On our first group run of April (and almost the first task in complete daylight!), Area Activator Simon met up with Southwark AA Sam, Marie Laure, Rachel, Paul and first time Goodgymmer Joshua (welcome!) at the Elizabeth House Food Hub. After a short warm up on Hurlock Street, our running team made our way to Thornhill Square Gardens near Caledonian Road (2.3 miles total running, up Highbury Park Hill, and across the Emirates Stadium just before a match was about to start), where we found resident gardening expert Anna.

The neighbourhood community group in Thornhill Square are the main guardians for one of the largest green spaces in the borough, and are always super appreciative of Goodgym assistance in Spring! Our main projects for the evening involved using secateurs and clippers to clean up the grass verges around the main flower beds in the park. Emily (who celebrated her 50th good deed on Sunday) had already made a start on this by the time our running group had arrived, so Josh, Benedetta and Patrick also helped out.

The rest of our crew took it in turns to load up wheelbarrows full of fully prepared compost (which I believe we had made earlier in the year during a green waste collecting task), and to distribute the mulch around flower beds on the park. Alice, Rachel, Paul, Caitlin and Sam took it in turns to shovel compost and to scatter during the course of our evening.

Anna was thrilled with to the progress we had made over the course of approximately 45 minutes, and is looking forward to seeing us return in 3 weeks time (Monday 25th April! Pop it in your diary!).

https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/group-run-thornhill-square-gardens-good-times-777c56cd-2ef6-4f3f-98cf-a44f83c2d607

To finish off a top evening of Goodgymming, we ran together to Someday Canteen in Finsbury Park as our monthly social meet up (2.1 miles from Thornhill Square), where we enjoyed delicious pizza and refreshments.

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News

Summer Rounders Contest- North vs South!

Sam from GG Southwark has been busy recently setting up a friendly (but also quietly competitive!) series of Rounders events in North and South London. These will also double up as a fun Summer social get together, so picnicking and good times will be encouraged!

Here are the dates:

South London- Clapham Common Saturday 18th June

https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/summer-social-rounders-clapham-common-home-game-north-vs-south-of-the-river

North London- Victoria Park Saturday 16th July

https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/summer-social-rounders-victoria-park-away-game-north-vs-south-of-the-river

On Monday evening, Area Activator Simon met up with long time Goodgym Islington regular Ernestas for a unique Octopus Community Network and Goodgym collaboration! 9 runners (including first timers Siobhan and Charlotte- welcome!) were invited into Elizabeth House Food Hub to stay out of the bitterly cold wind. Following our introductions, and a warm up on Hurlock Street, Ernestas directed our running crew over to Highbury Quadrant Estate near Clissold Park, an impressive community gardening project maintained by local residents and green volunteers. Octopus Community Network have started to run Tuesday evening classes on growing food, gardening skills and access to green spaces at the Birchmore Hall community centre, across the street. All of these events are free to the public, and accessible for the immediate neighbourhood on the Green Lanes and Highbury Quadrant estates.

From here, we separated up into 2 groups, and Ernestas lead us all to the first tower block on the estate. Our task was to drop off a flyer to each letterbox on the estate, as efficiently as possible. We achieved this by directing two runners to run to the top of the block, and then another pair to post flyers for the level below and so on, to make sure we are not flyering the same letterboxes over and over again. At the next block, the pair who formerly completed the top floor for the previous building would complete the bottom floor for this new one, and vice versa.

We all made quick work of our flyering (and kept moving as much as possible to stay warm). Ernestas suggested that our two groups of leaflet distributors should "face off" against each other, to see who can complete their tower block the quickest! Team 1 came home first, shortly followed by team 2 on the approach back to Highbury Quadrant after a successful run around the estate. The Octopus Gardening volunteers were thrilled with the amount of flyers dropped off in such a short amount of time, and are excited to see if this helps to encourage more attendees to their new sessions.

After an additional 1 mile run down Riverdale Road, almost all of our running team joined us for delicious pizza and refreshments over at the Bank of Friendship pub on Highbury Park for the Goodgym Islington monthly social. Well done everyone, well deserved!

We will return next week for our group run to The Rose Bowl Youth Club in Canonbury. See you then!

Benedetta enjoyed her weekend session with GoodGym Islington so much last week, she was quickly back again to help at Thornhill Gardens' monthly gardening session. John can't keep away either - this was his 13th Islington task of 2022, though to be honest it was more like half-a-task as he had to leave after an hour. Sadly, Alistair wasn't able to make it at all due to illness. Get well soon Alistair.

Our task was to pull up a large growth of weeds, and slice away branches from a flower bed, while leaving the nice stuff. GoodGymers are now experts on what counts as a weed, and what's to be left growing, and we soon filled a large black sack. We were assisted by a local artist and a father with his boy, and the bed was soon looking much tidier. But there's always more to be done, and we'll be back!