You guys! What are you like? You just never let me down :D

On a lovely summer's evening THIRTY SIX of you came down (or up) to the Queen Elizabeth Hall roof garden to chat, to cheer and to celebrate the passing of another month of wonderful GoodGym-ing!

Thank you all!

We were competing with the semi final of some football tournament, the lovely weather itself and the start of holiday season so whilst we didn't break records for attendance I'm still super happy so many of you came down. I think I can safely say you were rewarded with the best location yet and with almost perfect weather too (check out that sunset). By my reckoning we had ELEVEN of you at drinks for the first time so thanks to all of you who braved it, I'm sure it's a bit daunting coming down for your first time - I really hope you enjoyed it and you'll come back again!

HUGE thanks to our guest speaker Melissa for coming and telling us about her amazing running challenge - find out more here and if want to get involved go here! Good Luck from all of us Melissa!

Anyway, thank you so much to everyone - drinks is just me drinking on my own if you don't all come so I'm always so happy to see you all :) ... run the report:

HEROES

As ever you can see the full listings here.

A bit of a Bristol take over again, David Guest in particular featuring in all but the distance table and topping the most cheered - a lot of love for David!

With a stonking 640k last month James Poole topped the distance charts - leaving nothing to chance as he prepares for the launch of GoodGym Redbridge!

A return to the top for Beth 'Queen of the Gazebo' Hoskins with 17 good deeds last month - fantastic work!

Cheers!

Finally the 'cheers given' table, as 700+ wasn't enough Pru pulled out all the stops and cheered 1182 people last month and won herself 'Cheers' as a prize as well!

Massive thanks to Frances who was a wonderful prize recipient on Pru's behalf - Pru your prize is on the way!

Now it wouldn't be me if I didn't cock up the speech somehow and I'm sorry to say that the 50s and 100s didn't get a shout last night but I'm so pleased to announce them here - we had Kike, Maya and James turning 50 - awesome! The infamous Judy Reid turned 100 last month - what an amazing lady! Aidan Padfield from Islington turned 100 - woohoo! Claire Thomson from Brent turned 100 - congratulations! Finally Chris Warmoll from Hackney turned 100 too - incredible! Give them all a cheer!

NEW FEATURE

I'm always trying to mix things up and we've had the current heroes format for some time - it's taken a while but here we have it! I'm hoping that we can get a good snapshot of how GoodGym is doing, but I also feel it's something that you can all get involved wiht by spreading the word about GoodGym and getting people you know involved therefore really having an influence on whether your area tops the table! Oh and please, please, please - let me know if you can think of a better name...

In any case... a massive congratulations to GG Westminster on their winning of the inaugural 'GG most new runners last month' prize!!! Due to a website anomaly they had a whopping 126 new runners!

NEWS

We raced the horse(s)! 53 of us took on all that Wales could throw at us and really very much came out on top!

• Axel came 9th overall!

• GoodGym came 3rd in the club race for solo runners

and finally... the winners:

• Lucy, Andy and Graham aka 'Why the Long Race' came 1st in the mixed relay race - INCREDIBLE!!!
• Leisha, Katie and Jessie who won the best team name for 'Mo Farriers' - SMASHING!!!
• Unofficially we also won the loudest cheerers knocking those pesky Pontypridd Roadents off their spot!

GoodGym is expanding...

In other news GoodGym is expanding and over the next six weeks we have SEVEN areas opening:

• GG Chelmsford - Wednesday 13th July with Ken Hoye

• GG Richmond - Monday 18th July with Mark Barun

• GG Redbridge - Monday 25th July with James Poole (of distance winning fame)

• GG Wandsworth - Monday 1st August with Anastasia Hancock

• GG Colchester - Wednesday 3rd August with Angela Isherwood

• GG Ealing - Tuesday 9th August with Lisa Rattray

• GG Barnet - Tuesday 16th August with Pennie Varvarides

Keep an eye out for more news on these and tell everyone you know in these areas that they now have their own local GoodGym too!

