On Tuesday evening, Area Activator Simon was joined by an awesome team of 13 Goodgym runners (including first timers Aimee, Julia and Joao) at the awesome ON Running Store, Spitalfields to continue our quest to visit all the Islington Parks in 2024!

Together, we ran 5.2 miles from the store, parallel to Old Street and Clerkenwell and onwards to Farringdon (amazingly all part of Islington, despite being in Central London), and visited the following parks:

Finsbury Square (Moorgate)

Bunhill Fields Burial Gardens

Quaker Gardens

St Luke's Churchyard

St Luke's Gardens

Radnor Gardens (by the old Ironmonger Row baths)

Lever Street Gardens

King's Square Gardens

Northampton Square Gardens

Spa Fields

St James Church Gardens

and

St John's Gardens in Farringdon

Well done everyone! Wonderful to be involved with the urban exploring challenge. More opportunities will be listed soon!

7 Goodgym Runners from all different Goodgym boroughs (including first time GG group runner Emre- welcome!) joined Area Activator Simon for our final official group run of 2023. We met up at the Arsenal Community Hub first before heading out to the slopes for a dynamic warm up (next to London Heathside juniors doing hill sprints!).

The evening's group run was a slightly different affair to our usual "run to a task" plans. As a personal running project between December and January, AA Simon has proposed to set up a series of group runs and tasks to as many Islington parks and green spaces as possible. According to The Garden Classroom, there are 121 specifically listed public green spaces throughout the Islington borough. These were wonderfully listed and presented by Hackney based illustrator Jane Smith (check our her lovely map in the photos), and we successfully visited 9 different parks during our run!

Our team ran just over 4.7 miles in total (the furthest some of our crew had ever run- well done!), and we visited:

Kinloch Gardens (32)- a lovely little park sat between Hornsey Road and Thane Villas. Previously visited during a community party with the London Festival of Architecture.

Cornwallis Park (17)- Great space with cool children's playground features.

Landseer Gardens (21)- Huge gardens with slopes and hills. Great play facilities, includinga bouldering/traverse wall! Opposite the famous "The Landseer" pub.

Royal Northern Gardens (22)- Sweet little garden space just next to the Age UK HQ.

Salterton Road Gardens (23)- The smallest green space! A resident maintained flower bed near Holloway Road.

Foxham Gardens (20)- Such a cool playground near Tufnell Park! Features a pirate ship climbing frame.

St George's Open Space (26)- Tiny garden space opposite, next to St George's Church.

Whittington Park, Church Cottage (15)- A glorious, well lit park off Holloway Road. Features football pitches and playing courts. And lots of "cat related" mosiac patterns and topiary artwork!

Biddestone Park (31)- Cool little park near Holloway Road underground station, recently opened up for 24 hour access.

A really wonderful run with the team, on a cool, dry Winter's night. Afterwards, we picked up our bags from Arsenal Community Hub, and we enjoyed our post run social at Non Vietnamese restaurant for noodles, steamed buns and pho!

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Goodgym Islington News

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The Garden Classroom- Weekly Volunteer Mornings in Islington Parks!

Various parks and gardens on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday mornings.

The Garden Classroom has started multiple weekly open garden mornings in Newington Green, Market Road and Hillside Park (near Caxton House). Set up by trained horticulture specialists and open to all!

Newington Green Next Wednesday (20th December) 10am - midday

https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/the-garden-classroom-newington-green-volunteer-morning-7a535fc2-ea3b-46f2-9e7e-58a34fcc60c7

Hillside Gardens, Caxton House Next Thursday (21st December) 10am - midday

https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/the-garden-classroom-hillside-park-volunteer-morning-933ccea6-5a2e-4f27-8fc8-2883323e1184

Market Road Gardens Next Friday (22nd December) 10am - midday

https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/the-garden-classroom-market-road-gardens-volunteer-morning-82b92b93-8396-4519-bd10-c47719a33402

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Achilles International VI Guide Running Sessions- Emirates Stadium

Thursday 21st December, 6pm, Arsenal Underground station

Every Thursday, the all abilities sports charity Achilles International holds a group run session at a London location. This week, we will be meeting up at Arsenal tube station, ready to run around the Emirates Stadium concourse. Open to runners and guides of all abilities! Follow the link to find out more:

https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/come-and-guide-run-with-achilles-international-emirates-stadium-f4966344-a290-4568-8275-9ccdc8ea3dbc

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Finsbury parkrun Christmas Day meet up and volunteering!

Monday 25th December, 8.45am, Finsbury Park Café

Our local free weekly timed 5km running event, operated entirely by volunteers, will be returning on Christmas Day!

Open to runners, walkers and participants of all ages and abilities. Sign up here for more information:

https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/finsbury-parkrun-christmas-spectacular-volunteering

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First group run of 2024- Hilldrop House Gardens

Wednesday 3rd January, 6.45pm, Arsenal Community Hub

St Mungo's on Hilldrop Road is a homeless care hub off Camden Road, that offer resources and essential information for unhoused residents in the area. They also have a lovely green space for their visitors.

Expect some greenery clipping, bramble pulling and weed shifting!

https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/group-run-st-mungo-s-hilldrop-house-wednesday-starter-session

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Goodgym Race Team Cross Country Hill Session- Camden

Friday 5th January, 6.30pm, Pembroke Castle, Chalk Farm

Goodgym Cross Country is back! We will be returning to the Met League in 2023 and 2024!

If you have never tried cross country, it is amazing muddy fun. A definite challenge, but accessible to all who want to give it a go, and are part of a UKA affiliated team (like the Goodgym Race Team).

To coincide with the events, Area Activator Simon Fitzmaurice (who is a UK Athletics Coach in Running Fitness or CiRF for short) will be hosting a series of hill interval training sessions at Primrose Hill over the Autumn and Winter months.

Sign up here!

https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/gg-race-team-met-league-hill-training-session-january

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January London Social- Market Halls Canary Wharf (hosted by AA Simon)

Friday 12th January, 6.30pm, Market Halls Canary Wharf

Area Activator Simon will be hosting the monthly London social in January (first of 2024!). An amazing food halls and bar set up across the new Elizabeth Line plaza in Canary Wharf. Good times with Goodgym folks from across the entirety of London and beyond! Sign up here:

https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/goodgym-london-january-social

It was my first time visiting the lovely team at The Garden Classroom at Newington Green, but got a friendly welcome and met the amazing regular volunteers.

Using a spade and wheelbarrow, I shifted a big pile of mulch to spread out in “doughnuts” under some of the woody plants in one of the flowerbeds. This was to give the plants some extra nutrition and some protection against any upcoming frosts.

Once the pile was cleared and the plants all mulched, it was time to head back home!

We cleared leaves, dead plants and planted seeds in Newington community garden.

A great clear up of fallen leaves and foliage with the gang!

Newington Green are getting ready for their Spring beatification by planting bulbs to sprout in the season.

Some tidying was also required but the main event was learning about growing mushrooms.

Turns out it's very easy (apparently) and all who were present were getting enthusiastic about giving it a try.

We had some coffee and biscuits andthen passers-by wanted to involved. This helped to complete the task of planting over one hundred bulbs.