Southwark News

• Big Half community places! Normal price is £46 but we have 30 community spaces going for an absolute bargain of a tenner. The route is the first half of the London Marathon... but backwards... It's a great race and our community places close at the end of August so contact me lucyj@goodgym.org for info.

• THIS SATURDAY the lovely folks at GoodGym Lambeth are doing Clapham Common parkrun followed by a community mission to set up Stockwell Festival - get your weekend fix of good! Find out more and sign up here.

• Next week we're running to Southwark Tigers to spruce up their benches. Find out more and sign up here.

• 21st July GoodGym is manning an aid station at the Asics London 10k. You get some swag, it's a super fun day and you get free entry to either Hackney Half, Oxford Half or the next London 10k for volunteering. Bargain! Find out more and sign up here.

That's enough of the business

Last night was a gorgeous evening and after a warm up that featured a cameo from a passing child who wanted to join in, we got running the 3km up through Dulwich Park to Bell House. It's a gorgeous Georgian House that now houses an educational charity. It's got stunning walled gardens and loads of vegetables growing. Sarah split us into three main groups:

• Watering the rose garden.

• Watering the vegetables patches and greenhouse.

• Weeding and de-mossing between the cracks of the patio.

We spent a good 30 minutes there working away - the patio looked fantastic by the time we left and I'm sure all the plants were very grateful for a drink. Before we left, Sarah told us a bit about the charity and the garden - there's a gardening group every Saturday morning at 9.30am right after parkrun at nearby Dulwich park, a perfect morning! We thanked Sarah and headed off back home, stopping en route in Dulwich park for a legendary game of Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Cone.

Great work team, see you next week!

Lucy J

Bloomin' 'eck

What a muggy evening for a run - Big up newbies Thea, Maddie, Juliette and Louisa for joining us!

And talking of mugs - Congratulations to Tim Wheatley for winning our SPOTM, which included a mug! Tim is not a mug. In fact he's been smashing out missions, group runs, temporary tattoo illustrations and many other artistic GoodGym-related things, so our collection of mug, vanity kit, hip phone holder thing, coaster and bottle were very well deserved.

Nice one Tim!

This week we were heading off to Kennington Park, a lush green space near Oval, to help them with a multitude of jobs ahead of an inspection they've got tomorrow for Britain in Bloom. Nicky led a group on a 5k long route while the rest of us went the direct 3k.

When we arrived, Marietta showed us the huge pile of equipment they had and gave us the lowdown on what we needed to do:

🌱 Bindweed removal

🥀 Dead-heading roses

🍂 Getting the leaves off the shelter

🗑 Litterpicking

🌳 Hedge Trimming

We found that bindweed is a sneaky plant that gets everywhere. We discovered many undesirable items whilst litterpicking. And we have some quality topiarists in the Lambeth ranks!

Having collected up some huge bags of leaves and weeds, it was time for us to leave. Marietta was super grateful and said they'd have enough time to finish the last few bits ahead of the inspection on Thursday.

Some of us decided that we weren't sweaty enough already so squeezed in some fartlek on the way back whilst others were far more sensible in taking a leisurely jog!

Awesome work GoodGym Lambeth

Next week we've got a couple of options - Portico or Ruskin Park and don't forget to sign up for our community mission helping set up Stockwell Festival on Sat 6th July.

It was a delightful evening for a delightful run, with 35 runners in pursuit of the Portico Gallery, a community arts space in West Norwood.

We had a quick intro, welcoming 7 new people to the gang. Nice one Alice, Rachael, Anthony, Hannah, Sarah, Emily and Martha!!! Give those guys a cheer.

SOFIA, SO GOOD.

Then Lavinia told us about the fantastic time that was had this past weekend in Bulgaria. There were some incredible finish times from GG Lambeth runners and a lot of fun was had!

Tom Benson gave us the lowdown on the GoodGym Olympics and the plan for a GG Anthem. 🥁

And we congratulated Will on his sterling effort of reaching 50 GOOD DEEDS. Awesome stuff.

We then hit the road, a tidy 4.5k uphill to The Portico. Tom Hunter lead the “keen” bunch and the rest of us took a more relaxed approach!

We arrived to meet John who gave us a couple of tasks:

👉 Cleaning the walls of the arts space with a “sugar soap” mixture.

👉 folding plastic bags to save space

Everyone got stuck in with some people commenting on how scrubbing the walls was very therapeutic!

Soap pleased to clean you.

Before we knew it, time was up and we had to begin the descent home.

SOAP SOLID CREW.

Well done everyone. Next week we’re at Myatt’s Field for another therapeutic task - removing bindweed!

What a delightful evening for a GoodGym run. And what a fabulous turn out! 37 hardcore GoodGymers hit the pavements to help two local projects - Ruskin Community Garden, and Springfield Lodge, a Salvation Army hostel for young people.

We had 8 new runners with us this week: Nice one Fiona, Jade, Rosa, Phoebe, Tom, Caitlin, Rachael and Elinor for coming along!

We started off with a visit from Paul who smashed the London Marathon on Sunday as well as fellow GoodGym Lambeth stars Nicky and Phil! I think he tempted some of us to GET SIGNED UP.

