26 GoodGymers ran 3-6km to help Cecil Sharp House and St Marys

Welcome along to newbies Julie and Alba, and welcome back to several second timers too - great to have you along.

In the news this week:

1. The Monthly Social is tomorrow at the Islington Townhouse - see full details here.
2. GG Raceteam are looking for race suggestions for 2019, so far they've got 15 suggestions and would like a few more. See the form to suggest more here.
3. Join the Unofficial GG Facebook page here and GG Camden Facebook page here.

St Mary's Report:

A team of 11 went off on an adventure to run with warm bags of compost through the streets of Camden, aka bags of hot stuff! However upon our surprise the Camden Compost Pile outside Alara was gone! Nowhere to be seen - ALAS!

So after that shitshow we headed off to St Mary's to see what we could do for Jon and the community there. Over 30 minutes we swept leaves, litter picked, replanted a beautiful plant, weeded and emptied old containers of soil.

Running through the station!

On our run to Granary Square we ran through St Pancras Station to advertise the GG brand to the commuters! Nice! We then smashed a progression run around Granary Square before heading home to stretch.

Cecil Sharp House:

Pritesh and Katherine led a group of 15 to Cecil Sharp House to do our monthly task of tidying the garden. With the nights closing in and weather a little colder we’ve started on leaf duty.

One change in the back garden was the state of the lawn, usually pristine it was looking bare (our hard work in the spring reseeding was ruined!). Susannah said that it wasn’t the hot summer, but 70-80 children using the garden daily as a play area over the summer holidays! Probably going to be a re-turf needed.

After 40 minutes of tidying Susannah reminded us that the work 15 of us achieved would equate to a whole day for her and she really appreciates our support. After a quick school photo we ran back to base for stretching.

Sign up here for next here when we have a NEW TASK helping Kingsgate Estate and gardening for SPCA.

PB out

With Paul away, run leading duties fell to me this week, and unfortunately it didn’t quite all go to plan. After a gentle run to Castlehaven community centre, we were due to be collecting leaves and weeding. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find out contact with the keys so we couldn’t access the tools and bags!

Katherine kept the group busy with some fitness – including some yoga and a plank-off – while I ran around trying to locate the keys. Unfortunately, after a little while we had to accept it just wasn’t our night – so we decided to make the most of the opportunity for a steady run on the canal. We split into two groups, with a slightly longer group led by Steven Coman, and we went for a nice run before ending up back at base for a stretch.

Thanks for coming everyone, Paul will be back next week, and fingers crossed it’ll all go smoothly!

A fantastic 26 brilliant GoodGym-ers joined me in Camden to help Castlehaven Community Centre and Cecil Sharp House!

With Paul away it was time for me to step in and it was great to see so many of you out to help. We did our usual intro, outlined the tasks and introduced ourselves. In the news just two things:

• GoodGym hit 100,000 good deeds last week, a huge achievement and you're all a part of that so thank you and well done. Check out the story!
• At long last we have the August social sorted, it looks like a rainy day so it seems like we have lucked out by not being at the southbank centre roof garden but we are still in the area - all the details here, we'll be there from 6.30pm!

With a quick warm-up done we split into two groups with Chris taking ten to deliver leaflets in the area around the Castlehaven centre.

The Castlehaven group ran to the centren and then split into two groups of three tackling the blocks of flats, and the remaining four on the road working up to Kentish Town West. Once that was all done the teams regrouped and headed up on the roads north of Kentish Town West. With that done the group headed back to base and finished off with a stretch led by Chris.

The remaining seventeen of us headed to Cecil Sharp House for our monthly trip. Unfortunately Susannah was away but we got set to clearing the place up and generally making it lovely again. There was much in the way of leaves and confetti to be swept and raked from the lawn and grounds. The two Steves focused on weeding the paths too.

With a little spare time once everything was done, Katherine led us in a short circuit session and with everyone suitably worked out we headed back to base too.

With everyone doing a cool down stretch it was the end of another great evening in Camden.

Thanks to everyone for all your efforts and sign up here, the awesome Frances is in charge!

Cheers, Pritesh

p.s. thanks to Chris for the top pun!

31 Goodgymers ran 5km and cleared five HUGE bags of leaves and debris for Coram Fields

Welcome to newbies - Marina, Zura, Isobel and Susann

In the news this week:

1. Goodgym hit 100,000 Good Deeds on Wednesday - thank you for being part of it and making a difference to your community!
2. We welcomed Saul from Kirklees who's the new trainer for Goodgym launching up there in September :)

After doing an amazing photo with the 100,000 good deeds banner we warmed up and headed to Coram Fields - a new task! This is a fantastic charity which provides space for children to play and has activities for everyone in the community. It's a seven acre site, with a little farm, a wildlife area and football pitches - lots of space for us to do good.

We split into two teams, one led by Frances which cleared bark, debris and leaves from the Wildlife Reserve. Working hard they watched out for the bee's before heading out to help to sweep some more leaves.

Do bee's eat honey?

Meanwhile a team of 16, overseen by John from Coram Fields, weeded and cleared leaves in an area before turning over the soil with forks and removing any roots in the hardened soil. This will be used for planting some lovely flowers.

After 35 minutes of hard work we'd accumulated five huge bags of waste to be recycled - nice! We took a group photo and headed to Russell Square led by Saul, he out us through our paces - with everyone getting a good workout in.

Thanks for coming guys, lovely evening as always. I'm away for the next couple of weeks, Pritesh will be leading you when you'll be helping Cecil Sharp House and Castlehaven - sign up here

PB out