There were triple the number of volunteers at the Ace of Clubs today so we split into a kitchen team, dining hall team and gardening team. The gardeners raked up all the fallen leaves, bagging them up and making space for the spring bulbs to come through the beds. The inside crews were just as busy!

The dark, wet and windy conditions didn't put off 17 wonderful GoodGym'ers from joining me to help out at Springvale Residents Tenants Hall tonight. There weren't any newbies to welcome along tonight but it was lovely to have one GoodGym tourist, Sam join us for the evening.

With everyone gathered we headed outside to the covered car park area for a very brief intro and the weekly news:

1. H&F Community Mission I - Age UK H&F's Christmas party is on Thursday 12th December. Please let Johnny aka Biscuits know when you will be arriving to lend a hand if you've signed up.
2. H&F Community Mission II - Notting Hill Genesis on Friday 13th December from 1-4pm, help sort donated food and gifts, please sign up here.
3. H&F Community Mission III- Operation hall prep for Shepherd Bush Families Project on Tuesday 17th December from 5.30-6.30pm, help move furniture out of the hall, please sign up here.
4. Win a limited-edition GoodGym sweatshirt 👕 - bring a friend to a community mission in December and post the story of your community mission on social media with the tag #winterwarriors. All the details can be found here.

Rebels with a Claus!

Well done to Alice, Speedy, Mo and Andrew for completing the Santa Dash 🎅 at Brockwell Park and to Matt, Eloise and Lucy for completing the Osterley 10k 🙌🏼.

Railing by

We had a quick warm-up and stretch to get the pulses raised before we headed off on our short run over to Springvale Tenants Hall. En route we had a brief stop to regroup and Cookie chose a somewhat uncomfortable 30 second railing wall sit for the group which everyone really thanked him for! Railing wall sit complete we continued on the last part of our run with Matt reminding us that he'd never done a task in the rain!! Surely that streak was about to end tonight?!

Beating around the push

Once we discovered the garden gate was in fact already open and just required a gentle push, we headed inside where we were greeted by the ever smiley, Berni who ran through the list of jobs for the evening:

• Sweep up and bag the leaves from the garden area 🍂
• Move the benches and cover them with a tarpaulin 💪
• Hoover the inside of the hall 🧱
• Clean the mirrors and radiators in the hall 🧽

The group divided in two; one half of the group headed outside to sweep and bag all the leaves, and then move the benches. Andrew, Tom, Matt, Sarah and Katie worked superbly as a team as they swept and bagged all the leaves with only a couple of brooms, a dust pan & brush, and some bin bags. Jackie and Annabel worked their tetris magic as they got two of the benches moved and covered with a tarpaulin with supreme speed and efficiency. Andrew and Arba had obviously taken note as they moved the final two benches with equal efficiency!

Time to reflect

Back inside, the other half of the group were cleaning the mirrors and radiators while Lucy hoovered the floor making sure it was spotless! Some of the group also took a moment to admire the wall of photos from our previous visits, complete with a red GoodGym tee that Berni has created as a thank you from all the residents - what a lovely gesture!

With all the jobs completed and the hall looking spick and span ready to host the polling on Thursday, the team tucked into the impressive array of treats that Berni had kindly provided for us as a big thank you for all our help tonight and over the past year.

Deep in the Sally

Before we headed off back to base we made use of the nice and dry indoor hall for tonight's fitness session. The first was requested by Tom last week (...well that's what I heard anyway!), one of the team's old favourites, 'Sally Squats'! 3mins 25seconds of squatting, what's not to love?! I think everyone felt the glute burn! The next was decided by a very democratic vote, the 'Roxanne press-up challenge', with a press-up done every time Sting sung "Roxanne"...a whole 27 times for those who were wondering!

Fitness session complete we took a very creative and artistic photo in one of the mirrors under the direction of Biscuits and Speedy. We then said our goodbyes and Merry Christmas to Berni and headed back to base for our cool down and stretch off. Great work tonight team, thank you for coming along and for all your hard work.

DON’T FORGET, THURSDAY IS POLLING DAY! 📝

Next week it's our last run of 2019 (and the decade!), we'll be heading up to the Nubian Life Resource Centre to help out at their Josiah Braithwaite Community Garden. Sign up here. Have a lovely rest of your week and weekend. Hopefully see you next week, if not, Happy Christmas and Happy New Year!

16 GoodGym'ers ran 9km to deliver 500 Christmas Cards for H&F Foodbank...CARD core!

It may have been a chilly night in H&F but that didn't deter 15 other GoodGym'ers from joining me on our annual H&F Foodbank Christmas Card delivery around the streets of Fulham.

A big welcome along to Duncan, Jackie and Anne who joined us tonight for their first GoodGym H&F group run, lovely to have you join us tonight! And thank you as always to my wonderful regulars 😊.

