After a weekend of braving Storm Dennis (also known as Winter Storm Mabel, a weakening European windstorm which became one of the most intense extratropical cyclones ever recorded), 20 happy Goodgymmers were treated to a pleasant wind and rain free evening of running and good deeds!

Storm Ciara came along 2 weeks ago and Storm Dennis was just last weekend- before heading out for our warm-up, we asked the Goodgymmers: "What the next storm be called?" (must be a female name beginning with "E"). Our responses were as follows:

• Emma
• Edna
• Esme
• Evelyn
• Eleven- like from Stranger Things
• Emily
• Eva
• Eugenie
• Errrrr.....

Single Homeless Project

Our crew made their way up Holloway Road (past a few road crossings and long traffic light breaks- might try some back streets instead next time), and towards 104-107 Mercers Road, two sites for the Single Homeless Project. Last year, a team of our runners did an excellent job of shoveling almost 4 tonnes of wood chip and mulch into the front yard of number 107 (we needed to get it all off the street before the end of the night, and we battled with the elements!). This time, we were requested by Regina the volunteer coordinator to carry bags of the wood chip from 107 Mercer Road to the back garden of 104 Mercer Road (approx 200m away).

We had a good system going, with our group slitting sharing the roles of bark shovelers and bag carriers between them. The trick was not to over-fill the sacks, as 200m can be a long way to walk when you are encumbered with woodchip and mulch! Another small team assembled in the garden at 104 Mercer Road, helping to prepare some bulbs for the upcoming spring season, and making sure that the bark was offloaded in the right locations.

A really satisfying task- it is amazing to see a huge pile of bark start to deplete as the Goodgymmers crack on. SHP are dependent on our contribution to fixing up their gardens, and are super appreciative of the work we have completed so far. We will be back again next week with some new tasks too!

We jogged our way back to the Arsenal Community Hub, and Graham demonstrated a few cool down stretches before we finished up for the night. Trainer Simon had a few digestives to pass round too, continuing the GG Islington biscuit tradition.

NEWS

February CREOS Community Mission

One of our classic monthly community missions will be happening this weekend (Sunday 23rd February- rescheduled from last week). Lovely gardening and green space maintenance task located near Wood Vale, Crouch End (assisted by the community for over 50 years). Typically followed by a picnic, a chat, hot drinks and occasionally some cider! A really pleasant way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

More info and sign up can be found here.

The Big Half is coming!

Come and support our Goodgym runners at one of London's best half marathon events! On Sunday 1st March, we have plenty of folks from all different GG boroughs participating, and loads of friends assisting on aid stations too.

If you would like to sign up to volunteer on one of these stations, you can find more information about this here.

Whether you are running, supporting or cheering, everyone is invited join us for drinks and food in London Bridge after the event (which finishes in Greenwich- our plan is to avoid the crowds!). Sign up here for the post-Big Half meet up.

Hackney Half 2020 aid station

Sunday 17th May sees the return of the amazing Hackney Half marathon, and Goodgym have committed to manning the Mare Street aid station on the course. This is the best place to see the race, and is one of the highlights of the run- loads of crowd support, feels like a party! 25 volunteers are required to make this happen, so sign up quick to avoid disappointment. Aid station volunteers will also receive an entry for a future Virgin Sport event (e.g. Oxford Half or ASICS London 10km).

Sign up here, and add your name to the list!

Despite Storm Ciara making another appearance at about 5-6pm last night, 11 brave runners joined us for our group run last night (top marks to first timer Luke for coming out, storm or no storm!).

One of our originally scheduled tasks (Mildmay Community Centre) made the sensible decision to reschedule our trip (gardening on a slippery, grassy slope with sharp tools would not have been a good idea), so we set off to the New Unity Church in Newington Green instead.

The New Unity Church is a really interesting organisation- a non-religious, radically inclusive community gathering, actively encouraging regular engagement with all people. The former traditional church building has just been renovated, and volunteer coordinator Chris met us outside Lizzie's Cafe, Newington Green with some leaflets to distribute. The objective is to introduce the neighbourhood to the new non-religious congregation! Find out more information here.