Finally looking ahead we have a few races coming up, check out the details and get yourself signed up:

• GoodGym's parkrun tour continues with Hackney Marshes in London and Ashton Court in Bristol this weekend (9th July)

• GoodGym Camden are running training sessions with a view to getting you race ready for Regent's Park 10k on August 7th

• GoodGym are hosting a special 4 x 1600m (1 mile) relay race at the Mile End Race Track on August 7th. We're limited to 32 spaces at £2.50 each but it should be a fantastic event - get in quick!

• The next 'big' race we are doing is the Cardiff Half Marathon on the 2nd of October - get yourselves signed up for a wonderful weekend on a fantastic course!

Pun time...

These reports really don't get any shorter do they? Apologies but here it is the one you are always waiting for it's INTERNATIONAL PUN OF THE MONTH!!!

June was a good month with a long list of 11 and I really struggled to get down to the five in the shortlist but five we had and with the shortlist going out on twitter we had six votes before drinks even kicked off! A total of 39 votes were cast but by one point, with 12 votes the June winner of International Pun of the Month is...

All you need is glove from GG Islington

A hearty congratulations to Simon and co!

Right, that is that from July drinks, I hope you all liked the new feature, thanks again to Melissa for chatting to us about #RunTheBoroughs and one final thing... we have a new feature!

Yup for the drinks report only, after the coolness that was James 'Barney 'Barnard's Edinburgh Marathon medal you'll notice a picture of some striking shoes in the photo carousel...yup the new feature is the 'Cool stuff from James' feature, every month we'll get a picture up from James of cool things he owns and/or has come across! Hope you all like it! (Ok, we might get rid of this new feature soon - i'll take a straw poll next month and quite frankly James doesn't even know about it).

See you next month, 4th August!

Anywho, thank you all so much for coming, hope for an even bigger better drinks next month - we're going to be in the King's Cross area and drinks will be on the 4th August!

Cheers,

Pritesh

(Many thanks to Chris and Steph for additional photos)

28 GoodGymers ran 5km, did some fitness drills and shifted 3 tons of soil!

In the news this week we talked about GG monthly drinks next Thursday and had a Race Chat focus with New Forest 10 Miler, Regents Park 10km (August Edition) and Cardiff Half Marathon in October. Well done GG Camden taskforce for leading on these races!

Mr. Horse himself Tom Benson has written the run report this week:

Last night we returned to an old Camden GoodGym stomping ground. My major dilemma before the run was whether to take a jacket or not as the conditions on the ride up were keeping their cards close to their chest, would it be too cold, rainy, I won’t lie I just couldn’t tell. However I took the solid advice of Megan and I’m pleased I ditched the jacket as we had quite a work out.

Major dilemma

Aside from my clothing dilemma, the task in hand was returning after a long absence to James Wiggs GP practice, where we were tasked with the following; we had three one ton bags of soil that needed shifting, small tree roots needed pulling up and a strange grass like weed that had appeared to have embedded in the soil needed putting back in its place (basically needed pulling out). In short we were clearing a space in their garden as they wanted to transform the current space into a sensory garden for the patients to come and use, lovely stuff.

Everybody's shovelling!

Melissa, from Free Space Gallery was there to give us a warm welcome and armed us with spades, forks, gloves and wheelbarrows to get the job done. As there were quite a few bodies we split into two groups one going off with Paul to do some drills while the others got on with the task. In true GoodGym style there was no messing about and straight down to business, and once both teams had completed the drills we still had some soil to shift.

Hats off to newcomers Bernard and Andre who were on shovelling soil duty and kept the soil coming to ensure we got it all shifted, well done everybody. Just before we completed the one and half mile run home, Melissa showed us a space that 2 years ago GoodGym Camden came for a task which we dug up and made ready for planting. In the two years that followed the foundations we laid have allowed the space to turn into a lovely garden for the Practice.

Liv Rowe's Yoga Stretch of the week!

