Tonight's group run was going to be different. Why? It wasn't going to be Sam leading the run, but Maria. She did her Run Leader webinar the previous Thursday and wanted to apply her newly found knowledge straight away.

Before we could all get going with the group run, we needed people. Sam and Maria waited in Old Spike Peckham for Rosalind, John, David, Emma, Daryl, Nelly, Mikhail, Benjamin, Cecilia, Laura, Louise, Fi, James and Paulin to arrive.

As 18:45 arrived, Sam asked Maria to start proceedings before he went through his usual GG intro speech highlighting a few sessions happening over the weekend. Maria asked the ice-breaker question, which was a poll on whether people liked the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics or not?

It was a "Non" from most of the runners with about five saying Yes...the rain didn't help nor did the athletes parade on the Seine.

---

Litter Pick Bingo - Peckham Rye Park edition

With Maria leading the run, she took all the runners onto the Green to get started on the warm-up, which Sam normally does. She asked assistance from Emma to back-mark the run whilst she led from the front heading towards and around Peckham Rye Park to end the 2.5k at The Round Cafe where we met: Isaac, Folarin and Vic. However, we said our goodbyes to Mikhail as he was still jet-lagged from his trip from Malaysia.

Sam split the group into four groups of 4/5 and each group had at least one litter picker, a litter pick bingo card of 25 items, a black bin liner and someone recording their distance as the Litter Pick Bingo began! 30 minutes to find as many items on the litter pick bingo card as possible.

It was a tight contest as after 30 minutes all the teams came back in time....meaning no points deductions:

• In 4th place, we had Team "No Vapes" with 22.5 points (18 items found and covered 1.25km)
• In 3rd place, we had Team "R.E.A.M." with 23.1 points (22 items found and covered 1.05km)
• In 2nd place, we had Team "Trois3" with 25.5 points (17 items found and covered 1.5km)
• However, in 1st place, we had Team "Milibae's" with a staggering 35.68 points (23 items found and covered 1.55km)

With that, we had our winners: Team Milibae's who went into the lawn bowls social competition with confidence.

A few of us ran back to Old Spike Peckham to collect our items whilst the rest walked to Peckham Bowls to get setup for the inaugural GoodGym Southwark Bowls Championship. With two rinks booked, we split the semis into the two teams with five people against the two teams with four. Team "No Vapes" and Team "R.E.A.M." plus Sam took to Rink 6 whilst Team "Trios3" and Team "Milibae's" claimed Rink 5. It was a tight game on Rink 5, but on Rink 6, Team "R.E.A.M" took the first end, 4 - 0, but struggled to finish off their opponents quickly. After a few more ends and a pizza break, Team "R.E.A.M." took the game 8 - 3, whilst Team "Trois3" got their revenge on the litter pick bingo second place and book their place in the final.

Battling time and the light conditions, we played two more ends to determine the gold and bronze medal matches. Team "R.E.A.M" plus Sam took the Gold over Team "Trois3" with a 2 - 0 scoreline and Team "Milibae's" had to settle for Bronze as Team "No Vapes" came last in both competitions.

A great way to end July and I am glad we had two summer socials.

---

Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came out last night! We did good and we had fun! A massive thank you to Maria for leading the run and can't wait to have you as an official Run Leader. Kudos to Emma for backmarking and to everyone for getting stuck in with the litter picking and social!

Sam rushed from work to his home to collect the litter pickers and bin liners as tonight's group run was going to be a special one. Back in March, GoodGym sent out a document to all AAs as part of the "100 Days of Action" campaign and all other areas got involved with this activity, but Sam waited until the summer to use it. In line with the mid-year social, he decided to use it for this group run...."Litter Pick Bingo".

Sam met up with all the GoodGymers that had signed up for tonight at Old Spike Roastery apart from Laura, who was going to meet us at the start of the task. Sam's GG speech was slightly special as Daryl, who has been coming to GG Southwark regularly over the past 18 months or so, had finally reached the centurion club of GoodGym and claimed his wings! A massive congratulations again for hitting this major milestone!

The team did their usual warm-up on the green and this time, Sam decided to start with the run a 2.2k around Peckham Rye Park before meeting up with Laura at the Round Cafe in the middle of the park. It was here that he decided to say his ice-breaker question: Since it was Independence Day yesterday, who would you define as a true American hero OR when I say America, what do you think of?