Three groups were formed, covering different areas of the Canonbury and Islington districts (we might return to flyer in Dalston in the near future), and each of our crews set off into the night to flyer in shops, cafes, pubs and through letter boxes. Plenty of positive conversations about Goodgym and the New Unity Church occurred throughout the task, hopefully a great starting point for new runners and new visitors!

Upon our return to Lizzie's cafe, Steve Coman led our team back to the Emirates Stadium with a nice alternative route through a series of pedestrianised streets and parks. Its always great to be shown new areas, even in a location you are familiar with. We finished off our run with a series of stretches, and talk about pizza and drinks!

Monthly Social- Trainer Simon's 101st task!

Goodgym Islington try to organise a post-run social event once a month (our last one was our Christmas get-together at Standard Tandoori!), and this one was scheduled to co-incide with Simon's 100th Goodgym Task (despite him unwittingly completing a task last weekend). The Victoria Tavern on Holloway Road serves 2-4-1 pizzas on Monday evenings, and a great array of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. Keep you eyes open for the next one!

NEWS

Market Road Gardens Community Mission

Next Saturday (15th February), we will return to Market Road Gardens for a post-parkrun gardening session. A popular group run task, which looks lovely in the daylight! Come and help complete the entrance gardens to Lumpy Hill Adventure Playground. Sign up here.

February CREOS Gardens Workday

Next Sunday (16th February), Crouch End Open Space will be welcoming volunteers to come and maintain their beautiful green woodland plot. This is a classic monthly task that North London Goodgyms have contributed to for years, and a great way to meet up with folks from different areas. Always followed with hot drinks, picnic snacks and good times! Sign up here.

Big Half Afterparty

Plenty of Goodgym runners will be lining the streets for the upcoming Big Half race on Sunday 1st March. Whether you are racing or supporting your fellow runners, come and join us for some celebratory food and drinks in London Bridge post race. Sign up here.

Hackney Half Aid Station

Another half marathon related event- The Hackney Half have invited Goodgym to support an aid and cheer station on the route. We were, without a doubt, the best supporters with the loudest voices last year, so it would be great to come back again this year to get involved! A great day out!

Volunteers for the Hackney Half also receive an entry to the Oxford Half or the ASICSLondon10km events for contributing towards the smooth running of their events.

Sign up here.

See you next week for more group running!

It's our first Goodgym Islington group run after the January challenge, and we kept up the great work with an excellent task! I'm sure many have heard that the entire GG community absolutely smashed their ambitious target of 8,000 good deeds all across the country.

15 lovely Goodgym folks (including a new member, Lizzy- welcome!) joined us at the Emirates hub tonight for a trip to Caledonian Park. Before we started our warm-up, we performed the weekly count-off and asked the question: "Do you have a pet?". The answers were as follows:

• No. I can't even look after a plant.
• No, but I definitely want a dog.
• Yes. A tabby cat called Kyra.
• I used to have an African Land Snail.
• I used to have two rabbits called Sargent and Pepper.
• Tess, a Staffie Lurcher.
• Mo the Cocker Spaniel.
• I have a funeral urn of my cat.

We performed a series of dynamic warm up exercises outside to get the blood pumping (ankling, high knees, lunges, pogo jumps), and then we ran a lap around the two sloped ramps up to the Emirates stadium itself. The first runners back were told to continue running up one of the ramps a second time, and to continue doing hill repeats until the final runner had completed the lap.

Caledonian Park

Our crew jogged their way up Mackenzie and Market Road towards the park, and we met up with Miriam, the lead volunteer co-ordinator on the way. Wheel barrows, shovels and rakes were picked up from the safe storage location, and we made our way to the Clock Tower. We were told that the inaugural Calendonian Road Junior parkrun was a real success, and we were congratulated for our involvement in creating new paths to allow it to happen (and for volunteering for the original recce event). More information about Cally Junior parkrun can be found here.