On our return Liv gave us another cracking set of Yoga stretches to help us warm down. Afterwards a gaggle of us found time to sink a jar or two in the local boozer and talk about many things including combining normal potato chips with sweet potato fries for the ultimate pack of frozen chips - McCain's Sweet and Plain* (it’s like a chip version of sweet and salted popcorn, it’s a winner I tell you…..happy trays). *Other frozen potato providers are available

Next week we are painting fences for Kentish Town Tenants Association and helping Skip Garden with various tasks, sign up here!

PB out.

27 GoodGymers ran between 3-5km to paint and garden.

After tropical weather recently the sun was shining and the evening was set for doing good. We collected together with the news this week:

• Polly has hit 50 Good Deeds and earned her black t-shirt!
• Everyone did amazingly at Run Hackney on Sunday - well done!
• There are DRINKS tonight at the Joker of Penton Street, come along
• Also GoodGym Croydon starts next week, tell your Croydon friends and get them to support!

We had two tasks again this week. Firstly we were continuing painting for Kentish Town Tenants Association, they are a community group who help improve the lives of those living locally, especially those who are elderly and isolated. Secondly we did some gardening at Cecil Sharp House, this is proclaimed as the home of English folk music and does lovely events from ceilidhs to weddings which require the grounds to be tidied.

Home of English Folk

After an active warm up and some talk about socket to pocket the group split and we headed off in opposite directions to #DoGood and #GetFit.

Cecil Sharp House Report:

After a lovely 1 mile run through the streets of Camden we arrived at the spectacular Cecil Sharp House to do some active weeding and gardening. We'll be heading to this task monthly for the rest of the year to help keep the place ready for events and community work.

Interesting tools

When we met the task owner Susannah she explained the importance of having us come along and already expressed gratitude for us being there. There was orange & blackcurrant squash on offer before picking various tools, including some interesting ones! The team scraped, weeded and swept the front and back gardens. Lucia seemed addicted to sweeping continuously falling blossom, Steve seemed to have lots of garden chat as always and George got the technique of using the interesting tool down. We stayed until the task was done with everything looking lovely and tidy. Well done everyone!

Jess's Painting report:

The other group sprinted off to help the Tenants Association finish painting fences for local residents. We’d made a great start last week, and Vaughan was happy to see us again.

Black paint beard

After a nice run there we got to work quickly, sprucing up the shabby fences with a slick coat of shiny black paint. Some of the group managed to give themselves a new coat of paint too - special mentions to Jackie for her very thoroughly painted arms, and John who accidentally (we think) gave himself a rather striking black paint beard.

Laurence Llewelyn Bowen has nothing on us.

Shout out to the many snails and other insects we came across - hope they’re enjoying their surprise new home makeover. Laurence Llewelyn Bowen has nothing on us.

Finally our time was up, and after a quick scrub with white spirit for some of the paintier members of the group, and a refreshing round of orange juices kindly provided by Vaughan, we sped back through Kentish Town to the community centre, just in time for PB’s stretch session.

As always brilliant work everyone! See you next week, we'll be going to Skip Garden and Alara, sign up here.

Remember drinks tonight and our taskforce member Frances is organising a 10 mile trail race in July, go along and enjoy the picnic afterwards.

PB out.

3.5km for a sunset bonfire, weeding and wood cracking.

We welcomed a couple more new faces to the GG Southwark fold tonight and some old faces that we'd missed. After a quick GG intro, we set off up the familiar hill of Chadwick Road to Grove Park Allotments and to meet Lizzie. She already had a good fire going and lots of different tasks for us to get stuck into.

The optional task of bursting through the bonfire smoke in a Stars in their eyes manner may have occurred more than once.

(Watch this space for a karaoke social!) We were weeding the paths to widen them for wheelchair access, watering plants and clearing dead wood either into the fire or to dry for one of the allotment users wood burner. Sorting the thorny bits from the non-thorny bits was a bit haphazard but we survived relatively unscathed.

Once we'd finished up, it was another skipping warm up special as we made our way to Warwick Park for some glute work to finish off the session.

Hopping, clam walks and frog leaps were the order of the evening. This, in hindsight, was a little mean given two of our group had spent the previous days travelling back to the UK after epic trips. Nonetheless, the drills were finished with finesse and we ambled back in the final light of the day. Lovely.