On another beautifully sunny and warm Tuesday evening in H&F, 21 GoodGym-ers joined me to run and do good! It was lovely to have Ooonagh, Joyce, Sophie, Zoe and Martynas along for their second H&F group run, to have Lena back after a bit of a hiatus and to again have Karen from GG Wandsworth doing some GoodGym tourism!

To mix things up this week, because as they say 'variety is the spice of life', we headed outside this week the round-up of the weekly news…

1. Bonus H&F Group Run & Community Mission - Next Tuesday (28th August) there is a bonus lunchtime group run to help Chelsea FC Foundation, sign up here - the run is limited to 8 runners due to space constrictions. On Saturday 1st September there will be a community mission to help out at the amazing White City Adventure Playground, sign up here - Wormwood Scrubs parkrun followed by breakfast will be organised pre-mission! Please come along and lend a hand if you can.
2. Donations Wanted! - Catriona is going to Calais in October to volunteer for a couple of weeks with an amazing charity called Help Refugees, who among other things, give support to people who were displaced from the Jungle when it was torn down by the French police. Do you have any of the items listed here that you can donate? If YES, please let Catriona know!
3. Bank Holiday Racing/Running - Good luck to all those going down to Dorset for the East Farm - White Star Races. Enjoy! For those that aren't there is the monthly GoodGym Long Run for August on 25th August which will be led by Dom, a 21km route from Hampton Court to Battersea Arts Centre – sign up here.

Finally, a special shoutout to Polly who did a mega sub-20 minute parkrun at the weekend! Amazing stuff!

After a quick warm-up (this week with some shooing of the chickens), a name and number head count and poll of 'Black or White?' - apologies all for the very poor question which ultimately had no clear winner....a very grey answer! - we all headed north on the short 1.2km run to tonight's task at Springvale Estate Residents Hall. When we arrived we were greeted by Tom, the gardener who tends to the garden space at the Residents Hall. He gave a quick introduction about what the hall and garden space is used for and provided all the necessary tools and equipment to get on with the 5 tasks that were requested by Berni when I met her here last week:

1. Weeding the overgrown garden at the rear
2. Weeding and sweeping of the patio
3. Weeding and sweeping down the side of the hall
4. Cleaning the windows and mopping the hall floor
   
5. Removal of all the cobwebs on the outside of the hall

...an overarching theme of lots of weeding and sweeping!

The team efficiently split off into different groups, arming themselves with the necessary tools in order to begin tackling the above tasks.

Gym Class Windows

Karen, Oonagh, Jesse, Jason and Will headed in to the hall and began the cleaning of the windows and the mirrors, and the tricky spot behind the exercise bike. It wasn't long before they had the inside of the hall looking far fresher and cleaner so the trio of Jesse, Karen and Oonagh headed outside to tackle to weeds down the side of the hall while Will and Jason remained inside to sweep and mop the hall floors. Not being ones to sweep it under the carpet/rug, the boys did an incredibly thorough job, one any perfectionist would approve of; and they had the added bonus of now smelling and wearing eau d'cif!

Broom for Improvement

Fiona set about sweeping the patio with her lovely new broom and she was going great guns until she exclaimed "What a great broom this is", cue the brush and handle very much becoming detached from one another! Upon closer inspection it was apparent that this incident had occurred due to a missing screw, somewhat key in the holding together of the broom. With no screws to be found, Sarah kindly offered to run home and fetch the all-important screw.

Have I Got Screws For You

Screw acquired, the broom was quickly fixed and Fiona was able to set about again sweeping the weeds and leaves on the patio. Sarah posed for another non-rubbish but instead fabulous bin bag shot while 'super poser' Sophie worked numerous poses with the rather deadly but effective point/brush weeding tool as she cleared the patio and path of weeds before passing it on to Tom so that he too could get involved in the fun! Lena also proved a dab hand in sweeping as she swept the patio and Miteki tackled the plants and tidied the leaves down the side of the garden while the rest of the group got well and truly stuck into the overgrowth at the end of the garden.

Biscuits Casual

Berni had very kindly left some biscuits for the group as a thank you and to keep them fuelled through the task. Not one to miss a biscuit or food based snack, Johnny quickly went in seek of them out and began serving up a 'sugar rush' to everyone in the group. With the strong dream team of Joyce, Zoe, Alice, Bex, Missie, Catriona, Andrew, Arba, Martynas tackling the weeds, plants and attempting to avoid all the stinging nettles it wasn't long before there were many bin bags full of weeds and cuttings.

Step Up 2: The Weedy Good Sweep

As ever, the time at the task flew by and it was soon time to down tool and tidy-up. Joe, was incredibly pleased and impressed with what had been achieved and described what he had witnessed to be like "waving a magic wand". Plants and some steps were now visible in the garden area and there was now space in which some bulbs could be planted in the coming months. With the step ladder providing much needed height and leverage to me, the group posed for a post-task photo around the markedly improved garden and entertained my selfie with the group photo attempt!

The Speed for Speed

Task complete we set off on the very short run to Brook Green to complete a quick 1km time trial around the outer perimeter of the Green. Jesse kindly offered to be on stopwatch duty, definitely not because he wanted to skip the time trial but because he wanted the group to all partake and have a time to beat next time.... The group set off in staggered starts so as not to overwhelm other pedestrians and it wasn't long before the first runners to set off were back at the start having completed the lap of the Green in super quick time. There was some excellent 'pockets to sockets' running technique executed and significantly redder and sweatier faces proved what a big effort was put in by all. Ace running all! Please try and remember your times so that when we do this time trial again you have a time to beat!

