35 GoodGymers ran 4-6km to help Story Garden & Coram Fields - woop woop!

Another awesome week but unfortunately my penultimate week, I hope you can make my final run next week and the beers & pizza afterwards! Waaaaah!

Welcome along to newbies Lydia, Kenny, Emma, George and Lynton.

In the news this week:

1. Go along to the social tonight on the Southbank! Pritesh will be there chatting all the good - more details here.
2. August's long run is going to be led by Simon Fitzmaurice, starting on Greenwich High Street, and finishing in the Olympic Park, Stratford - 10km or 25k options. Sign up here
3. Well done to Hayley who did the Ride 100 on Sunday - awesome! Plus big up to all the Camdenites and GoodGymers who had lots of fun at the GG Olympics on Saturday - yay!
4. Last thing - join the Unoffical GoodGym Facebook Group here and the GG Camden FB group here.

Corrrr what a fun evening of good, time trials, woodchip and 35 people! Nice! We split into two teams, with Frances (Loves a Mission) Powrie leading a group of 20 people to help the wonderful Coram Fields, which is the largest playground in central London. They'd just had there BIG Play Day so our task was to pack up after that and then sweep up debris, leaves, moss and anything else that's around. Great!

Moss Bros

Meanwhile I led a team of 14 team to help the Story Garden, which is right next door to the Crick Institute. We've been helping this community garden grow and develop over the last three months and it's really blossomed into a brilliant space. Martina said we have been 'instrumental to the garden's opening and growth!' We were split into four teams:

• Scraping away woodchip under planks of wood to make a disabled access pathway
• Litter picking around the entrance!
• Shifting woodchip into uncovered areas near some of the newly constructed buildings
• Filling up planters with soil in the pollytunnel

After 30 minutes we were done and Martina was very pleased! Pritesh led a group on a canal run to Granary Square, meanwhile Frances run her group over from Coram Fields to the same meeting spot. We all met there played on the minute for a minute and then did my final time trial with you awesome people. Hanry broke the record with 2.42 (course was 50+ metres longer)!

After a good stretch we went to the pub with drinks and fun. Lovely jubbley.

Sign up for next week here when we'll be helping Kentish Town City Farm!

PB out.

25 Goodgymers ran 7km to help Antrim Allotments with loads of tasks!

Welcome along to newbies - Jess, Lina, Dario and Tom - lovely to have you join us.

In the news this week:

1. Sign up for the GoodGym Olympics by TODAY - pick your events and represent #TeamCamden
2. Next Saturday is the Night of the PB's at Parliament Hill Track, go along to cheer and if you want volunteer to go here.
3. A huge well done to Liz who hit 200 Good Deeds last night! That's an amazing amount of good in just over a year. This includes over a 100 missions which is very impressive!

After the intro we warmed up and then headed up the hill for 3.5k to help the wonderful Antrim Allotments with an array of tasks, these guys are always ready for our arrival which is great! We've been able to make a huge impact over the last four summers at the allotments, this is since the committee took control of the plots form the council. This means the general maintenance of the area and clearing of old plots is their responsibility (and where we come in).

Our tasks this week were:

• Clearing and bagging dead wood and weeding - enabling an extension of a plot
• Cutting back ivy from the gate area
• Thomas and Jess dug a hole for a raised bed
• Ten people weeded and clearing an overgrown plot
• Abi dug out and moved plants
• A team of five cleared bindweed/morning glory from an fence, and brambles from the base of a tree

Over 30 minutes we got these tasks and more done, enabling the allotments to continue growing and building. While everyone worked away mini tarts and oreos were handed out as part of celebrations for Liz's 200th Good Deed - yay! To finish off at Antrim we took a group picture and said goodbye to the committee & plot owners.

Enjoying the run down hill home we were back in no time, stretched out and headed to the pub for Liz's celebrations!

Next week we are helping St Mungo's and SPCA - sign up here.

PB out

28 GoodGymers ran 4-8k to help St Christopher's Place and St Mungo's!

Thanks for coming along guys! The GG Monthly Social is tonight in Old Street at the Prince Arthur from 6.30pm - sign up here.

I'm sad to say I will be leaving my role as Camden Trainer in August, I'm going to be moving to Sheffield to do a Masters. I'll miss you all very much and of course we'll have a leaving party!

