Southwark News

• Saturday 20th July there's a community mission happening to mulch and water some saplings in Hilly Fields park. It's at 11am so perfect for post-parkrun fun! Find out more and sign up here.

• Sunday 21st July is the London 10k and GoodGym is manning an aid station. Come along to earn yourself some stash and a free place at either Hackney Half, Oxford Half or London 10k next year. Plus it's really fun! Find out more and sign up here.

• Next week we're going to Rye Oak primary school to spruce up the playground. It's a shorter run. Find out more and sign up here. Next week is also the social so stick around after for a picnic!

• My last GoodGym run will be 14th August. I hope to see you there!

That's enough of the business

Last night we ran 5km to Southwark Tigers in Burgess Park to repaint their benches. The benches are really important as Vernon's found it's the best way to encourage parents to hang around when they drop their children at the club and a real community has started to build because of them. We love this task and do it once a year. Last year was in the winter so the paint ran a little bit. This time weather conditions were perfect!

Shout out to Billy who came on his first GoodGym run last night!

We arrived at the pitches and one group went to collect more benches from the clubhouse across the park, whilst the other group got straight to work.

Huge apology and an ENORMOUS cheer for Ian from Croydon who did his 50th good deed with us last night! You're amazing!

Creativity was at an all time high last night. Billy went for a Jackson Pollock approach with an arty splattering and multi-tonal tiger stripes were very in vogue. Vernon was delighted with our work and Dom may be organising a community mission to finish some of the benches we couldn't get to. Watch this space!

Great work team, see you next week!

Lucy J

This evening started with a merry celebration of Katie's 300th good deed and two year anniversary of being Lambeth trainer. Woo! Victoria and Tom dressed all in black and hid in the basketball court expertly decorating gingerbread people into GG runners with sparkly trainers. What more could I want? Thanks gang!

We had three lovely run options:

Group 1 went with Katie down Brixton Road to Kennington Park. The park is being judged on it's Green Flag status on Friday so we helped to tidy it up. One group got busy removing bind weed, another gave the hedges a close shave, some people went on a litter pick and more still did some excellent cleaning of signs all over the park. We did a top job and fingers crossed the park keeps its status as a nice place to be.

Groups 2 and 3 went to GP surgeries to support the GP Food Coop. This great group puts plants and veg in surgeries and hospitals in Lambeth for a nicer environment and also for patients and staff to get involved with.

Group 2 went with Issy up to Streatham. They covered 7.5km and transferred a big bag of soil out pf the surgery, past the security guard and into the garden! They were rewarded with delicious strawberries from task leader Elizabeth's allotment. Yum!

Group 3 went with Tom Hunter to West Norwood...maybe even just Norwood. It was far! 7 runners ran 10km to Crown Dale Surgery in Upper Norwood. Where we were met by Brenda (and Brenda’s excellent doggo Riley). She explained to us all the benefits of the GP Food Co-Op Scheme, in providing community spaces for people to learn about growing some tasty fresh fruit and veg.

We quickly shovelled some soil into the last empty plantar. Then made room for an intriguing sounding vine growing space along the side of the building.

After finally convincing Riley the dog to sit still long enough to be featured in our group photo, we were on our way home. Lovely Summer’s evening for it.

She was so happy! Said Tom Hunter

And with that it was back to base with everyone, some walking lunges, single leg deadlifts and stretches. Then home! Thanks for being great as always - here's to the next 300 runs!

It was another lovely evening and we had more lovely new people. Which is quite amazing and lovely. We congratulated Frances on reaching her 100th run with a party popper. Well done Frances!

After a nice warm up we split into two groups. One group went with Katie directly to Agnes Riley Gardens about 3.5km away up some long straight roads. It was quite warm, phew, but we got there and they were quite surprised by how many we were. Little did they know (until Katie immediately told them) that there was another group of almost the exact same size, led by John, that was on the way, they had just taken a longer route.

There was a range of saws and loppers and people got to work quite literally chopping down some large trees as well as pruning some fairly ferocious shrubbery. Some others took to neatening up the bed edges and even more did some lovely watering. A gang with wheelbarrows and trugs collected woodchip from over there and brought it over here. It was wonderfully organised (yet of course safe) chaos. We smashed the glass ceiling by insisting that they didn't need 'four strong men' to cut down trees and in fact showed them that a wonderfully diverse group of capable people could in fact achieve the same thing.

John took half the group and did some truly tough exercises with them involving some horror of a burpee involving a sit up. And he's relaxed having just come back from his honeymoon imagine if he was having a bad day lads?

With 5 minutes to go we were dragging the aforementioned ferocious shrubbery to a different resting place and the big tree branches had been chopped into smaller ones. The cut grass was taken over to the compost heap and you really would never have known we had been there except for the improved look of the place and the mixture of shock and awe on the faces of the lovely people who run the gardens.

'They came, they saw, they massacred', they said. Which was in fact a good thing.

And with that we ran home again, did some stretches and went our separate ways. EXCELLENT WORK!

Wowee! What a night. Many amazing runners came along last night and boy did we need them. We had three tasks to complete and they weren't going to do it themselves. After a nice warm up from Tom Benson we split into three groups.

JKB led the small but perfectly formed team a short distance to a GP surgery, where some planters needed moving for the GP Food Coop. Completed in record time, the team then joined Katie's group at nearby Larkhall Park.

The Friends of Larkhall Park had a large area of overgrown thistles that needed removing, whilst leaving the nice decorative grasses in place. We identified those to take and those to leave with the skill and precision we are famous for. The team also did some nice sprint work as well, which involved dodging dogs and a danger log. It all happens in Lambeth.

George C led the final group up to Clapham Common where we planted some wildflowers (is that an oxymoron?). The small plants looked a little bit like tufts of grass but fingers crossed they will actually turn into lovely flowers, otherwise it makes a mockery of the hard work we have been doing removing the original grass. Hmmm....

Back at base we did some nice stretches and everyone went home more exercised and happier than when they arrived. EXCELLENT!