This trip to Senior's was a little different, in place of completing a big task that the team are unable to complete themselves and therefore doing some good... we arrived to a very dark looking building and spent 5minutes trying to find a doorbell.

Unfortunately there was to be no task for the evening but not to worry we'll be seeing the Senior team soon. It's nearly time for putting the Christmas decorations up!!

And we still got in a longer run up and over the hills - silver lining!

Not only were we spreading the word about Age Exchange and their fabulous Christmas Fair...we also took the opportunity to spread the word about GoodGym.

We gathered at Glass Mill and spent a little while deciding who was going where and with how many flyers. All courtesy of Oli's highlighted maps - thank you!

Julian and Oli set off first as they had the furthest to go whilst the rest of us set off in a group.

With everyone assigned to their roads, all that was left for me to do was wait for you all to return to the designated spot. Whilst the flyering happened, I did a couple of walks up Belmont Hill to keep warm, I noticed the professional bowlers go to Lewisham Lanes on a Monday (not sure why we aren't invited to that) and was on hand with extra flyers for the groups that had delivered all theirs.

Flyering done and we popped back to Glass Mill as a group for an early finish!

In Lewisham, the start of the Christmas period isn’t signalled by any TV adverts, baubles appearing in shop windows, or even the first bite of a mince pie. Here, we set our festive clock by the Blackheath Christmas Fair and this week was our first-of-two tasks distributing their flyers in aid of Age Exchange!

Having suffered wet weather in previous years (along with the dreaded floppy-flyer syndrome that can cause!), a dry if cool evening was welcomed by our squad of 7 as we divvied out the 600 flyers before heading out from Glass Mills.

After a short uphill run to our muster point, and having split into 2 mini-teams, meticulously marked up maps were on hand to guide both around their respective streets selected to receive our festive fair tidings (though note-to-self: yellow highlighter doesn’t show up well under yellow streetlights!).

There were even flyers and time-enough to tackle a few extra streets before we all met back up right on time for groups pics (with a graveyard theme?!) and a nice downhill homeward run.

Same time, same place, same task next week? Why not, see you there!

This Monday’s run was the Group’s first since the clocks changed, but the lack of light didn’t deter us from braving our longest regular run to PNK Garden.

There we were met by Victoria, our sister-from-another-mister (i.e. GG Greenwich!), who had organised and prepped all the tools “weed” need to deliver some difference to this little oasis of green near Surrey Quays.

The evening’s efforts would be split: whilst Jenny concentrated on tidying weeds around the wooden benches within the gardens, the rest of us took to the streets (well… just the one street) to tackle all foliage growing external to the fencing.

And quite a bit of growth there was too, with PNK’s linear nature involving a long fence line! Our floodlights came in handy to illuminate proceedings, as well as to alert passing pedestrians of our presence.

After half an hour of graft, more than half a dozen bags had been filled with a mix of brambles (thanks Victoria for leading the charge on those!), small weeds, and rather tougher more established plants, requiring some long-lopper action. With Jenny having filled further bags, we combined the fruits of our labour before Victoria presented us with a thank you gift of some locally grown and freshly harvested Rosemary – a lovely scent in our nostrils before tackling the 2.5 miles back to Glass Mills!

Next week will be a shorter affair, as we begin our annual flyering for the Age Exchange Christmas Fare.

It's not often the GoodGym stars align as well as they did last night to give us a brand new task, brand new tools and a distance where we felt like we'd got a run in but also left plenty of time for doing good!

Welcome Diana to your first GoodGym session, hope you enjoyed it. Thanks for getting stuck in!

Onto the task for the evening, we needed to clear the overgrown allotment space so that the Refugee Council can begin their project. We set to work cutting back the tall grass, raking the cuttings and borrowing Eric's wheelbarrow.

Steve was doing an excellent job collecting rubbish, broken bits of wood, bricks from anyone who called his name. And then managed to drag up not 1 but 2 buried tarps!!

The plot looks completely different to when we first arrived. Before we left we hid the tool box and returned Eric's wheelbarrow (thanks again) and made our way back up to the gate.

Excellent effort last night everyone, it was a tough task and hopefully there's not too many aches this morning. Oli is in charge next 2 weeks!