What a lovely bunch for a Sunday morning session at the fantastic Grove Adventure Playground.

After arriving and welcoming totally fresh runners Ashleigh, Domhnall, Sam, Catherine and Anna to the fold, we got straight to task with Nick showing us our jobs with a lovely whiteboard-ful of instructions.

Forgive me if I get this wrong (lots of new names...);

Phil, Samuel, Abi, Ashleigh and Hannah were on woodchip duty, moving a massive pile and raking it for a soft landing!

Becca and Latoya were cleaning the kitchen shelves

Pippa, Rosanna and Cat were brushing the wood to seal it.

Paul, Anna, Stefan, Domhnall and Sam were moving loads of logs into a new wood pile

While Jenny and Katie were sweeping and mopping the hall floor.

PHEW

Everyone mucked in to a banging soundtrack provided by Nick and we were done in no time.

After grabbing some bags of apples(!), we sauntered round to a nearby park for some fitness focussed drills. First up a quick FAB (forward, arms, balloon) jog and then a draining game of Rock, Paper, Scissors.

DO GOOD, GET FIT. ☄️

Nice one gang. Here are the links to our next couple of runs:

• Tuesday evening’s group run

• Saturday’s Windmill community mission

Pancake Day!! 🥞

Tonight featured an absolute feast of tasks! This was GoodGym 101 featuring:

• wheelbarrowing, shovelling and raking woodchip
• sweeping and mopping
• cleaning all manner of surfaces
• litterpicking, AND
• moving soil into raised beds.

Does it get more GoodGym than this???

Team Lambeth were in high spirits despite the changeable weather when we set off - one group taking a short run direct to our tasks and one group taking a longer 5k option.

We went to Loughborough Farm where a small group stayed to give them a hand. And the rest of us borrowed a wheelbarrow and headed round the corner to the Grove Adventure Playground, an awesome and colourful outdoor play area.

Victoria had this to say about the small Farm group:

Eight was the magic number of goodgymmers it took to fill a planter down at Loughborough Farm. Shovel, barrow and good chat teams worked together and got the job 70% done. Joke, the job was to fill it 70% full so, that's a wrap. The veggies will be moving into their new home for Spring.

Smashed it.

Those of us who went to Grove split into groups; some shifting some delightful-smelling wood chip to underneath the swings and slides, some cleaning the inside of the community centre and some doing a litterpick around the outside.

When the place was looking spick and span, we dropped the wheelbarrow back round the corner at the farm and headed back to PAPA’s for PANCAKES.

Props to;

• KATIE for bringing the hot plate
• PAUL for grabbing a European adaptor!
• TASKFORCE for the finest shop-bought pancakes
• AISLIN for completing her 50th good deed!!

Ace work team 💪

Next week we're helping out at our home - PAPA's Park! Sign up HERE.

Our first run of the year was a total blinder, with loads of fabby new people, some fabby old people and a new trainer - the very lovely Esther who is going to be starting up with Poole very soon.

Trainer Katie waffled on for ages introducing her task force and telling everyone about our jaunt to Liverpool - coming up soon in early March. Do come along!

I've got Tate membership and there is a Tate in Liverpool! Said Tim, giving us yet one more reason to go there in March

We did a nice warm up outside and then Katie led one group 1.5km to the Grove Adventure Playground, with Nicky leading a walking contingent and George and Jim heading off on a longer run towards Clapham Common to pick up any pesky Christmas trees that had been left out and about.

On arrival at the Grove, we got about scraping the paint from around the windows so that they were nice and neat, whilst others did some great sweeping and mopping. We did some ankle conditioning with some simple but actually quite tricky heel lifts.

George and Jim set off to fetch some trees and Phil grabbed one straight away and dragged it to the common as part of some sort of personal resistance training. Once a bit closer to the common, the rest of the group collected up more trees - 15 to be precise - and took them to the recycling depot on the common. As it was Clapham, the sight of 20 runners carrying trees received no less than a Macbeth quote:

Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane...

According to George this means that "everyone carring the trees looked like the army carrying trees as they moved forward to attack Macbeth (the witches said Macbeth would be king until the wood reached Dunsinane)." So there we go lads, a bit of Shakespeare for you. As well as running, George led a fitness session and an 'extra special extra run after a dubious people’s vote'.

It's what the people wanted! Said George

Not the first time we have heard that in recent history.

On return to base we all did some nice stretches and headed off home. Thanks for a lovely evening, we got loads done!

It was a miserable rainy December evening but what better way to bring Christmas cheer than by gathering at Papa's Park (with swish newly opened playground) for the last Lambeth run of the year. There were two tasks to do. We all ran together to Loughborough Farm, where we dropped off some ABSOLUTE HEROES, led by Beth. Here's her report:

Our job was to move some bags of soil from A to B. A and B weren’t very far apart but with the rain making everything slippery and the soil heavier than it needed to be it was a tough job. Various buckets, trays and wheelbarrows were employed to transfer the soil from bags on one side of the farm to the other. By the time we’d finished we’d emptied one bag and very nearly another and made really good progress on the rest.