All of the tools were wheeled down to the forest trail path section of the park, which Goodgym Islington has helped to maintain in the past. Large piles of concrete grit and composted wood chip had been left for us to spread across the dark woodland, with the intention of making the wooded paths safely accessible for all visitors.

Our team were separated to set their tasks- we had a group dedicated to shoveling the concrete grit and wood chip into wheelbarrows, and then others depositing the material in different locations around the park. Hanry and Jack took it in turns to sprint from place to place with their wheel barrows (possibly trying to resemble rally drivers). The wooded path was illuminated with scattered light from Goodgym head torches throughout the evening.

After taking a quick photo or two in front of the lovely Victorian clock tower, our runners made their way back to the hub again, and Graham demonstrated some cool down stretches whilst Trainer Simon picked up some celebratory biscuits for a task well done!

NEWS!

Market Road Tennis Courts and Metro Blind Sport

Goodgym have been invited to get involved with the Metro Blind Sport Annual Tennis Competition this year. The task would involved offering assistance to these amazing players, helping out as a ball person and generally being excited to watch some great tennis!

The tournament commences on Saturday 9th February, and we are looking for help bethween 11am-2pm, and 2pm-5pm.

Sign up to the 11am-2pm slot here, and sign up to the 2pm-5pm slot here.

Trainer Simon's 100th good deed (+ Pizza and Drinks)

After our next group run at Mildmay Community Centre and Newington Green next Monday (10th February), we are planning on visiting the Victoria Tavern on Holloway Road to enjoy our monthly social (with pizza and drinks), and to celebrate Trainer Simon's 100 good deed (his first was at GG Tower Hamlets some time in 2016).

Come and join us at 8.45pm, and sign up here for more information.

Special Market Road Gardens Weekend Task

We are planning on returning to one of our most popular tasks at Market Road Gardens on Saturday 15th February, starting work at 11.30am (great post-parkrun activity). The plan is to continue building the main accessible car park and gardens at the entrance of the Lumpy Hill Adventure playground. Local volunteers will be present from 11.30am- 4.30pm, so feel free to pop in and help!

Feel free to sign up here.

5 years ago, Simon Loughran (a different Simon to our current trainer Simon) used to drive his car to Highbury Fields Leisure Centre, and offer to leave Goodgymmers bags in his boot whilst they ran off to complete tasks in the local area (in fact, here is the very first GG Islington run report from the launch event!). This was when the first pack of biscuits were offered to hungry runners, and the tradition lives on today (in our nice warm Emirates Stadium start point).

Excellent turnout last night, with 22 people runners in total (including our new starters Esme, Nikki and Lawrence- Welcome folks!). Our meeting room was full of conversation about race training, a weekend full of community missions and of course, anniversary curry celebrations. On this theme, we used the count-off to ask our runners: "What is their favourite curry/Indian food?"

The results were as follows:

• Anything Saag
• My Dad's strange tangerine slice curry experiment- It was actually really good!
• Naans, for the carbs
• Oh, yeah. Definitely naan. Garlic naan.
• Black Lentil Dhal
• Samosas
• Onion Bhajis
• Lager
• Chicken Tikka Masala- origin Glasgow!

Market Road Gardens

We performed a few warm up exercises on the Emirates slope to raise heart rates and body temperatures before jogging down Benwell Street towards Market Road Gardens. We were met with a very well organised array of tools and wheel barrows all set up and ready to be used! Straight into the task ahead.

A series of large builders merchants bags had been deposited on the sides of the vehicle entrance to Market Road Gardens and Lumpy Adventure Playground. Frequent trampling by coaches and minibuses over time has left the ground really slick and muddy, so our intention was to lay as much rubble onto the edges of the main access route as possible to stop this from happening.