With everyone layered up and ready we headed outside for our news round-up and warm-up while jogging on the spot to keep warm!

Just news it! 📰

We started off by congratulating both Arba and Lucy on reaching their 50th good deed! 5️⃣0️⃣ Between them 100 good deeds done and a whole lot of good for their community. Well done both! 🙌🏼

1. H&F Community Missions - Age UK H&F's Christmas party is on Thursday 12th December. Please sign up here if you can lend a hand anytime between 4pm-8.30pm. Notting Hill Genesis on Friday 13th December, help sort donating food and gifts, time TBC shortly.
2. Alice's Birthday Celebrations 🥳 - Thursday 5th December - check the WhatsApp group for details/ask Alice!
   
3. Santa Dash 🎅 - Sunday 8th December at Brockwell Park. Run a 5k or 10k dressed as Santa! All the details are here - Andrew has kindly created a team called 'GoodGym H&F'.
4. GG-all areas Christmas party 🎅🎄⛄🎉 - Friday 6th December. Places are limited so make sure you sign up! All the details are here.

GoodGym H&F on a Tuesday night...there's snow-where we'd rather be!

Following a quick warm-up that included some high knees, an extra long squad hold and some festive ‘shooing of the turkeys’ we set-off down towards ChristChurch in Fulham.

Half-way down we came across the tall and colourfully decorated Christmas Tree near St John's Church and Sarah had the bright idea to get a team photo with it in the background 🎄.

A card day's night

With my Fulham bearings not quite as up to scratch as my Hammersmith ones, we ended taking a slightly more scenic route to the church (sorry guys!). Upon our arrival we were greeted by Mel from H&F Foodbank who was armed with a bag of 500 Christmas Cards, ready for us to deliver around the surrounding streets. Around Christmas, the H&F Foodbank feed around 400 additional families a week, so non-perishable, in date donations are much needed and appreciated.

Before we started our big posting task we got a nicely-lit team photo with Mel of everyone holding the H&F Foodbank Christmas Cards, which featured a lovely hand-drawn snowman on the front ⛄️.

In order to be as quick and efficient as possible we split into two teams - Team Wren and Team Beth - and divided the equally halve the streets we had been asked to cover. After discussing our plans for optimal quick and slick Christmas Card delivery we both mapped out our routes and shared them with our teams - many of the streets ran parallel to each other which made for a nice and easy up one street and down the next!

Postcard pelotons make card work easy!

The teams headed off in separate directions with the agreement we’d meet back at the church once all the houses had had a Christmas Card posted through the door. We both initiated the ‘postcard peloton’, brilliantly coined by Johnny, which you can just about see in action through the darkness...

As we poster door-to-door we had a couple of stops to admire Christmas lights and a few of the large fancy houses, one of which Alice spotted had a giant gold lion door knocker!

In perfect synchronisation both teams arrived back at the church at exactly the same time. The remaining Christmas Cards were equally redistributed amongst the group so that we cover the final marked street on our map that ran parallel to the church.

As we began our run back to base we had one final push to post the final remaining Christmas Cards. Katie spotted a row of houses on the other side of the row and we made a beeline for them with our Christmas Cards in hand. With Mikaela posting the final of the 500 Christmas Cards we had a quick cheer of success but didn’t stop to celebrate for too long because it was fresh out and more importantly, we had treats to get back to!

Life's batter with cake!

We continued on our route back to base, this time the more direct route via Parsons Green and Barons Court! Once back we had a cool down and stretch and celebrated Arba and Lucy’s 50th’s in the best H&F way...with the lots of cakes and biscuits!! Matt had baked some delicious vegan biscuits, Katie had a chocolate cake complete with a 50 candle and I had made a rather crumbly lemon loaf. Once everyone had had their sugar fix and fill we said our goodbyes for another week and headed home to warm-up!

Well done team! Super effort tonight. 500 Christmas Cards posted ✅ and 9km run ✅.

Run shout of steam 📣

• A big well done to Matt who got another parkrun PBs at the weekend, complete with a shoe lace tie mid-run!! 🥳🙌🏼.
• Well done to Alice, Mo and 'Speedy Jonzales', Jonny Knight for completing Mo Run at Greenwick Park! Sadly there were no moustaches to be seen tonight! 👨🏻
• Thank you to Lucy for backmarking, and to Katie for her fabulous camera work 📸.
  
• Well done to all those who volunteered at parkrun and helped at one of the tree planting events across London at the weekend! 🌲

Next week's we're heading on a shorter run to Springvale Residents Hall to help with some weeding and tidying so that the Hall is spick and span ready to host the elections! Please sign up here. Hopefully see you there! Have a great rest of your week!