Southwark News

• A big wooping hooray to Matt who turned 50 today. He's been doing good since 2014, he's raced a few horses in his time and he's always a happy face on a group run. What a Guy!

• On Sunday Peckham Festival need our help setting up for the 1km, 5km and 10km fun runs on the Rye. Meet at 8am, hammer in some way markers and then do the run yourself! Sign up here.

• Next week we're going to Nunhead Cemetery to help sort out the chapel. 3km run total - sign up here.

• Headtorches! The season is coming - here's an example of a good'un

That's enough of the business

A big hello and welcome to Venetia, Frankie and Helen who joined us for the first time.

After a fairly silly warm up - yes, remembering what you had for dinner last night is legitimate exercise - we headed into the beautiful pink and orange sunset to Camberwell Green. Just over 2.5km to the Crisis shop at Camberwell where we were met by Anca and split up to tackle severals tasks:

• Taking down anything summery from the shop floor ready for the winter donations to go up

• Redressing manaquins in wintery clothes

• Tagging and hangering the winter donations

• Tidying the stock room to make it safer for volunteers

• Colour coding the shop window rails

• Pegging autumn leaves to the rails and displays

We got the stock room cleaned up, all the wintery donations tagged and on hangers and most of the shop floor completely changed over. What an amazing job everyone, Anca was delighted! The work we did would have taken the shop volunteers at least a day.

Waving goodbye to Anca we set off back to base. We can't wait to go back.

See you next week!

Lucy J

To mix things up this evening, Southwark had a new leader, and lots of new faces too - welcome to the crew Catherine, Laura, Jag, Ralph, Sandra, and Matilda. Give them a cheer! We still met at the Old Spike Roastery and had a quick introduction to what GoodGym is all about (getting fit and doing good, in case you've forgotten). We then headed outside for a warm up and to find out what everyone's favourite ice cream flavour is, with rum and raisin proving surprisingly popular.

With a short run to the Allotments, but a lot of uphill, we took the run at a steady pace and stopped half way for some wall sits to push those legs even further for the evening. With some excellent directing from Helena we soon arrived at Grove Park Allotments and Liz wasn't too far behind to let us in and get us all started on a few different tasks. We had an organised bunch sorting out the big shed and ordering the tools, some got stuck into weeding the paths, others were watering, and one lucky GoodGymmer even got to strim some of the grass.

A little birdie told me that apparently sometimes when you come here the "bee man" comes along and gives you a bee hive lesson, and lets you try the honey - sounds like a dream and like we'll definitely all need to come back so we can experience this!

In what seemed like no time at all, the weeds were gone, the plants were watered and the shed was clutter-free, so we headed back down the hill for our final run. We didn't end it there though, once we were back to base, we did a quick abs blast with a core triathlon followed by a plank off. I have to say that Southwark have some of the sturdiest abs I've witnessed, and we ended up having 3 champions of the plank off as we couldn't wait any longer, with the social looming.

Thanks for having me Southwark! Lucy will be back next week, so don't fret, all things will be back to normal.

21 runners ran 3 or 6km to paint Southwark Tigers clubhouse, tidy up at Cossall Estate and leaflet for Link Age Southwark

Southwark News

• On the weekend we helped man a water station at the British 10k. Read all about it here. There'll be an opportunity to volunteer at the Oxford Half in October - you get a free Virgin race place for your hard work!

• Community Missions are back! If you have suggestions of tasks a little bit out of our usual hit zone, give me a shout!

• Huge hello and welcome to Caroline, Sammy, Daniela and Owen who joined us for the first time last night.

That's enough of the business

Last night Southwark was MEGA. We helped three different organisations in one night - flyering for Southwark Link Age, painting Southwark Tigers' clubhouse and tidying up at Cossall Estate. Phewf!

We split into two groups - one running the 6k round trip to Tigers and one the 2km round trip to Cossall Estate.

• Long run group were well looked after by Helena and Girija - they got to work painting walls, scraping the floor of paint, painting the blackboard and finishing off skirting boards.

• Short run group led by Lucy and Beth watered plants, cleared a huge cupboard (we found a 'Now 2003' CD that's a keeper!) and started the big job of removing damaged flooring from the hall since the flood.

Michael at Tigers and Alan and Jaki at Cossall were blown away as usual by our speedy and efficient work. We finished the clubhouse, watered all of Grow Cossall's raised beds and cleared a huge cupboard (see photo). We also moved on lots of leaflets calling for volunteers for Link Age Southwark. A busy night... and it wasn't over just yet!

In perfect timing, both groups arrived back to base for 20.15 which means - you guessed it - 15 minutes for fitness fun! We went to a corner of the Rye for a session using the breath as a marker for how hard we're working when we're running.

