24 Goodgymers ran 4km to help the Story Garden lift tons!

Thanks for coming along, no newbies but lots of regulars and recent joiners :)

In the news this week:

1. Go along to the Community Mission today helping Camden Helpline - see details here.
2. Sign up for the GG Olympics here, you haven't got long to enter your events to represent #TeamCamden
3. Also people are going to do the Scottish Half Marathon in September, see full details here.

Well what a night, we were back at the new task - Story Garden - a community garden that is currently under construction. It's changed so much in a week and will keep on changing over the the next year, it opens as part of the Somers Town Community Festival in July and then Skip Garden will move over to the site in October.

Martina gave us two tasks last night:

• Moving those huge Oak sleepers (big planks of woods) - these will be used to make 10 planters which community projects will adopt to look after.
• Shifting through soil and stones to find large stones (not concrete) which will be used to make paths - kinda looked like we were preparing to make a Roman Road.

As described by Thomas shifting the oak sleepers was some of the hardest work we've done at GoodGym Camden - lots of heavy lifting! Involving 2 or 3 people lifting each one (unless your Hanry). Over 30 mlinutes we moved at least 60 of them. Caz described all this rubble and wood lifting as quite a biblical task, a short time after that the heavens opened and rain descended upon us.... Luckily we were running by this point and it didn't get too heavy.

We did a nice 3.5k loop + the 800m time trial at Granary Square - lovely! After a slight early finish we stretched and headed to the pub.

Next week we are helping Antrim Allotments (6k overall) - sign up here.

PB out

26 GoodGymers ran 3-6km to help Cecil Sharp House and St Marys

Welcome along to newbies Julie and Alba, and welcome back to several second timers too - great to have you along.

In the news this week:

1. The Monthly Social is tomorrow at the Islington Townhouse - see full details here.
2. GG Raceteam are looking for race suggestions for 2019, so far they've got 15 suggestions and would like a few more. See the form to suggest more here.
3. Join the Unofficial GG Facebook page here and GG Camden Facebook page here.

St Mary's Report:

A team of 11 went off on an adventure to run with warm bags of compost through the streets of Camden, aka bags of hot stuff! However upon our surprise the Camden Compost Pile outside Alara was gone! Nowhere to be seen - ALAS!

So after that shitshow we headed off to St Mary's to see what we could do for Jon and the community there. Over 30 minutes we swept leaves, litter picked, replanted a beautiful plant, weeded and emptied old containers of soil.

Running through the station!

On our run to Granary Square we ran through St Pancras Station to advertise the GG brand to the commuters! Nice! We then smashed a progression run around Granary Square before heading home to stretch.

Cecil Sharp House:

Pritesh and Katherine led a group of 15 to Cecil Sharp House to do our monthly task of tidying the garden. With the nights closing in and weather a little colder we’ve started on leaf duty.

One change in the back garden was the state of the lawn, usually pristine it was looking bare (our hard work in the spring reseeding was ruined!). Susannah said that it wasn’t the hot summer, but 70-80 children using the garden daily as a play area over the summer holidays! Probably going to be a re-turf needed.

After 40 minutes of tidying Susannah reminded us that the work 15 of us achieved would equate to a whole day for her and she really appreciates our support. After a quick school photo we ran back to base for stretching.

Sign up here for next here when we have a NEW TASK helping Kingsgate Estate and gardening for SPCA.

PB out

21 GoodGymers ran between 3-8km to help St Mary's & leaflet for Queens Crescent Community Association & KTCF

Thanks for coming along on another hot summer evening. It's always one of my favourite times of the week doing good with you guys :)

In the news this week:

1. A MASSIVE WELL DONE to Pritesh who hit 300 Good Deeds last night, and was gifted with a cape and sword to run around Camden with - THIS IS CAMDEN!!!!
2. Track Thursday - Kat is organising weekly track sessions on Thursday evenings at Regents Park Dirt Track. Meet for 6.30pm - contact me if you want more details
3. July's Monthly Social will be next Thursday in Wandsworth - more details coming soon.