St Mungo's Report:

Eleven of us headed of to help a new task up near Swiss Cottage - St Mungo's! This is a fantastic homeless charity that has sites all over the London and the UK. We had a lovely run up there, avoiding Primrose Hill and passing some big houses. Upon our arrival Kat and Will met us to make our group thirteen!

Our task was simple but effective to clear all and any weeds in four parts of the garden, open up the back garden as it was heavily outgrown and bag up any dead plants that were already piled up. Splitting into two's, three's and four's we got to work and made a huge impact in 20 minutes - Abi said it was the hardest she'd ever worked at GoodGym - nice!

Overall we collected up 17 bags of weeds, debris and rubbish - well done! After a group picture we headed home via Primrose Hill for the view and lesson of running downhill - all the fun.

Poo Hand Kate

St Christopher's Report:

The other group went to St. Christopher's where they pulled up weeds (assisted by "the weed lady" and a small child), cut down a sapling that had pretensions of being a tree, and swept/cleaned the area. Katie unfortunately seems to put her hand in cat poo, and then proceeded to do the run after with her hand stretched out to one side trying not to hit anyone haha.

This was the first time we went to help this task for over a year, they are connected to Camden's Origin Housing consortium and always appreciate our help. After the task was completed Frances led a 3.5k run via the canal and Granary Square to home.

Sign up for next week here when we'll be helping Cecil Sharp House and another task (tbc).

PB out.

25 Goodgymers ran 4km to help Scope Charity Shop sort donations, price tag, clean and more!

Welcome along to Mary whose first time it was last night - woop woop!

In the news this week:

1. Well done to all the Goodgymers who raced over the bank holiday weekend, at Edinburgh Marathon Festival, London 10k and elsewhere.
2. Particularly well done to Steve Coman who did a 3.49 marathon in Edinburgh and won his Age Category!
3. Night of the PB's - one of the best evenings of free live track running in the country is on Saturday 6th July - go along. We are looking for volunteers on top of spectators - more info here.
4. Well done to Liz who recently hit 100 missions. All in a year - hero!
5. GG Monthly Social next Thursday - in Central London. More details to follow!

After a thorough warm up we headed the 1km to Scope Charity Shop. Helen, the manager, was as organised as ever with a list of tasks to do and the amount of people needed for each task. This included:

• Hiren and Denis did a stock check
• Tom and John measured and labeled trousers
• Katherine and Chris did a thorough job of cleaning the shop
• A big team in the back room sorted new donations and price tagging
• Sorting cubs - Ian was cubeman!
• Pippa did some data protection based ripping and binning
• Another big team in the middle room labeled new clothes and colour disc system
• Catriona and Beth hoovered and cleaned the upstairs, kitchen and toilet

Over 45 minutes everyone did a fantastic job helping the charity shop and making a real impact. We unfortunately discovered an extremely scary doll and Pritesh wore a strange jacket. Equally scary!

After finishing up our jobs we headed to the canal, Granary Square and home to the pub.

Sign up for next week here, task tbc.

PB out

31 Goodgymers ran 6km to help Kentish Town City Farm pack up from their May Day Celebrations!

Welcome along to all the newbies - Carolyn, Abby, Lucy, Ollie and Shelley - lovely to have you along!

You can read and if you'd like sign the farm petition here.

In the news this week:

1. Join the GG Camden Facebook group here.
2. GG Monthly Social tonight in Peckham, come along for drinks and more.
3. Well done to Will Bourchier for hitting 50 good deeds last night - Will has been a committed GG Camden member for over 3 years. Well done Will!
4. Great work to Katherine who completed London Marathon last weekend, her first, in sub-4 hours - woop woop!
5. Team Track - every Thursday at 6.30pm at Regents Park Track Kat leads a friendly track session. I set the sessions and you guys for them. Join in. #TeamTrack

Okay lots of news. Back to last night - after warming up we headed 3k to Kentish Town City Farm to help them pack up from their May Day Celebrations. They raised over £5000, the best event they've had in 47 years!

We met Mel who explained what we needed to do but also that the Trustees are trying to bring in redundancies and close some of the programs. To read more and to sign the petition go here.

Gazebo fun

Our task this week was to take down all the chairs, tables, stands, boxes and more from the top field to the bottom of the farm for storage. Half the group did that, while the other half took down the gazebo. We had some initial problems with height but it all worked out in the end.

Once we were finished we hugged the goats and took a group picture before heading home.

Sign up for next week here when we'll be helping Cecil Sharp House.

PB ou