Southwark News

• This weekend was a big one for races! Oxford Half, Cardiff Half, Chester Marathon, Chicago Marathon and many others. Congratulations if you were racing!

• If you're part of the RaceTeam - or even if you're not! - they're choosing the big races to attend next year tonight at Somerset House. Find out more here.

• Dates for your diary! 1st December we are hosting the GoodGym Christmas party at the Old Library on Burgess Park. Wahoooo! Sign up page coming soon. We'll be having a Christmas decorations party before. AND 2019's GoodGym goes abroad trip is to Sofia - there's 5km, 10km and a half marathon. Get your flights whilst they're crazy cheap! Sign up here.

• It's officially headtorch season - here's a good'un for 6 quid.

• It's cross country season! If you're a GoodGym member you can become a member of the RaceTeam and join in cross country which runs all winter. Email axel@goodgym.org for more details

• Core blimey this is a lot of news.... next week we're running 6km overall to sort donations at Crisis. I love this task! Sign up here. AND next week is our social woohoo! We'll be going somewhere nearby for food and drinks after.

That's enough of the business

Last night we gathered as we do every Wednesday at Old Spike Roastery at 18.45 to leave at 19.00 and run to do good. We got in a bonus 0.8 km on the way out last night (woops sorry!) as we went to Galleywall Nature Reserve in Bermondsey. Galleywall Nature Reserve is a small plot of land which has been owned by Southwark Housing for decades. It was used by the adjacent Galleywall School for some time before the school closed. It has been maintained by a group of volunteers, the Friends of Galleywall Nature Reserve, since 2004, under an ongoing long-term agreement with the council. It has all sorts - a camp fire, Southwark's only composting toilet (see photos), a mini allotment and a permaculture area.

Our mission should we choose to accept? Plant three bushes and 40 daffodil bulbs

Jane set us about our task, the bulb planters were paired up with dibbers, trowels and forks and the bush-planters made a valiant effort with some very tough earth!

We absolutely stormed through the 40 daffodil bulbs and ended up with....

Over 100 bulbs planted!

The bush diggers ended up hitting some brick so that might need a bit more work another time! Jane will send us some photos in Spring so we can admire our handy work.

Great work team!

See you next week.

Lucy J

16 runners ran 4km to leaflet, litter pick and tidy up Southwark

Southwark News

• Interested in what happened at the Shindig back in July? There's now a write up of how we're moving forward and details of how you can get involved. Have a look here.

• Next week we're painting benches at Tigers RFC. It's a 6km run overall - sign up here.

• Hello to Sian who joined us for the first time tonight!

• We're already talking about the GoodGym abroad trip next year - it's in Sofia, the website isn't up yet but you can find out more and sign up on the GoodGym website here.

Good bin? That's rubbish!

Sadly Stuart Road Allotment's wasps are still in residence - the weather hasn't changed as much as they'd hoped so they're still there! So what did we do instead? Scavenger hunt time!

The basics - a point system for:

*picking up rubbish

*doing a boomerang

*good dogs

*shops/pubs with a 'A'

BONUS POINTS

• Most creative team photo

• Best pun

*Leaflets GONE

We had 45 minutes in our teams to rack up as many points as possible and meet back on the Rye for - guess what? Squats! Everyone loves the Sally Squat Challenge (google it for more info). We were leafletting to advertise missions to local people and to raise awareness for a Community Consultation Coffee Morning that Age UK Southwark are holding on Tuesday 9th October at 10.00am. The consultation is designed to hear the community's voices on how the Yalding Healthy Living & Learning Centre should move forward. It's a great opportunity to get involved with what's happening for older people in the local community. Spread the word!

Scores on the doors: Baggers in wooden spoon position with 31 points, The Raccoons in third place with 37, Swingbin were the runners up with a whopping 77 points and in peak position with 89 points were the Fishy Four!

In total we bagged up 7 full bags of rubbish from all over the Peckham/Nunhead end of the borough. A serious bit of cleaning up. Nice one! We also shifted all of our leaflets - bonus points for everyone!

