First we hoisted tables, then we packed boxes and finally we set to cleaning every toy we could get our hands on! All in the name of getting The Mill 'spit spot' ready for whenever they can resume children's activities with the locals. We're working on the click of the fingers thing!!

After skipping it in January, it was time for our first monthly social of the year at GoodGym Waltham Forest this Wednesday. Before that tasty end to our evening, we had some running and volunteering to do...

Our destination was The Mill a firm favourite with many of the crew for so many reasons (lovely staff, valuable community service, warmth, comfort and the inspiring range of activities that happen there). Our job this evening was cleaning the crèche. When we arrived it was in a bit of a sorry state, even the toys looked dejected, most of them lying around listlessly as toys tend to do.

As the crew armed themselves with the tools for the job it felt like there was even more enthusiasm than usual to the polishing, cleaning, tidying and sorting and it wasn't long before the place was sparkling like a Cillit Bang commercial.

Before our curry, it was time to sharpen our appetites with a bit of a session so after leaving The Mill, we headed down Coppermill Lane for some lampost intervals. 1-mile of sprints and recoveries followed by a long uphill run back to base.

At long last, it was time for our richly deserved reward and mega thanks to Ruth for sorting everything with the restaurant. It was delicious!

Don't miss next week as we are doing a task at our base! Yup, we will meet at Greenleaf Road Baptist Church and then do our task there too. "But what about the run?", I hear you cry. Not to worry, we will be heading out afterwards for a few KMs. Sign-up here and see you there.

In the middle of another wet week in the capital and it was time for a Wednesday night Waltham Forest GoodGym. Although the rain held off, we thankfully had another lovely waterproof task at The (magnificent) Mill. A short jog down the high street and we were greeted by the lovely Isabel, whose smile is as warm and friendly as this fantastic community space.

Last week saw the crew cutting out strips of material in readiness for tonight's denouement; finalising our festoons. Festoon making should feature as a mindfulness exercise. It's the sort of repetitive, relaxing activity that lowers the blood pressure. Fundamentally, if you were angry and you made a festoon, you would cease to be angry. Maybe certain users of Twitter should take up festoon making!

Within minutes of the GGWF team receiving their instructions, The Mill seemed to turn into something resembling a Vivian Westwood workshop, with whirls of colour quickly taking shape as the fantastic festoons that will adorn The Mill this festive season.

You might not immediately associate pickles and festoons, but if nothing else The Mill is a hive of originality and creative thought. So these beautiful adornments will be a feature of The Christmas Pickle Party that is due to take place on Saturday, 14th December from 2.30 pm to 5 pm. It's the event of the season folks so miss it at your pickle, err I mean peril!

Returning to the evening and with great difficulty, we prized ourselves out of our lovely, warm and cosy surroundings and onto the street for a bit exercise. With everybody in a state of Zen-like tranquillity, I decided it was time to shock us back to the harshness of the real world with some lamp-post intervals 2-easy, 2-hard for a mile. After that, another mile back to Mirth (uphill) and we were done.

A splendid effort all round folks, well done. Next week we will be starting a two-week project to build another planter with the Wood Street South Gardening Club. The task will immediately be followed by our Christmas party (optional!). Sign-up here

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With a handful of diehard leaves stoically clinging to the trees and the temperature in the low single figures, it's hard to believe it's still autumn. Nevertheless, according to The Internet, winter doesn't start for another month! In these conditions, it takes a lot of guts to lace up your trainers and pounds the streets. Tonight a dozen fine folks from The Forest did just that. Particular kudos should go to Cecilia and Matt who joined us for the first time tonight.

Fortunately, it wasn't all cold and dark. After heading Walthamstow's lovely high street and passed the newly installed and glorious Christmas tree, we arrived at our destination. Shining bright into the night like a luminescent cattle shed in a nativity scene was The Mill (https://themille17.org/). The Mill is a pillar of the local community, and it hosts a diverse range of services and activities. With advent advancing, and some festive fun forthcoming, it was time for some decoration making to get us into the mood.

I thought we were bunting making, but it was even better than that. Our task was none other than festoon making. What a lovely word festoon is, I keep saying it again and again. This was a fun task and we wasted no time cutting the multi-coloured fabrics into strips in part one of a two-week task.

After our creative efforts, it was time for some exercise and we went for a bit of fartlek running tonight. Unlike festoon, fartlek is not a word that trips off the tongue so easily. Fartlek is Swedish for speed-play, it basically means mixed pace running in for short bursts. We used lamposts to guide us and headed down Copermill Lane into the wiles of the wetlands. It wasn't long until hearts were thumping and all thoughts of the cold weather had dissipated — truly magnificent running from everyone.

After our session, we still had to get back and it was a bit of an uphill slog, but we made it back to Mirth.

Join us next week cos we are doing the whole thing again.

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Ten awesome people joined me in Waltham Forest to run around 4km and help out at The Mill.

With Ant recovering from another marathon it was my chance to see how you all were in Waltham Forest.

With the weather looking a bit miserable it was great to see so many people including Emma who joined us for her first GoodGym run.

Before we set off we did a quick into to goodgym, went through health and safety and reminded everyone of the WF xmas party on the 4th Dec, the GG xmas party on 6th Dec and the unofficial GG10 party on 8th Nov.

Pippa kindly led us to the Mill and I backmarked, a nice simple journey there. Once we arrived Natasha kindly showed us the work we had to do:

• Drying some painted newspaper sheets
• Wrapping presents for an unlucky dip
• Putting eyes on sprouts to then be wrapped in the unlucky dip
• Cutting out shapes for halloween masks that would be made

Everyone took to their tasks and before we knew it everything was done and weirdly a lot of us were covered in paint! After that the longest debate on how we should spend the rest of the evening ensued. Being veterans of GG the group knew that the more we debated the less fitness opportunities there might be ;) This wasn't actually the case and in the end we ran the journey back to Mirth but then split with most taking a longer route and a few of us returning straight back to base.

Thanks for having me again GGWF and hope to see you all soon!

Cheers,
Pritesh

We got our creative heads on at GoodGym Waltham Forest tonight, with a visit to a pillar of the local community, The Mill. With Halloween just around the corner, our job was to help prepare for the annual children's party that celebrates all things spooky. Among other things, our job was to prepare some of the main attributes for 100 Spider Hats that party goers will get to make.

100 spiders means 800 legs! Thankfully, these arachnids were to be endowed with just one pair of eyes, but that still meant 200 eyes needed cutting out too!

Our task setter up supremo at The Mill is Natasha, and she had done an admirable job preparing for and briefing us for the task. With refreshments on hand and equipment all laid out nicely on a large table, everyone got cracking immediately and in no time everyone had more legs than a bucket of chicken.

The great thing is that we are back at the same place next week for a return fixture. Whether you were there and want to see it through or if you missed out and want to be part of this amazing project, make sure you come along and sign-up here

This year's Halloween Party at The Mill is on Saturday 26th October so if you have some kids and you fancy a visit, it is sure to be the best party in town.