Last night 11 of us met for another Tuesday night group run at Papas Park. we were running to the Portico Gallery in West Norwood, its one of the longest run we do at Lambeth Goodgym, a total of 8.5 km, so we were feeling a bit nervous about whether we would make it or not. 😲

Lambeth TF member and all round creative superstar Tim led the group out start to finish - awesome stuff Tim!

After a quick warm up we set off at a steady pace and started the climb up to West Norwood. The run was long, and hard work but we all made it and felt very proud of ourselves. At the Portico Gallery we met John who explained that they were painting the floor for a music video this week so needed everything on the floor moved up onto the stage. We split into two groups, half of us rearranged the stage whilst the other picked up tables, chairs, picture frames, plants, mirrors and benches and carried them over to the stage for storage.

In under 25 mins we were done and the floor was clear and ready for painting. John was very happy as it would have taken him hours to move all the furniture on his own. ⏱

As we left we said goodbye to some runners who made there own way home, the rest of us then ran back another 4k but luckily this time it was down hill.

For lots of us it was either the furthest we had run in a long time or our first time doing that distance so when we go home we felt equally exhausted and triumphant! 🤩

Four Lambeth GGers met John at Portico to help him weed and clear the yard at the back of the gallery. John has a big skip they've been filling as they've been re-doing the inside of the gallery during lockdown, fitting in a new large stage so they can put on performances. The Good Gym team helped to weed out the yard around the beds and make the place look nice and tidy!

A Portico community mission pulling up and sorting carpet tiles!

John welcomed us and explained that he had had the carpet tiles for about 25 years after a bank no longer needed them. The main room is getting new flooring so we were there to help get ready for that. Steve and Frances set to work hoovering the carpet with some particularly powerful and satisfying hoovers. Check the photo to see the difference 😄 Jen, Zoe and I laid out some of the loose tiles on the floor ready to be hoovered too. Once they were clean we sorted into a good, medium and bin pile. John has plans to re use some of the good ones in another room so they’ll live on for a few more years!

What a lovely little bunch for actually quite a big task! We met outside the Portico, went deep on our favourite warm day beverages and then headed round to the back yard to meet John and Cosmo the dog.

John gave us the lowdown on our task - he didn't want some huge sacks of building material to go to waste (understandably) so our job was to fill up smaller sacks with the sand and gravel and stack it in a corner.

We rotated jobs - some shovelling, some bag holding, and some bag wheelbarrowing and managed to get through 3 out of the 4 tonne bags.

We then met the fish, took a photo and headed home.

Nice job guys! 🔥💥👌

The Portico Gallery is an absolute gem of South London, hosting art exhibitions, tea parties, ceilidhs, yoga classes, an outdoor gym, craft workshops and even the occasional GoodGym wedding!

Tonight a killer team of GoodGym runners slogged it up the hill to help out with yet another interesting task;

SORTING GAZEBOS

We welcomed some fantastic new runners - Fenella, Tarig, Charlie and Eva and then split into 3 pace groups: speedy, medium and gentle, to take on the 4.5k run up to the Portico.

When we arrived, John told us about the West Norwood Feast - an awesome community gathering with food and crafts stalls which happens on the first Sunday of the month. John keeps some of the gazebos they use in the Portico and some live in the nearby leisure centre/swimming pool.

Our job was to sort the clean sides from the dirty sides. We got straight to it, with half the group heading to the leisure centre/swimming pool to do the same thing.

In no time at all, all gazebos were sorted and we hit the road, back to Papa's.

They were brilliant - John (via email)

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NEXT WEEK we've got a NEW TASK - half the group will stick at Papa's for some gardening jobs and fitness drills whilst the other half will be heading to the YELLOW QUBE, a super cool community space on the way to Tulse Hill.

Be there or be cubed. Sign up here.

27 absolute champs met up this evening for some fine running, efficient tasking and a whole lot of cake.

We first welcomed Jessica and William to the crew 👏 and heard about all the fun things going on in and around GoodGym Lambeth.

And then we split; half taking the 9k run option to the Portico Gallery and half opting for a more chilled 3k run to a couple of tasks near Loughborough Junction.

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Beth and Samantha took the lead on the shorter run and had this to say:

As we approached Loughborough Junction farm we spotted Karen heading round the corner with a wheelbarrow to Styles Gardens so headed there to meet her and three stayed there to do some digging. The bulk of the work though was at Loughborough farm so the majority of the group were based there and tasked with moving soil from a couple of large bags to a couple of other large bags. It sounds simple enough but add in limited light and wheelbarrows with some tricky turns to negotiate and it all became quite the challenge. After half an hour we’d made a decent dent in the original bags and headed back to Papa’s wondering how much cake we could get through before the portico group got back.

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The rest of us headed off to the weird and wonderful Portico Gallery in West Norwood. They've long been at the core of the WN Feast which happens on the first Sunday of the month, storing all the gear used for the stalls.

John gave us a run down of our task, with some company from a much slimmer looking (in a good way) Methuselah the cat, and we got to work.

The Lighthouse Family

With some expert light shining from Alice and John, we split the gazebo weights into categories based on whether their straps had velcro, clips or needed attention. Once sorted, we neatly put the clipped bags back on the pallets so that John's team could sort fix up the rest.

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On our return we were all treated to an UNBELIEVABLE array of bakes;

🍰 Matt invented a lovely moist Mojito Cake (& it was vegan 🤩)

🍰 GoodGym Olympics star baker Issy cooked a delicious Dorset Apple Cake 🍏

🍰 On a 1920's theme Beth brought a yummy banana cake with rum-soaked cherries in 🍒

🍰 And not convinced there was going to be enough cake (lol), Sarah brought a sumptious coffee cake AND some Mars chocolate crispy cake 😋

And Valcie from Papa's Park left us some sweets for our community mission work at the weekend!

Same again next week please everyone! 👅