6 terrific goodgymmers met at Tarling Road Community Centre to help set up East Finchleys Fun Palace. Tasks included setting up chairs and tables, putting up bunting and decorating the space. it will be a great day - good work team.

Nineteen noble GoodGymers gathered at the Phoenix Cinema to post some flyers for two brilliant charities.

As we gathered at the start we welcomed our four new starters: Aase, Fiona, Karen, and Michael. Great to have you along guys 💪

We were also celebrating some milestones: Vicky hitting 50! Jacqui hitting 50! and Fay back to us after hitting her 100! Great going - give them a cheer.

Today we had a walking group, kindly led by Fay, so she set off with Vicki and Chi to post flyers nearby.

The rest of us set off with Laura and Sally back marking. We were posting flyers for:

The Syrian Kitchen - a brilliant charity that puts on supper clubs with traditional Syrian food to raise money for refugees, and; Grange Big Local - a great local charity with their yearly fun Palace coming up soon

Dividing into two teams, we set about posting all the flyers around East Finchley. we posted so many flyers! it was a brilliant effort that will save both charities loads of time and hopefully get them both some bookings.

With about 45 mins effort we had posted all the flyers so we ran over to Oak Lane open space for a fitness session!

Using the space, we focused on drills between fast runs across the grass and up the slope with recovery pace back. For our drills we did: a-kicks (making sure we pushed those toes toward the sky 👀), calf raises, socket to pocket with our arms, and finally a plank. it was a big effort from everyone so we settled for a slow pace pack after.

Thanks for coming team. See you next week.

This week's Barnet Biscuit is: fancy chocolate ones from M&S courtesy of Vicki

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Five of us came along today to help set-up the ‘Fun Palace’ festival for a regular Barnet GoodGym task owner, Grange Big Local.

To get the outdoor entertainment area set-up, we shifted in chairs from a local school and library, and May got some bunting strung up around the marquee.

After unloading the PAs and instruments to the outdoor stage, we decamped inside to be briefed on the next task. With just a shred of bunting left to go up in there, it seemed they were right on top of things so our five pairs of eager GoodGym hands weren’t needed.

We were done so fast in fact that the tea urn still hadn't boiled, so we disappeared to get ourselves a drink. After taking a photo together (outside the bookies 😳 ) from a charming passer-by, we went in for a coffee, just in time for the heavens to open. 🌧🌧🌧

Unlikely though that the inclement weather will be a problem for the Fun Palace with attractions on the bill including mind-reading and Muay Thai boxing.

Thanks to Damian for his photos (topical annotations included)

Today four GGers met at a spot just off Tarling Road in East Finchley to help Grange Big Local prepare for the East Finchley Explorers Picnic.

A partnership of charities, coordinated by Grange Big Local, have come together to celebrate the soon to be opened new community centre in East Finchley. As part of this, a overgrown patch of land next to it is being taken over by a local trust to maintain it as a green space.

They needed help clearing it ready for teams of children to have an explorers afternoon through the woods before their picnic.

We attacked the space with loppers then rakes aiming to have a path cleared for the kids to explore.

A few hours effort and we were done. The council had dispatched a couple of forestry employees to show people the wildlife, whilst community representatives were very impressed with our work.

It's potentially a nice new green space so we'll hopefully be able to come back to continue our work.

On a super sunny Saturday, four fabulous goodgymmers ran to Finchley to help Grange Big Local tidy up their playground!

Upon arrival, Fay, May, Shaun and Aktar got armed with gloves and bin bags and set to work on the park!

As good gymmers are known to be pretty sharp eyed when it comes to litter and shiny things we covered the play area in no time! So then we were able to move out to the surrounding streets!

The Grange Big Local were super grateful for us helping out and kept us happy and hydrated during the mission and I'm sure we will be joining them again soon to help them improve East Finchleys play areas