We had fun, we did some good and we ended up at Batch after, enjoying a few Hump Day beverages and much needed food.

A great night everyone, look forward to seeing you next week.

Lucy J

8 runners ran 7km to Galleywall Nature Reserve to shift compost, earth and do some weeding

Southwark News

• Cross country season is coming up! One race a month starting in October - a £5 flat fee - Bargain! 6k races for women, 8k races for men. You need to join the GoodGym RaceTeam in order to do it (you have to be UKAthletics affiliated with us) and then all the info on the first race etc is here. Once you've joined the RaceTeam, request to join the Facebook group where you'll get lots of info! Any questions, email axel@goodgym.org

• Next week we're doing a flyer drop for Peckham Festival. There will be different distances to cover and some fitness fun to be had after. Sign up here!

• We're doing a parkrun takeover at Peckham Rye parkrun on 8th September. If you'd like to pace you can sign up on the spreadsheet, otherwise bring your GoodGym tshirt and your lovely self! Find out more here.

That's enough of the business

Last night 8 of us gathered at Old Spike to revisit a task we haven't been to since February! Galleywall Nature Reserve is a little piece of wilderness in Bermondsey that the Friends of Galleywall Nature Reserve have successfully stopped developers from building on for 15 years! We were met there by Alan, Jane and Ollie who set us to work:

• Removing the top layer of twigs from the compost bins to get to the good stuff

• Spreading the good stuff on the allotment

• Moving a dirt pile to be spread by the pond

• Weeding!

Ollie offered us marshmallows and the highlight of the evening was getting to use Southwark's first composting toilet. Alan explained that their toilet is an aerobic composting toilet (not a long drop) which means that things break down more quickly and most importantly, you don't get the bad smells. Aerobic composting toilets are the future! All finished up we set off for the run home. A big thanks to Jane, Ollie and Alan for having us.

Great work team, looking forward to seeing 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.

Southwark News

• Next week is the third Wednesday of the month and you know what that means! Social! We're heading to Batch next door for a drink after the run - sign up here.

• Tonight is the monthly GoodGym social at The Mulberry Bush by Southbank. Expect International Pun of the Month, heroes and more! Sign up here.

• Next week I'm on holibobs so Ben from Greenwich is popping over to cover. We're going to Grove Park Allotments our old fave, total distance 3km. Sign up here.

• Hello and Welcome to Danielle and Beth who joined us for the first time last night. We hope to see your faces again!

Knock on the door we're twenty-four

Last night at whopping TWENTY FOUR GoodGymers gathered at Old Spike Roastery to tackle two tasks at once. One group was off on an 8km round trip to see Barnaby at Bee Urban and the other went on a 6km round trip over to Bell House in Dulwich. It was a beautiful evening and with the slightly cooler temperatures, we were keen to head out. The long runners set off early with Helena and Girija and the shorter runners warmed up with me and then set off for Bell House.

The long runners encountered a bit of an issue - Barnaby at Bee Urban had confused us with Lambeth who run on a Tuesday and had been expecting us the night before. Oh no! Luckily we got in touch with him and found plenty of leaves and rubbish that needed shifting. We still managed to get our good done! Big props to the long runners for using their initiative. You can find out more about the Barnaby's projects here.

The 6km runners went to beautiful Bell House where we got to work loosening the soil in a bed we cleared last time we were there and then planting. With the help of Sarah and George we got plenty of bulbs in and can't wait to see them make the garden even more beautiful. For more info on the gorgeous Bell House and everything they do - click here. It was hard to tear ourselves away but we managed to tidy up and get ready for our group photo. We went for 'moody indie album cover' before our usual happy selfie variation. We'd make a mean gardening-based indie band. Any thoughts on names?

Great work team. Have a great night next week, see you on 22nd August!

Keep running happy, Lucy

Ps. sorry about the Taylor Swift pun