And we heard how GG Lambeth has our Bank Holiday weekend sorted with a community mission this Saturday for the GP food coop as well as our social to sample the Brixton Windmill Bread and Beer Festival on Monday. 🍞🍻👅

We also awarded our SPOTM, which had a hair and head theme, with a shower cap, comb and white cap (complete with all-important 90's style, flip down eye-visor - you know the ones). And this went to a person, who is very new to GG Lambeth but this week completed her 4th good deed, sorted her DBS last week and has now completed all the training and become MISSION VERIFIED so she can now get signed up to help older people with one-off tasks:

Everybody give a big cheer to Laura! 👏👏👏🎈🎈🎈🎉🎉🎉

After all that, we had a quick warm up and headed off.

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Tom had this to say about his group who ran to Ruskin Community Garden:

14 runners made their way across town on a 5km round trip to Ruskin Park. After successfully resisting the temptation to join the Trapeze School in session; We met up with Justin who showed us round the community garden. Our task was to dig over a particularly wild looking over-grown patch of the garden to be used as a flower bed.

We made short work of this with the group really getting stuck into the task with some particularly satisfying hacking tools. Ably assisted by Rose heading up a wheelbarrow ferry service for all the green stuff we turned up.

Our duties even stretched to rehousing a family of newts; Who were quite friendly, despite us levelling their home in the wild patch of grass.

Sorry guys!

With our work complete we headed back against the backdrop of a very picturesque looking sunset. A perfect summer's night for GoodGym. Many more like this please!

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My group took a 6km hilly run past Denmark Hill up to Springfield Lodge. We were greeted by Rosanna, also a GoodGym runner with Southwark(!), and she quickly set us some tidying up tasks including:

Removing bindweed 🌱

Moving some huge dustbins ♻️

Clearing leaves to compost 🍂

Litterpicking 🚮

We split into teams to tackle the different areas and everybody made a massive difference to the space in such a short amount of time. Rosanna was super happy we ran back, sprinting the final section of the route from Ferndale Road which is a new STRAVA SEGMENT. Check it out 😉 and well done to Jim for being the fastest runner today (19s!).

Awesome work everyone and see you next time... ✌️

Oh it was a hilly one today, with a run up Brixton Hill, along Hillside Road to Hillside Gardens.

We set off at a steady pace, dodging the crowds in Brixton until we got to clearer paths before making the ascent towards our destination. Our legs got some respite at the traffic lights and to pass the time, some of us were brave enough to do squats with some cheeky inbuilt calf raises!

We arrived at Hillside Gardens to be met by Tom and Stu, who split us into small groups of us to do different tasks - clearing weeds, transporting compost and moving wood, rubbish and rubble. It was great to get stuck into the tasks while it was still light. After a solid half hour, we finished up, took a group photo at the top of the hill (with some killer views behind us!) and set off on a nice downhill run back to Papa's.

Tom said they were really impressed with what we got done and that sorting through the yard has helped them work out what they need to do for the future.

We had a bunch of new runners to GoodGym Lambeth and some totally new runners to GoodGym, Maya and Sophie! - a massive welcome to you, and well done to everyone for a cracking task and run! 🐣

Last night, 33 runners turned out for an evening of broccoli, brooms and beer, and a choice of two tasks of varying distance but equal goodness.

GoodGym gives you wiiiiings 💯💯💯💯💯

We started off by congratulating mission running, race racing, cake making, animation creating superstar Tim Wheatley on reaching ONE HUNDRED GOOD DEEDS and inflicting a pair of wings onto his back which he had to wear all evening. Looking forward to seeing that fresh new tee!

Somebody get that man a cheer 🍺

With Tim looking fly 😉 in his new wings, we set off for 2 different tasks:

Beth, Ruth and Lavinia had this to say about their run:

A small but very efficient team of three went for the short run option, a return to local favourite Loughborough farm. After a quick explanation of all the changes going on at the farm recently, the biggest being construction of a community workshop with co-working space, craft area and communal kitchen, and Ruth expertly identifying some purple sprouting broccoli at only the slightest glance, we got to work.

Like our visit a couple of weeks ago, our task was to move soil from one bag to another so that it would be easier for the builders to move. We may have been a small group but we got a lot done in a short space of time. After about 20 minutes we’d already filled one bag and needed to start on another. Thankfully there was a spare, intact, pallet for the bag to go on. Sadly, once in place and half filled with soil, it couldn’t survive being stepped on by Ruth and suffered a bit of a crack. Undeterred we carried on and had almost two full bags of soil to show for our efforts by the end, what a great team effort.

Ace work from the Three Musketeers!

The rest of us had a (hilly as hell) 4k run to the Portico Gallery, a community arts space and pillar of the West Norwood area. They run workshops, yoga, art exhibitions, have an outdoor gym, a community choir and are currently helping to host the West Norwood Film Festival. They recently helped out with the West Norwood Feast so our job was to tidy away some gazebos and tables as well as doing a bit of general tidying in the yard.

When we arrived there, we got straight on with some gazebo Jenga and table Tetris, rearranging everything to slot into place. This involved moving some weighty gravel bags, pushing some heavy trolleys up the hill and into the warehouse and a serious whole-body workout.

This had GoodGym written all over it.

We also had a small but mighty team taking the initiative and sweeping up some rubbish in the yard and moving it into buckets to be later disposed of.

John from the Portico was really pleased with what we managed to get done and I'm sure we'll be back soon!

When arrived back at PAPA's, we had a quick stretch and took a stroll to the Old Queens Head for a drink and some vegan pizza 😋

Awesome work GoodGym Lambeth!