each time. Team Jo, Michelle, Jeremy and Andy won the challenge and as their prize, took home the two fought-over satsumas. Lucky them.

During our stretches we realised we have only two runs left THIS YEAR. Let's make the most of them, starting with our penultimate one next week. Stay warm until then :)