We had all sorts of answers from Michelle Obama to Donald Trump and from Mickey Mouse to Captain America for American "heroes" and for the word "America", people said donuts, larger than life, loud, and alligators amongst other comments.

---

Climate Changing Centurion

Armed with copies of the Litter Pick Bingo sheets, pens, bin liners and litter pickers (thanks Paulin for bringing yours), Sam (after some struggles with basic maths) split the group into threes (and one group of four). Each group had to put down their group name on the sheet before heading off in all directions to find items on the litter pick bingo sheet and take photo evidence. It was more a litter hunt than a bingo as the teams had 30 minutes to go out and try to find as many of the 25 items on the sheet plus they had to record distance (if it came down to a tie-breaker). All teams needed to be back at the start for 19:50!

During the time the teams were away, Sam quickly went back to Old Spike to retrieve something special for the teams after they finished their litter hunt.

Daryl, David and Tim were the first group back with a minute to spare as they collected 20 items on the list. Two other groups arrived just back on the dot as Lindy, Louise and Tam collected 19 items and Gemma, Rebecca and Nelly arrived back with 21 items....they were leading the pack until Claire, Clare, Laura and Paulin arrived back with 23 items. However, since they were 3 minutes late and for each minute, Sam reduced a item off their list, they ended up with 20 items. Thus, Gemma, Rebecca and Nelly were the winners winning a Body Shop hand cream each!

We all celebrated with an Athletic Brewing non-alcoholic beer before heading back to Old Spike to collect our things. Yet, the evening wasn't over as we walked over to Frank's (rooftop bar in Peckham) for our mid-year social!

---

Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came out tonight! It was great to see you all getting competitive with your litter pick bingo and well done to Gemma, Rebecca and Nelly again. What a lovely way to end the night with our social at Frank's filled with delicious food, fancy cocktails and a wonderful view of London!

---

Thank You to myself

GoodGym is all about getting fit and doing good! We praise the runners/cyclists/walkers who come to get fit and help out, but we often forget about our task owner. I would like to take this opportunity to thank myself for organising such a fun evening filled with activities, non-alcoholic beer and a rooftop social afterwards! What a way to start July!

A rushed Sam arrived to Old Spike just on time to find Lindy waiting outside. Which was a surprise as he wasn't expecting her, but it was a pleasant surprise. Tonight's task owner had changed their minds about letting the session go ahead due to the Queen's mourning period, so we decided to do our own litter pick of Peckham Rye.

With Lindy and Olive arriving shortly, we were set for our run as Benjamin and Magdalena decided to cycle to the meeting point.

After the warm-up, Sam asked the ice-breaker question, which was to do with the sad passing of our Queen: What will be her legacy?

To not reveal who said what, we had her stability, her sense of duty and service to a role she didn't want, but took on with grace and finally, she could be the last fully serving monarch in British history.

---

From rags to....richly rewarded good deeds

Our 2k run around Peckham Rye brought us to The Round, which is a cafe in the middle of Peckham Rye. Since we were waiting for Benjamin to arrive, the girls decided to litter pick around the cafe.

Once Benjamin came, we decided to venture into the Community Wildlife gardens, where we left Lindy to tackle a spot that had more cider cans than her flat on a Friday night....and that's saying something (just kidding).

The rest of us walked around the park, but it was fairly clean since the last time we litter picked with Plastic Free Peckham (who know where all the spots are). Yet, as we were deciding to wrap up for the night as it was getting dark and our headtorches were on, we opted to look at an old area we went to last time. In this spot, Benjamin found two half bottles of soft drinks and Magdalena found a jar filled with cigarette buds, but labeled "AJ's jar", so she decided to leave it as we wouldn't want to upset AJ and his smoking habits in possibly his favourite spot.

The night concluded with a super quick "4 exercises in 4 minutes" workout as I did promise everyone that I would conclude this group run by 20:00 tonight. What was in store? A minute of jumping squats, jumping lunges, leg resistance bands and tricep dips!

---

Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came out tonight! It wasn't the planned session we had with Plastic Free Peckham, but we made our own litter pick and even got in a run and a short fitness session. Next week, we're back at Simon's Thorlands, so see those who are up for it there!

The fete was busy and a huge success.
At the end of the day I swapped my tea tent apron for my GoodGym TShirt (not quite a superman transformation) and got stuck in collapsing trestle tables and stacking them to be collected.
Heavy work but thankfully they were not the finger pinching variety

Crowds gone, job done and the park was restored to its beautiful grassy glory