Team 1 set to splitting open these bags and pouring them onto the necessary surfaces, and whilst other runners leveled out stone and gravel with rakes. Sheets of protective tarpaulin had to laid down first, before the contents of the bags were spilled onto the ground, to separate the stone from the mud.

Team 2 picked up the available wheel barrows and shoveled some fine concrete dust into them (this was a continuation of a previous task). This dust was then transported to a pedestrian walkway, and laid out for other Goodgymmers to rake and flatten.

Although our original intention wasn't to open all of the bags (as many as we can in the time we had available), our Goodgym group absolutely smashed it, and we left the site with a completely level vehicle access path. We are planning on having another group run here next week to completely finish the job, but we made an amazing amount of progress in a short amount of time!

Standard Tandoori

We made our way back to the Emirates for a series of stretches and some genuine New Zealand biscuits provided by James Gilbert after his Xmas travels.

To celebrate the 5th Anniversary of GG Islington, a reservation was made at Standard Tandoori on Holloway Road specially for our group runners. We had the restaurant completely to ourselves, and were served some absolutely delicious curries, vegetable sides, poppadoms and naan breads. Definitely worked up a proper appetite after some solid Goodgym work!

Congratulations for 5 years everyone, and see you all next week!

Who doesn't love a farm task, working around adorable animals?

20 cheery Goodgymmers joined us on our trip to Freightliner's Farm in Paradise Park last night (including new runner Tess- welcome!). This little volunteer run farm is a bit of a hidden gem, it seems- we had Goodgym runners admit that despite living in Islington most of their adult life, they had no idea this small community farm existed!

Before setting off and performing a small warm up exercise session on the Emirates slope, we did a count-off: Name, number, and "Where are you planning to stay for Christmas?". The results were as follows:

• Manchester x 3
• Sheffield x 2
• Stoke Newington
• Canning Town
• Marylebone
• Devon
• South Wales
• Ireland
• Bulgaria
• Morroco
• New Zealand

I hope you all have wonderful festive breaks, wherever you spend your holiday time.

Freightliners Farm

We ran, jogged and walked to the farm (only 1 km from our start point, Frances lead a walking group to the task), and met up with Liv, the volunteer coordinator (who was interviewing for potential trustees at the same time). Our group was then separated into 3 groups.

Group 1 opted to help out with the mucky task- shoveling hay and compost into bags, and gathering the bags together for use in spring time.

Group 2 grabbed their brooms and swept up the main corridor by the animal pens- lots of mud and hay tends to collect here, so it's a big task. After clearing the surfaces, the team mixed up some bleach, and gave the floor a good wash down.

Group 3 donned their headtorches and spot lights, and swept up the main entrance and yard space. This is a big area with lots of leaves and muck gathered up, but our Goodgym crew made short work of it!

Of course, we had the chance to pet some lovely animals too, including two very friendly farm cats, who were observing all of our activities from a distance.

Zia Lucia

As the nights draw in for 2019, we took the opportunity to enjoy a get-together before we all set off for our Christmas breaks. Zia Lucia is an excellent Napolese-style pizzeria on Holloway Road, and a great spot for a Goodgym Islington social. We'll be sure to return in the near future!

NEWS

Just a reminder that next week will be the final Goodgym Islington run of the year, as GG head office will close over the festive break. Sign up here for some carol singing around Highbury & Islington!

Our first group run of 2020 will be on Monday 6th January, and is likely to be Christmas Tree hunting and recycling!

Mini Mermaids x Goodgym Highbury Fields parkrun Takeover

We had a great time running with the Mini Mermaids running club on Saturday. If you would like to read the report for this awesome community mission, click here.

Crisis at Christmas

We had a super suggestion for volunteering over Christmas last night. If you are still looking for a Goodgym-style task in December, then consider signing up to help with Crisis at Christmas offer some assistance for those in need over the festive period. They are looking for all sorts of volunteers, from creative folks and warehouse assistants, to friendly faces and team leaders.

All the best everyone. See you next week.

P.S. Please add your Christmas song suggestions in the comment box below!