• Easy: in through the nose, out through the nose

• Medium: in through the nose, out through the mouth

• Hard: in through the mouth out through the mouth

To find out more about how this works you'll have to come and run with us! After the run we went on our monthly social (third Wednesday off the month) to Peckham Levels for a well-deserved drink and food. Thank you to Girija for organising - looking forward to next month already :)

Next week we're gardening at Stuart Road Allotments - sign up here.

See you then!

Keep running happy, Lucy

17 runners ran 6km to tidy up at the Giraffe House Comunity Centre

Southwark News

• This Saturday is the GoodGym Olympics at Parliament Hill Athletics track. If you're not registered for an event come and cheer, eat cake (there's a bake off) and drink beer! If you can't make the day, come join us at the after party at the Vine pub in Highgate from 6pm.

• 15th July is the British 10k and GoodGym are taking over a water aid station! You get a free Virgin race place for volunteering, a hat and a tshirt!

• If you're interested in the Team 100 scheme that Vernon told us about last night - please fill out this form. You can find out more at the reach volunteering website.

That's enough of the business!

17 runners gathered last night at Old Spike Roastery to enjoy a glorious summer evening and some do-gooding. Big shout out to Charlotte, Helen and Jordan who joined us for the first time last night and also Chi who's on a whirlwind GoodGym tour, bringing core sessions and 1km reps to everyone! Thanks Chi!

We split into two groups post warm-up. Beth leading one at party pace and Lucy leading a group wanting to stretch their legs a little. By perfect synchronicity we arrived at exactly the same time by the BMX park in Burgess Park where we met Vernon. The group has helped out Vernon many times but it's my first visit! The site is amazing and whilst there Vernon showed me the Tigers Club House which is in need of a lick of paint from us in a few weeks time. Can't wait! On site we met Franco, a Sicilian chef who's just started volunteering at the Giraffe House. He's currently working on a bed for tomato plants that he will tend with groups of volunteers. Ultimately he wants to set up a kiosk in the park selling his tomato sauce. Sounds like a job for GoodGym!

There was loads to get done last night! We split into three groups:

• Moving scrap wood
• Litter picking/general clear up
• Sifting the new tomato flower bed for stones and unwanted items with chef Franco

30 minutes whizzed by! With all the wood shifted, flower beds mostly sifted (Franco couldn't keep up with you!) and the car park looking super tidy - Chi treated us to a short (but hard!) core session. The session involved planks, bicycles, scissor kicks and more. Cores pleasantly aching, we bid our farewells to Vernon and Franco and headed off.

#GGOlympics2018

Before leaving, we had the opportunity to complete a 1km rep to put on Strava to count towards Southwark's standing in the GoodGym Olympics Nationwide Race. Beth led a group home whilst 6 of us stayed to do our 1km rep. Chi has been doing these on his GoodGym tourism so far and is hoping to get his 1km time down to 03:29. 1km is further than you think it is! Really great running from everyone. Don't forget to hashtag the Strava activity #GGOlympics2018 and link your strava to your GoodGym profile to make it count!

What a gorgeous evening to spend with you all. I was treated to a really beautiful sunset on the way home.

Looking forward to seeing you next week - we're running 3km total to do some gardening at Grove Park Allotments.

Keep running happy! Lucy

20 runners ran 6km to weed at Bell House in Dulwich

Hump Day evening! You know what that means... it's GoodGym Southwark! Last night 20 of us gathered at Old Spike Roastery including FIVE (COUNT 'EM) FIVE FIRST TIMERS. Big cheers for Chloe, Caitlin, Frances, Heather and Marisa for coming along, hopefully the first of many good deeds! A big woop also for Bristol legend Debs Redmond who's furthered her GoodGym tourism by coming to see us!

A New Task EEk!

After a briefing and a warm up we set off for the 3k (basically a straight line) to Bell House in Dulwich. Bell House has had many incarnations in its lifetime and now it is an education centre that offers support outside the mainstream curriculum. The house is a centre for educational needs such as dyslexia support and it is entirely volunteer led. They have some great short films on their website about the work they do, have a look!

Weed don't need no education (except the amazing opportunities offered by Bell House)

We arrived at the gorgeous garden and were put to work - Sarah and Tim helped us with what were and were not weeds and we got to work. 20 people can get a lot done in as many minutes! We got really stuck in, enjoying the beautiful environment as we did so (and messing around with sticky willy). When time was up we had two very full wheelbarrows to show for ourselves (see photo). Sarah was thrilled! We thanked our task owners and headed back through gorgeous Dulwich park to base.

Every Saturday at 09.30 Bell House have a volunteer session. As Tim pointed out, it's perfectly timed for just after Dulwich parkrun... and there's coffee and croissants. What more could you ask for on a Saturday!

We got loads done and got a solid 6km run out of it. Great work team!

Looking forward to seeing you next week.

Keep running happy,

Lucy