A massive 54 people ran 8km and shifted 16 tonnes of crushed concrete for Grounded Ecotherapy at Southbank!

Wow that was amazing! What a night! Welcome to newbies Ludovica, Becca and Jane - what a night to come for your first time!

In the news this week:

1. Well done to everyone who ran, raced and cheered the Big Half on Sunday - GoodGym even made the official video!
2. It's the GG Monthly Drinks at the Greenwich Tavern TODAY, come along for puns, fun and Pritesh shouting haha!

It was a cracking evening to be a GoodGymer as 54 of us descended upon the Thames for our annual trip to help Grounded Ecotherapy at the Southbank Centre and escape Camden, through Westminster and into Lambeth - hehe. The lights of the river and central was beautiful - a rare sight seeing so many red shirts bouncing over Waterloo Bridge.

16 tonnes!

Grounded Ecotherapy is an amazing organisation, and they are one of London's most unique horticultural therapy projects - they help their members who have suffered mental health, substance misuse issues or experience of homelessness, to get back on their feet.

Our task for the evening was to shift 16 tonnes of crushed concrete into the Queen Elizabeth Hall to help create a a newly commissioned Atrium in the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Getting into pairs, we shovelled 6 spades worth of concrete into each bag and followed a route set by the wonderful Paul (bigger beard) before emptying the contents into a pile that will be spread to create the piece opening at the end of March.

50 minutes x 54 GGers = day's worth of work!

It took 50 minutes and 54 GG Camden runners but we got the job done. It was hard, it was physical but man you guys did well. It was pretty non-stop with lots of pulling, lifting and emptying.

Upon hearing all the amazing work Grounded are doing at Southbank we headed home for a well earnt stretch and pint.

Well done everyone - what a night!

Next week we have 3 tasks helping 4 charities in CAMDEN - sign up here.

PB out.

31 GoodGymers made 12 beds for the homeless and did Char's brilliant fitness session

Welcome to Lucy whose first time it was last night, also lovely to have Tim and Nick from GG York along for the evening and of course thank you to Char (New Liverpool Trainer) who was getting a taste of GG Camden last night!

Last night was the beginning of a 10 week slot where we make the beds for C4WS at the American International Church, I believe this is some of biggest amount of GOOD we do for Camden all year. We are essentially making beds for people to sleep in that night, what could be gooder.

After a great dynamic warm up led by Char we headed towards Goodge Street, bouncing around the busy streets of St Pancras and Russell Square for 1.8km. Upon our arrival we entered a room with lots of empty mastresses and bags of bedding. Jonathan from the American International Church, who heads up the shelter on Wednesday evenings, spoke about the importance of their work in Camden and how we helped each year.

Bed time!

The race was on - who could be the quickest pair to make a bed - armed with sheets, pillows, sheets and even a towel for the guest. People had various new and old techniques, Richard Foster appeared to make about 3 beds! Jacob and Imogen made their bed the fastest - very neat toooooo!

As we were packing up Jenna, from C4WS, talked about the amazing impact the charity was having on homeless people in the area - getting them rehoused, providing counselling, language classes and steps to move forward. This is truly inspiring stuff and it's fantastic to be apart of it.

Char's Star Jump Fun!

We headed to Russell Square for our evening's fitness session where Char took control, we did the following:

• Fast Lap of Square in 3 groups with various conditioning exercises added before each group went off
• Conditioning Sesh - Squats, Calf Raises, One-legged Calf Raises and Balancing - NICE!
• Another run around the Square!
• Star Jumps Relay!

Thank you to everyone for coming and to Char for leading the fitness session!

See you next week where we'll be making beds for the shelter and painting a cafe called Flapjack! Mmm flapjack..

PB out

33 GGers ran 4-6km, helped Skip Garden & Castlehaven and did a time trial!

Welcome along to Eleonora whose first time it was last night, plus there was the return of lots of January newbies - lovely to have you all along.

In the news this week:

1. Well done to Lucy and George who have hit 50 good deeds in the last week - well done to you both! That's a whole lot of good!
2. Rosie Ashworth (Taskforce Member) made us some awesome brownies and flapjacks for us as she raising money for RISE, a charity which supports victims of domestic violence. If you'd like to donate in aid of brownie eating please go to her JustGiving Page here.
3. Go along to Victoria Park 10km on 25th February - great race to start the year!

Right onto last night, after a quick warm up we split into two groups to help Camden task favourites Castlehaven and Skip Garden.

Frances' Skip Garden Report:

Fifteen of us went to Skip Garden to help them get ready for Lumiere London. They were expecting loads of visitors over the next few nights and needed us to help with moving trip hazards and getting 70 litres of wine in the right place, something which Steve Coman was very keen to help with.

Wine please!

After we'd finished we did a couple of laps of Granary Square and then took turns to assign a variety of core exercises

Castlehaven Report by PB:

After a gentle mile of running we arrived at Castlehaven, an amazing community centre who help both young and old people with their services. They also look after two parks in the area and need help maintaining these - that's where we come in.

Despite it being January there was still some dead and wet leaves left in the gullys along the fences surrounding the park. We got to work armed with tools, bin bags and gloves. After 20 minutes we'd packed up 16 bags of leaves - nice!

Candle in the wind!

On our way to meet the other team we ran along the canal and took in the light festival as we approached Granary Square. Once there, the teams combined, we played the high knees game in the smoke and then lined up for our first time trial of the year! Everyone did amazingly, really pushing the pace! Chris came in first at 2.34, one second outside the course record - pretty good!

Next week we are off to one of our most important and impactful tasks at the American International Church to help make beds for the homeless - sign up here.

PB out.