It was a sure sign that summer was well and truly over - an evening task in the dark, and the falling of the leaves. That didn't stop five of us from raking up some good deeds!

We welcomed [Alessandra] for her first good weed ever, and were joined by Biscuits and Susannah, plus Lucy and Helen.

Father Tim had left us some guidance for the night, with our first task being to weed around the side of the church. Helen and Alessandra started at one end, with the rest of us at the other. Armed with black bags and head torches, we weeded away. Meeting in the middle, the job was done, and we moved onto the front church lawn.

Alessandra, Susannah and Helen carried on weeding and sweeping up leaves that had made their way into the flower beds. Lucy took on rake duty, clearing the fallen leaves from the lovely clean lawn, and Johnny took on his wife's favourite job and followed round with a big black bag!

The third and final part of the night was around the vicarage... More autumnal leaves to be cleared, more sweeping and raking and more black sacks filled.

Weed done an unbeleafable job, and Tim was absolutely swept away with our hard work.

Welcome Alessandra, and hope to have you back with us again!

'Lovely task helping the church in getting rid of weeds and leaves in the church garden. Great group of people there, nice to find out more about Goodgym too! The church vicar was pleased with the work done! We also had a mini tour of the church at the end, it was nice to learn something about it.'

Report to follow.

GoodGym H&F went off with a bang! Remember, remember the 5th of November, gunpowder, treason and trot....

On a chilly Tuesday evening, 14 H&F GoodGymmers forwent bonfires and instead chose to watch the bangs, pops and fizzes from firework displays on a their run to help out a local church.

A big hello and welcome along to GoodGym H&F to Melissa, thank you for coming along.

News

1. H&F Community Missions - 2 on Saturday! Help pack containers for ERASE Foundation from 9.30-10.30am, all the details are here followed bythe 'Big Planting Event' at Wormholt Park, all the details are here if you can lend a hand anytime between 11am-3pm.
2. Unofficial GG10 party 🔟🎉 - this Friday! At Topolski Bar on the Southbank. All the details are here.
3. GG Christmas party 🎄🎉 - Friday 6th December. Places are limited so make sure you sign up early! All the details are here.

There was some brilliant racing at the weekend....well done to Katie and Eloise in the Richmond Half and to Lucy in the Billericay Striders 10k 🏅🥳🙌🏼 .

Spot my mojo working

Before we headed to the streets we did a quick pulse raising warm-up that began with some high knees, jumping jacks and Johnny Wren's favourite, spotty dogs - he's definitely becoming a pro at these now! This was followed by some different movements when certain numbers were shouted out and some dynamic stretches.

Nicely warmed-up we headed down towards our task tonight at Parsons Green. With it being bonfire night and a Chelsea home game the streets were a lot fuller than normal! Following lots of weaving around pedestrians, and a brief pause for a wall sit while we waited for lights to turn green, we eventually arrived at St Dionis Church.

Orange you glad it's Autumn!

We managed to track down the church vicar, Tim who warmly welcomed everyone to the church amongst the lovely Autumnal colours of the fallen leaves. He explained to the group that tonight's task was to give the garden area and sides of the church a lovely spruce up through some leaf clearing and weed removal.

The church has been closed for refurbishment for the past 6 months and Sunday at 3pm is their grand reopening. It was our job tonight to provide the all inportant tidy up to leave a good first impression, because as Tim humourously said " you can never make a first impression again!"

No sight for saw eyes as GG H&F stand & de-leaf-er

The team gloved up and quickly set about filling green garden bags with weeds and leaves. Lucy and Jonny teamed up for the great rake off and large 'scooping hands' combo while everyone else got stuck in with their hands.

Following last week's strong winds there were a number of large fallen branches that also needed to be removed. Henry and Katie armed themselves with a saw and set about cutting the branches into smaller pieces so that they could be used as fire wood.

Raking it happen

After 30 minutes of raking, collecting handful after handful of leaves, sawing of branches and gravel de-weeding we called it a night. The result of all this hard work was 10 full garden bags and one immaculately looking garden area, one that would definitely give a great first impression!

Tim led us inside and treated us to a sneak peak of the refurbished church. And wow, it was stunning! We took the opportunity to get a team photo under the church's arches and bright lights before we said our goodbyes to Tim and headed off on our run back to base.

We'll keep you postered

En route we stopped at some local supermarkets and shops to distribute some posters for Food2You, a grocery delivery service for vulnerable, isolated older people who can't do their own shopping. It will be up and running in Hammersmith & Fulham very soon and they are currently looking for volunteers to drive the delivery vans and assist with co-ordination.

After another weavy pedestrian-avoiding run we arrived back at base. As we completed our cool down stretches we discussed upcoming races and milestones, and of course Christmas! With strectches completed and the temperature dropping, we all headed home to some much needed warmth. Thank you for tonight team, unbe-leaf-able work!

Next week we'll be helping out at Flora Gardens Primary and will be doing some more postering for Food2You. For all the details and to sign up, click here. Have a great rest of your week and weekend. Hopefully see you next week!

Two task Tuesday in H&F! 14 GoodGymers raked up 9 bags of leaves and delivered 500 Christmas Cards for H&F Foodbank!

On a noticeable colder December night 13 GoodGymers joined me to do good and get fit on a big two task Tuesday. It was brilliant to welcome along Emily and Sarah for their second H&F group runs - great to have you along again, hope you enjoyed it! And as always, lovely to see my wonderful regulars.

Unlike the previous two Tuesday evenings, depsite the cold it was a nice dry night (and according to the Met Office a nice dry but cold evening....yes I'm totally blaming them for the rain latter on in the evening!) so we headed out towards our normal warm-up spot and had a quick round-up of the weekly news.

You snooze you news!