The Hunger Games

Before we headed back to base there was time for one quick game of 'Hungry Hippos'. Four teams, one bag of Maoam's in the centre with an exercise that corresponded to each flavour, of course, Apple worked the core...10 x crunches. The winning team was the one that got the most Maoam's and the result was a 6-6 draw between Team 1 & 3, and the bonus knowledge that there are 22 Maoam stripes in a bag! Rubbish collected and binned in true GoodGym fashion we then set off on the 1km run back to base for a cool down and stretch before saying our goodbyes.

What a great night! In a H&F first (possibly second) with me leading, the task and run that went completely as I briefed, definitely not down to the L word of...luck! Fab weeding, sweeping, moping, and running all - hope you enjoyed it! Berni and Tom will be delighted with the transformation you all achieved. Thank you very much to Jason for back-marking and to Jesse for being timekeeper on the 1km time trial. Have a lovely bank holiday weekend and hopefully see you on one of the runs or at the community mission next week!

Next week’s evening task is at the Maystate Estate where we will be helping out on numerous tasks in their community centre, older resident's gardens and the community garden – sign-up here.

Despite the threat of rain and the run down to tonight’s gardening task at Askham Court being longer than the 6km advertised due to my questionable navigational skills in previous weeks, a fantastic 24 GoodGym-ers joined me on a humid Tuesday evening in H&F to run and do good! A big warm welcome to the 5 fab new runners Zoe, Kira, Sharron, Meriel and Garrett on their first GoodGym run, it was lovely to have you along! Hopefully see you all again on another group run soon It was great to also see Fiona and Luke along for their second and third group runs and gardening debuts, and to have Tatty from GG Hounslow and the ‘good deed machine’ Danny from GG Brent doing some GoodGym tourism!

Before we headed outside, with everyone gathered around we had a brief introduction and round-up of the news from the week…

1. GoodGym hit 100,000 good deeds last week – a whole lot of doing good, a fantastic achievement! Read about it here.
2. The monthly GoodGym social is this Thursday – details TBC by Pritesh but it will be in central London!
3. The monthly GoodGym Long Run for August will be led by the ace Dom Tooze, it will be on the 25th August and will be a 21km route from Hampton Court to Battersea Arts Centre – sign up here.
4. AND...yet again he tried to keep it all ‘hush hush’ and sneak it under the radar, but a massive well done to Johnny who completed his 50th good deed! Next week, coffee and walnut cake to celebrate!

Wheelie good breakfasts!

Following a quick warm-up, with the ever present ‘shooing of the chickens’ stretch and my ill-advised cyclist path presence, there was a name and number count along with everyone’s favourite breakfast foods –– eggs were popular with many, with others went for avocado, pain au chocolat, full English, peanut butter and marmalade on toast and of course the trusty runner essential, a banana!

Drop it like it's squat!

Nicely warmed-up the group set off on the 3km run up to Ashkam Court with my trusty back-marker Jason in place. En-route we had one stop to re-group and get a few bonus squats in, all perfectly executed!

Third time’s a charm!

…that well known saying proved correct as I finally managed to get the group to the task without any unplanned detours and added miles - thank you to Bex for ensuring no ill-advised turns were made and to Sarah for ensuring all the pedestrians weren't completely engulfed by the sea of red!

When we arrived at Ashkam Court we were welcomed by Kumaran, a member of the Resident Club. Kumaran led the group round to the area that needed our attention and gardening skills - there was a whole lot of weeding to be done here! Not wasting any time, the group gardening gloved up and chose their tool/weapon of choice to tackle the task and quickly set about weeding and clearing the beds.

I(vy) don't quite believe my eyes!

As always the group made light work of the weeding, cutting, de-ivying and and in Andrew and Christos' case digging-up of a large big tree root! Catherine literally got stuck-in, Catriona went for the fork jumping approach and Will used his brut-strength to remove a weed (despite the rumours, this photo was in no way staged and the weed was definitely a weed...). With more energy than a plants stored amylose, the team grafted and sweated away as they transformed the bed from its overrun with weeds state.

Within what seemed like no time at all, half an hour had passed, the compost was full to the top and over dozen black bags were filled with garden waste, sadly I forgot to take the all important photo evidence but the amount of garden waste all balanced and neatly piled up was very impressive! The group posed for a post-task group photo, and re-hydrated with the water Kumaran had kindly provided; and not wanting to leave any mess, Will continued to sweep up the path as we began to say our goodbyes and thank yous to Kumaran and the residents. With the promise of sandwiches for our next visit fresh on our minds, we all headed off on the 3km run back to base.

Back at base we all had a cool-down and stretch just as the heavens slowly began to open. Cool-down complete, it was time to seek shelter and head off to the pub for the H&F monthly social for a well-deserved thirst quencher!

Thanks for coming along and for all your hard work at the task, it's absolutely ace leading you guys, many thanks for all your help too. Have a fantastic week and hopefully see you all next week.

Next week’s task is more gardening at Loris Gardens community gardens – sign-up here.