Task One - Leafletting for QCCA & KTCF:

Chris and Pritesh led a team of 10 to leaflet for the Queens Crescent Community Association's Summer Party on the 21st July (there is a mission to help them setup - sign up here) and Kentish Town City Farm's community projects, which include many summer events for older isolated people in the area.

600 leaflets!

With over 600 leaflets to distribute the group did a brilliant job of covering 8km and coming home empty handed! Nice!

Task Two - Compost Run for St Mary's

To continue on from last week our first task was to collect ten bags of compost from the Eco Compost Plot at Alara. Unfortunately we were not able to access shovels so the team became inventive with using bin bags as gloves, using plastic containers to shovel it into their bags and well using Rosie's pair of gloves.

Our next task was to the run the rather warm compost through the streets of Camden (and a churchyard) to St Mary's Flats. This 1km trip was hard work with the warm weather and warm load but we got it done. I wonder what people thought those 10 runners in red t-shirts running with black bin bags were carrying.....

Jon from St Mary's Flats was very grateful for us bringing so much with us. We split into teams getting the following tasks done:

1. Using the compost we'd brought with us a team of 5 re-potted lots of plants and then positioned them around the communal garden areas.
2. Hanry and Thomas cut down a dead tree and carried the soil from the large plot for our next tasks
3. Kat and Liz emptied an old tree plot where the ground was rotten, used the healthy soil from the tree plot to refill it.
4. We then used the remainder of our soil and compost to lay over a residents gardens, areas that are in need of the richness
5. Finally we weeded a garden for a resident - filling two bags of the stuff

Sadly a baby bird had fallen from it's nest over the last week so Hanry and Liz buried it in our re-soiled plot. RIP.

Wow - lots done! Good work guys, Jon was very pleased with our efforts. We finished the evening with x4 strides to activate our muscles nice!

Sign up here for next week when we have the classic combo of Abbey and Cecil Sharp.

PB out.

22 Goodgymers ran 3-6km to leaflet for SPCA, look after Kings Cross Orchard and compost mule to St Mary's

Welcome along to newbie - Sarah great to have you along.

In the news this week:

The week is finally here, it's the GoodGym Olympics - woop woop! Come along to cheer if you aren't taking part and get involved in the National 1km Competition.

This week we had three small tasks to spread amongst the group while Frances and Freya did a great local mission.

Task One - Leafleting for SPCA

Katherine and a team of four leafletted for the St Pancras Community Association's Summer Fair which is happening this weekend. They scoured the streets for houses and accessible flats to drop these colourful gems off to.

After 15 mins of leafleting they joined us at Task Two!

Task Two - Kings Cross Orchard

The main group was tasked this week with looking after the Kings Cross Orchard that Alex from Alara cares for. The task went as follows:

1. Pull off the plastic from the cardboard
2. Weed and clear the area around the apple trees
3. Lay down the 'unplastic' cardboard
4. Cover with compost and spread

The team worked hard looking after the 12 trees on the Northern Orchard before tackling weeding the Southern (Bookers) Orchard.

Task Three - St Mary's

Alara, as well as looking after the Orchard, looks after a compost pile that can be used around the borough by community groups and NGO's.

Pritesh led a team of 5 to run black bags and rucksacks full of compost down to St Mary's, a group of flats in Somers Town which we've helped a lot over the years. It was a 1km each way meaning the group squished in two shuttles, including spreading the good stuff (compost) in the community gardens.

Once we were finished with Task 2 and the group from Task 3 headed off for their second trip, the main group did some extra Task 1 leafletting in the SPCA area - does that make sense? Sure!

Sign up next week here when we have three tasks!

PB out

19 GoodGymers helped St Mary's Flats and Cecil Sharp House with some gardening!!

Welcome along to Anna, Tom and Jill whose first time it was last night - lovely to have you along :)

In the news this week:

1. This Saturday GoodGym are taking over Burgess Parkrun with us providing pacers and all appearing in red! We'd love for you join us!
2. Also this Saturday (in the afternoon/evening) is the Night of the 10,000m PB's at Parliament Hill Track on Hampstead Heath. This annual event is an amazing display of British and European running with some the fastest racing around 25 laps while the crowds cheer on in #Lane3BeerNCheer - elite running, music/circus and beers - come along!
3. Next Sunday there is May's Long Run going from Battersea Park to Richmond Park - gonna be awesome!