More impressive than the amount of soil we moved, Elise did it all whilst holding an umbrella.

The rest of us carried on round the corner to sort out the hall at Grove Adventure Playground. Some poorly painted windows needed scraping to neaten up the edges and the floor needed a good sweep and mop after a party at the weekend. Everyone set about this with cheer and some Christmas tunes were blasted from the stereo.

We all ran back to base, picking up our pals at the farm before some stretches and then headed to the lovely Seven in the Village for some food and drinks. The tapas were delicious and people enjoyed some cocktails as well.

Katie had put together a quiz of questionable content and it was really 50/50 as to whether people enjoyed it but really, that's what quizzes are about, wouldn't you agree? She then wowed the crowds with some FACTS about Lambeth, namely that to date, there have been:

2205 attendances to Lambeth runs, missions and coach visits in 2018 AND COUNTING!

Just amazing. Then it was on to the big ones, the Shit Prizes of the Year (SPOTY). We had first chick and first dude across DISTANCE and of course, GOOD DEEDERY. Of course everyone at Lambeth has been completely stellar this year, as with every other year but the winners were:

DISTANCE First chick: Nicky Woodall - 1150.36km and counting....! First dude: Tom Hunter - 2050.54km and counting....!

GOOD DEEDERY First dude: David Ewens - 114 and counting....! First chick: Frances Collier-Wright- 115 and counting...!

As you can see these numbers are INCREDIBLE and huge cheers were given to all. And that's a wrap Lambeth - thank you for being so amazing in 2018 and see you in the new year!

What a night! By far the wettest and chilliest night of 2018, yet 20 heroes turned up to run to two tasks that needed our support.

Lucy and Tom B led the walking contingent, whilst Beth led the runners, to Grove Adventure Playground. Here's what Beth said about it:

Our fabulous five ran and walked over to Grove Adventure playground and were met by a very grateful Anthea who had the heating on ready to warm us up. We started off by sweeping the floor before Tom and Lucy gave it a good mop and Paul did a great job of cleaning the toilets. After that three of us moved on to the job of paint scraping. Thanks to some over eager corporate volunteers some of the paint from the door frame had got on to the windows so we scraped it off and gave them a brush. Before we set off Anthea took a group photo which made Lucy a bit anxious that we would ruin her clean floor by standing on it. On the run back any drying out that had happened was undone by a car driving past a huge puddle and splashing us but we carried on knowing we could make a start on tasting the week’s baked goods before the other group got back.

The rest of us headed to the Crisis charity shop near Elephant and Castle. Katie's glasses immediately steamed up, rendering her a fairly useful navigator and Tom H's phone was playing silly buggers. This meant we went a slightly meandering route that was thwarted by some locked park gates. On arriving a little late to this brilliant shop, we got stuck in with steaming, labelling, hoovering and neatening up the clothes on the shop floor. The staff were delighted that we had saved them some morning jobs.

We ran back in two groups on a much simpler route and enjoyed some of Beth and Paul's delicious bakes before heading home to warm up. Well done Lambeth!

The first week of October meant it was proper dark when we started our run and even darker when we finished! Luckily, we had two great tasks to get on with and everyone was super up for it.

A smaller group led by JKB headed back to the Tulse Hill Estate, where task owner Vinnie and his barky dog had three jobs that needed our attention. One group sorted out a compost heap that was a right mess, another moved a big old load of soil whilst group 3 moved a load of soil. You could say it was an evening of MOVING for this team but boy did they do well. Shout outs to Andrew and Rebecca who stayed behind to tidy up at the end. TOP STUFF.

WOOF! WOOF! Said the dog.

The rest headed to the fantastic Grove Adventure Playground, which is 1km away. For those wanting a longer run, Tom H led a group 3.5km round the houses. Once there, some people set about digging holes in the ground to plant some grasses that were from the Chelsea Flower Show don't you know. It turns out this was much harder than it seemed as chunks of concrete were awaiting us below the surface. After some serious perseverance all grasses got planted, which task owner Anthea was very impressed by. Another group filled up a flower bed with soil and the rest set about some serious weeding of flower beds out the front and also between the paving out the back. Even more people swept and mopped the floor inside. All in all, we got loads done and one tool was like a broom but had a tiny head on the end and we thought it was like a giant's toothbrush. So that was fun.

It's like a giant's toothbrush! Said Freyja.

On return to base, we tucked into some delicious biscuits and some cake that had candles on it as it was Katie's (that's me!) birthday so that was very nice. THANKS LAMBETH!