I attended an event held by Refugee Action Kingston to promote the benefits of GoodGym for health and wellbeing. A few people seemed very interested and I hope to see them at a GoodGym session soon.

Today we went back to Refugee Action Kingston to finish what we started On Tuesday evening painting the office and reception area.

When we arrived the painting had been in full flow since Tuesday and the walls were starting to loose their yellow tinge.

Rachel, Marie-Noelle and Claire all gave some of the walls a second coat of paint and Rachel then moved on to cleaning the nasty sticky sellotape marks off the windows. Meanwhile Marie-Noelle and Claire cleaned the door frame and radiator so they were all shiny and sparkling.

It was then time for a quick hoover and tidy up so the office could be put back together for Monday morning. It now looks much brighter space to welcome visitors and work in.

We were then treated to sushi as an early lunch which was enjoyed by all.

I hope the team enjoy their new look offices on Monday morning.

Rachel and Liz went on a mission to meet the guests at the Refugee Action Kingston health day. We set up our stall using a large GoodGym flag and decorated it with all the GoodGym merch we could find. Turns out that between us we have quite the selection of t-shirts!

Over the course of 2h30 we met lots of people and spread the word of all the amazing things we are doing in Kingston and Richmond, promoted the health benefits of running/walking, and encouraged people to come and try out our groups.

In between all the promotion, we chatted about potential collaborations and generally put the world to rights.

Such a lovely way to spend a lunchtime. We’ll come and visit you in Richmond soon, Liz!

Nicky + Samia on a mission = deluge guaranteed. Even if weather apps tell us both a 0% chance of rain. This formula never fails.

So we arrived in said 0% chance of rain in a soggy state, Nicky drenched to the core and Samia soggy-toed but glad she'd doubted the forecast and gone back for her brolly. Piper Hall was full of bags of donated clothes for their Clothes for Refugees day tomorrow, ready and waiting for us to lift, sift and shift to the relevant tables.

True to form, we created tales and characters for each bag’s donors, including The Man Transitioning From Dull & Dreary To Awesome Prints. Little does he know that we’ve really given his life some thought: is this a partner wanting him to wear brighter clothes and him resisting (and therefore donating)?; is it a case of somebody who brightens up the clothes for summer?; is the muted checked shirt collection a graded transition to the brighter prints?

Nicky recruited a hanger fetcher who was slightly puzzled by GoodGym (yes, we are still allowed to get on planes and boats to go on holiday!), and we sorted items that were too faded and for recycling, mahoooooosive items for the “oversized clothes bag”, items for handing on the clothes rails and items for folding (ugh, we are NOT good folders!). We also added to our list of "phrases that would only be heard on a GoodGym task" list, including "are these pants too pants?" and "these clogs came with a bonus pair of scissors". We also found Happy and Sleepy from the 7 Dwarves (now, I wonder which one is Sleepy, she writes having headed to the mission following an afternoon nap...).

After sorting through lots of bags of clothes and creating lots of tales between us, we headed out into the... Sun!

And just when you thought the formula was incorrect, Samia got a drenching after collecting her bike...

What a grey, dark, very wet last Tuesday in November it was today UNTIL...

The lights of Kingston and Guildhall shone bright like a beacon for 10 runners undeterred by the foul weather and determined to ‘hit their task at pace’ tonight. Those words were Mark’s mantra for the night and it proved to be a pacey Christmas cracker of a night for a number of reasons...

Its #Giving Tuesday!

• the rain stopped for GG as soon as Marks pacey warm up started

• The challenge and competitive streak of walkers vs runners - who would get to the task first on their very different routes we wondered? The walkers surprised us all and won the challenge! We think Mark’s ‘pacey’ warm up had the walkers setting off so fast that we did not even see them go and the runners had to put in extra laps so were last to arrive! (though the runners were so ‘pacey’ with their lap of Fairfax Playing Fields that even the run trainer missed us)

• The friendly folk of Refuge Action Kingston at Piper Hall welcomed us back. We were greeted with the most enormous room in toy chaos (Toy Story 2018?!) with toys from every category under the sun from books to arts and crafts to tradition yet retro cool boardgames – think Twister, Connect 4, Lego to recent crazes such as scented loom bands...It was like a chaotic mecca of many much loved old toys. As we had to check the toys were all complete and in good working order, we had the perfect excuse to have a ‘pacey’ quick play with them! GoodGym were like a team dynamo coming in – working ‘at pace’ to have the room cleared and the store / toy cupboard for the creche all well organised.

It was a juggling act tonight #Kingston #GoodGym #juggling #running #volunteering #childsplay pic.twitter.com/euHLomCtGr

— GoodGym Kingston-upon-Thames (@GoodGymKingston) November 27, 2018

GoodGym well and truly beat the rain tonight and transformed such a gloomy day!

And the best of luck to Refuge Action Kingston with their Christmas Fair – we hope it raises lots of good funds! Don't forget if you do have any clothes you wish to donate, you can drop them at Piper Hall for Saturday morning.

We kicked off tonight with a well needed warm up. It was brilliant to see a crowd of familiar faces brave the cool, darker nights. Winter is most definitely coming...

Our run out took us on a tourist trip of our previous group tasks along the river. We dodged commuters on their way home for the night, while we were heading out into the moonlight! Eventually we arrived at Piper Hall not many of us had been herb-efore.

Jenny from Refugee Action Kingston warmly greeted us and told us about all the fantastic initiatives they are running to help the local Refugee community, including English lessons, a playgroup and they are also hoping to set up weekend homework sessions very soon.

We donned our head torches and headed out to the garden. Jenny kicked off providing some sage gardening advice about what she needed us to do. We quickly launched into action butt we were careful, as we were only mint to pull up the weeds!!

Toby showed that he nose best when it comes to his weed identification skills, by smelling the stinging nettles to check for mint, which thankfully proved to be very effective.

In the battle of Jenna vs sage, Jenna definitely won, helping to tame the corner of the garden and preventing it from overflowing onto the pavement.

They call this the...secateur dance 💃#goodgym #running #fitness #kingston #tuesdays #gardening #weeding pic.twitter.com/y8BdXdl7mj

— GoodGym Kingston-upon-Thames (@GoodGymKingston) September 25, 2018

As we snipped and sheared the air was filled with a gorgeous aroma of winter roast dinners.

Freshly weeded and tidied it was thyme to leave. Jenny thanked us for our hard work, but we said it was no big dill and we were pleased to provide a fresh start to the garden.

Under the light of the stunning full moon we raced back through town to Guildhall. We successfully completed the task we came to do and then we were tarragon!

As mentioned in the news, if any of you are interested in Kingston First floral arranging week commencing the 15th October then let me know and I can email you the details. Likewise if you would like to help Involve Housing who support the homeless with collecting money at the station around Christmas time I can send you details for this too.