1. GoodGym H&F Christmas Party (Tues 11th) - After our run next Tuesday we're going to head to Nando's for a Peri Peri Christmas. All are welcome! Please sign up here to help us get an idea of numbers.
2. North London Long Run (Sun 9th) - Around Epping Forest, led by Graham and Alix - meet at 9.30/9.45am at Walthamstow Central Tube depending on the pace that you'd like to run, all the details here.
3. South London Long Run (Sun 16th) - Thames Barrier to Tower Bridge, led by Dom - all the details here
4. Community Mission (Fri 14th) - Supporting Evolve Housing - volunteers are needed to lend a hand packing shopping bags to raise money for homelessness projects. All the details if you'd like to sign up are here.

Following a very quick warm-up we headed off on our 3km down to Parsons Green for our first task of the night. Pausing only briefly for the odd traffic light and one 30-second wall sit it wasn't long before we arrived at St Dionis Church. We were met outside the church entrance by the vicar, Tim and he talked to the group about all the wonderful projects the church run and support: a night shelter in partnership with Glass Door to support those who are homelessness, a recovery course, both a men's and women's ministry, and some upcoming Christmas carol services on Sunday's.

Faced with 14 eager GoodGymers Tim was worried that we'd be oversubscribed for the tasks he'd asked us lend a hand with:

• Tidy up and bag the rubbish and leaves down the side of the church
• Rake up and bag all the leaves in-front of the church, both on the astro turf and in the wood chipped flower beds

Piles? I've got heaps!

Josh, Alice, Andrew and Johnny headed down the side of the church and started bagging up the leaves and tidying the rubbish. Only a few minutes had passed as Josh emerged with a dumped wine bottle amongst the large volume of leaves. It wasn't long before their bag overflowed with leaves, and Alice, taking inspiration from Catriona's effective bin jumping last week plunged herself into the bag to flatten the leaves. It worked a treat and the extra bag space enabled them to continue loading the bag with Johnny's wonderfully formed piles...of leaves.

Rake me up before you go-go!

As the fantastic four tackled the side of the church, the rest of the group set about raking and tidying in-front of the church. After admiring the perfectly laid astro (something many of us had learnt a few months ago was quite tricky to lay!) everyone gloved up and tooled up and tackled the hardest challenge of the evening, opening the bags! Sarah, never far away at the mention of a bag, efficiently dealt out the bags as everyone else quickly raked up the leaves into very neat piles and bagged them up. Sophie, Sarah, Catherine and Emily proved to be dab-hands with a rake, while Jason and Tom proved equally skilled with the large claw-like-hand pickers and scoops. As the others raked and scooped, Bex and Chris worked in wonderful tandem as they took turns to both help hold bags open and grab the large piles of leaves into the bags.

Insane in the memb'rain(e)!

Despite the outlook of no rain, and in a classic case of I spoke too soon with my comment of "isn't it nice running down to Parsons Green in the dry and without having to avoid puddles!", the rain began to come down, luckily a lot lighter than it had done so in previous weeks...

I could never leaf you!

As half an hour passed, Tim needn't have worried about the potential lack of tasks to be done. The group managed to fill 9 full to bursting bags of leaves (quite literally in the case of 1!) that Tim was mightily impressed with. Before we said our goodbyes and thank yous to Tim the group posed for a team photo and proceeded to make use of the lovely astro turf lawn to complete a short fitness blast which comprised of 3x30 seconds of front and side planks.

Leaf'let out, you'll bank me later!

Task one successfully completed, we headed off towards the bottom of Parsons Green to begin a HUGE Christmas Card delivery for the H&F Foodbank. We had 500 Christmas Cards to deliver around the surrounding streets of the H&F Foodbank, Office based in the ChristChurch on Studdridge Road. Each of these cards had been personally signed and placed in an enveloped which was addressed "Dear Neighbour", which we all agreed was a lovely touch and an incredible effort to do.

Streets ahead!

With Sarah highlighting that the roads ran in parallel to one another she fantastically fine-tuned the lead frog posting plan as the group split into two equal groups. As one group headed down one road the other group set off down the next road ensuring maximum coverage and efficiency. Both groups worked like a well oiled leap frogging machine (if one were to exist) with each group separately splitting into two groups so as to cover both sides of the road. With only a few Christmas Cards remaining the group re-formed as one and posed for a quick photo before we headed to one last road to finish the posting. In what was an astounding display of Christmas Card posting en masse, in 20 minutes all 500 Christmas Cards had been delivered!

Going the whole nine (500) cards....

The H&F Foodbank are incredibly grateful for your posting efforts as it frees up time for their small number of volunteers in the office and hubs. Along with promotion of the H&F Foodbank, volunteers sort all the donations they receive and pack them into boxes for people identified as 'in need' - these donations are then distributed to them at the Foodbank Centres. Our own, Josh volunteers at the main hub and if you are keen to volunteer, please drop the H&F Foodbank an email.

We raked it happen, unbe'leaf'able!

With 9 bags filled with leaves and all 500 Christmas Cards delivered we began the 3.5km run back to base. The rain started to come down harder as we navigated ourselves through the streets of Parsons Green and up through Barons Court, passing the back of the prestigious Queens Club en route. We headed through to the shelter of the Better Gym car park and completed a much needed cool down and stretch, amongst ideas for puns for the run report (amongst some pity laughs from Alice) and next week's cheeky Peri Peri Christmas at Nando's!

Such an impressive effort tonight all, awesome work! A very big thank you to Jason, who not only back marked tonight but also stylishly ran and modelled a nice H&F Foodbank bag filled with Christmas Cards.

Next week, we will be heading up to St Mungo's Reconnection Post to help tidy up their garden. Sign up here. This will of course be followed by dinner and drinks at Nando's. Hope to see lots of you there! Have a fab week!