It was great to see another good turnout from Waltham Forest's finest tonight and before I get into the run report, I want to say an extra special hello to our pair of first time GoodGymers, Leoni and Sophie. Great to see you both.

I was very excited about tonight's task, I always like the idea of doing something that has a degree of permanence about it and tonight was one of those tasks. Up at our familiar stomping ground of Walthamstow Village, near St Mary's we commenced work building some large planters to improve the public space in this historic conservations area.

In short, this task involved shifting some large planks of wood about, measuring and marking-up, sawing, drilling, screwing, fixing etc. Basically, this was a good old-fashioned DIY job. Local resident and Parkrun Legend, Penny, met us at the task. Thankfully, Penny had our task all planned out, and we got cracking straight away. We were joined by a collection of other helpful residents as things got going.

With a good turnout and a limited amount of tools, we split the group so that some were on the task while a bunch of us went to do some drills. We then swapped over halfway through, thus maintaining raised heart rates and body warmth as the temperature plummeted.

Everyone involved did great tonight, it was a technical task and we got one full planter made and another well on the road to completion. These bad boys are going to be in situ for many years to come so you never know maybe one day you will bring your grandchildren here and tell them that you built them 👷‍🏗️

We are back here in two weeks to finish off so don't miss out and sign-up today

Also, next week we are back to finish off our bulb planting and a spot of gardening at George Mason Lodge, you can sign-up here

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🎃🎃🎃 We got our freak(y) on at GoodGym Waltham "Haunted" Forest this evening with a spooktacular run to Change, Grow, Live a crucial drug and alcohol rehab charity based in Walthamstow Village.

It being the eve of all Hallows and all that we didn't just do the red t-shirt thing tonight but many decided to exercise the fancy dress option and so Mirth, Marvel and Maud was invaded by an army of the undead - wait a second surely undead simply means alive? Anyway, I digress as we certainly assembled a motley crew of scary creatures from Pippa "Six arms", to Heidi "Harly Quinn" and Carmen "Electric" plus many more (see photos).

We were joined for the first time tonight by Yasmine, well done for joining on such an odd evening, I promise we don't always look like we have escaped from an asylum.

We were told to arrive punctually for this task so, after a brief chat and a round-up of our fave horror characters and headcount we headed into the night in search of victims, I mean beneficiaries! However, in all the excitement, I forgot to mention this bit of news:

> NEWS FLASH

The last monthly social of 2018 is coming up and it is in east London so why not pop down and swap notes with fellow GGers from all over the nation. See deets and sign-up here

> END OF NEWS FLASH

Back to the evening's activities and we rocked up at CGL to help them prepare for a big office move. This basically meant being removal men and women for a bit. Resisting the urge to roll up some cigarettes and drink strong tea with three sugars in, we buckled down to the tasks. There wasn't a great deal to do and this lot were so efficient we were in and out in about 20 minutes.

Not to be deterred, we headed for the local churchyard for a few drills. These were plucked from a Halloween goody bag and included such things as Burpees, Sprints, Shuttle Runs (tricks). Then Lunges, sweets, high knees, sweets, satsumas (treats).

After a graveside photocall, we hit the road again taking one of Ramon's famous long-cuts back to base. Fortunately, this one was a more manageable distance than the ultra of a few weeks back.

Finally a thirsty few then headed into Mirth for refreshments.

Next week we are back at the wonderful care home, George Mason Lodge for some bulb planting. Head torches would be handy on this one folks. Sign-up here

Until next time

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