Cecil Sharp:

This week we had two wonderful tasks in our beautiful Camden. A team led by Rosie and Kat headed to the Home of English Folk Music Cecil Sharp House to help maintain the gardens. We've been helping Susannah the Head Gardener there for nearly two years, she is always so appreciative of our efforts and the impact we have. Like a lot of places Cecil Sharp had it's funding cut from Camden Council so the charity now survives on using it's spaces for events.

Folking around

A team of 10 got really stuck into the gardening; clearing the weeds between the cracks with the best tool in town and sweeping up the pathways. Over 30 minutes the team had made a massive impact.

St Mary's:

Meanwhile nine of us headed the long way to help St Mary's Flats, we've helping Jon and the community group there for over four years - it's always good to return. Chris and Alysson got to work forking the ground around a tree to loosen it up before planting some ivy and flowers with compost. The rest of the team cleared two gardens of weeds so the residents can use them in the summer, Tom even found some potatoes!

After we'd packed up and taken a group photo we headed for a run along Camley Street, the canal and a progression run around Granary Square before heading home.

Thanks to Rosie's the post-run biscuits - yum!

Next week we are going to be helping Groundwork and Castlehaven - sign up here!

PB out.

34 GoodGymers ran between 4-10km making beds for the homeless, gardening for St Mary's & leafleting for Abbey

Cooorrrr, lots of people - glad we had 3 tasks! Welcome to newbies - Alex, Ana, Julia, Pierre, Jonathan and Charlotte - lovely to have you along!

In the news this week:

1. Last night it was Hayley's 50th GOOD DEED - WOOP WOOP! Hayley has been coming to GG Camden since 2016 and we really appreciate her amazing efforts :)
2. TONIGHT there is GG Monthly Drinks in Holborn at the Square Pig - Pritesh will be leading the party with puns, facts and probably some fiction! See you there :)
3. In JUNE there is a trip to the Lakes for some races and good old GG fun! Full details here

Right onto to what we actually did last night, we had three amazing tasks in our wonderful Camden, helping;

• Abbey Community Centre
• St Mary's Flats
• C4WS & American International Church

Report #1 by Pritesh at Abbey:

Eleven of us went along to help the wonderful Abbey Community Centre. It's a long old run up towards Kilburn but we were all keen to keep a good pace to stave off the cold. We were rewarded with a stunning view of central London at the top of Primrose Hill, all the lights twinkling in the cold clear night.

Stunning!

Arriving at the centre we were tasked with delivering flyers to the two tower blocks opposite - Snowman and Casterbridge - to let the residents know about the community cafe that runs every Saturday at the centre.

We split into teams and spent 15 minutes delivering throught the blocks and finishing off any spare leaflets to the houses in the surrounding area. We got everything done in the time and then made our way back to Somers Town with a quick stop for a group shot too!

Report #2 by PB at St Mary's:

Eleven of us headed to St Mary's Flats, a local community in Somers Town that we've been helping for over 4 years. After a 1.4km loop we met Jon who explained the main task was to de-litter an area of plants and re-compost it. Dragging the compost bag from one end of the estate to the other we got to work.

We split into two groups to de-litter across the estate, mainly focusing on cigarette butts, dead leaves and debris. After 20 minutes we'd de-littered both areas, composted and watered the flower bed.

Upon reaching Granary Square we did some conditioning, including:

• Calve raises
• Single leg squats
• Circuit routine - press up, mountain climber x2, jump & squat

We then met Frances' group and did our monthly time trial with some quick times in the cold weather!

Report #3 about Frances at C4WS:

IT'S FRANCES BIRTHDAY, she led the run and it was the best of times. There were 17 guest beds to make + 2 over night staff beds. With a team of 12 people they got the work done really really quickly - efficient! Also there was a cat that Frances seems to have spent most of her time with, haha.

Here is Rosie's haiku about our weekly task at the shelter:

We are making beds

For the homeless in Camden

First the mattresses

Sheets, duvets, pillowcases

Well done all, lots of good done for Camden!

Sign up for next week here, we have a NEW TASK helping GROUNDWORK!

PB out.