Another two-task night

A well prepped, two-team Tower Hamlets GG crew braved the melting Monday night to head out to two very different tasks this evening.

I delightedly led the team heading to the Cranbrook Community Food Garden, where we were booked in to paint vegetable beds, in preparation for some very important report pics due to be taken this week, as well as the centre’s summer fete at the beginning of August. Task owners Janet and Eileen greeted us, well prepared with paint, trays and brushes, and precise instructions for what and where to paint. Working in two small teams, the runners had soon covered a lot of painting ground, with over two beds completed by the time 8pm came around.

Becky J, in the meantime, led The Splinter Group (thanks for the team title, Leanne) to an alternative heavy lifting task around the corner at Weavers Adventure Playground. Task owner Alex had prepared a large pile of wood and the team soon set about separating the good wood from the bad wood (for anyone else unsure of what constitutes good and bad wood: Bad = split, has holes; Good = has potential. When cleaned, can be chopped and turned into benches and other playground furniture). Good wood went to…you guessed it, the good wood pile; bad wood to the skip (sad face). The heat and heavy lifting proved to be a non-issue but some luck-chancing spiders got a little close for comfort nearly putting the runners off their stride. But they ploughed on and soon created a pile of good wood ready for Alex to transform into playground furniture (which we’re secretly hoping we’ll be invited back to get involved with…).

It’s a booty-ful summer for sure

Both groups congregated at Cranbrook shortly after 8pm for a glue-tastic few minutes. I ignored the runners groans as we proceeded to motor from one move to another, finishing with the single leg bridge, at which point, karma intervened - I sprung up, post-demo, back on fire, only to discover I’d demoed the exercise lying on a small bed of stinging nettles (note to self: when the group suggest moving the exercise area to more appealing, softer-looking terrain in future, follow recommendation).

BIG thank you’s, and welcome’s

Thank you to our tremendous task force, in particular Becky J for: leading The Splinter Group task, taking pics, writing the Weavers’ report, coming up with this week's pun, and for passing on her newly-acquired good-vs-bad-wood knowledge. Thanks to Leanne for back-marking both runs; naming The Splinter Group; for helping to plan the evening, and for her safe-running wisdom. Thank you to Bryon and Chris for helping navigate The Splinter Group route.

And a huge hello and great, big GG welcome to first time runner Louise! Was great to have you join the team - let’s hope this’ll be the first of many runs together - and thanks for the hard work in the heat. Hello and welcome back to lovely Lizzie. Thank you for your smiles and enthusiasm, and all the hard work - please come again soon? And what a massive treat to be joined by Nurjehan from Haringey (who really seemed to know her painting stuff) who was such a friendly addition to tonight’s team. Please, please join us again soon!

Onto next week

Next week, we’ll be shining the spotlight on our emotional fitness (as well as sneaking in a tiny tempo run) with decorating and meditating at Parkview. Sign up here!

In the meantime, thank you for all for another great, fun, truly productive Monday night, with mission(s)-accomplished big time. Can’t WAIT to do it all again next week. In the meantime, have a really fabulous week.

Two tasks on this lovely summer evening in Islington.

One group popped up to Whittington Park. Aidan describes:

We arrived at Whittington Park after our longer run down Holloway Road. Our fortnightly task awaited us with Martin ready with bin bags and gloves.

The majority of us tackled the 1 o'clock club's garden as we need to keep up our good work of maintaining a weed and nettle free garden for the kids who use the club.

There was also the task of de-weeding the entrance of the main building, keeping it looking great for everyone!

After working hard for twenty minutes what better way to treat ourselves than with some circuits. Everyone got a chance to pick an exercise for everyone else to do whilst they went on a short lap of the field. Although some of the ladies did get a bit lost along the way! We had all the classics; press ups, sit-ups, planking and two types of squatting for good measure. All before rejoining Holloway Road for our run back.

Aidan

The other group travelled to Barnsbury Community Centre. We've spent a lot of time over the last year helping create a wonderful garden in the disused space behind the centre and we're now just putting the finishing touches to the project for their grand launch on 25th August.

First job was to get gloves out the storage cabinet. Simple, right? Nope. A combination of stupid rain and then stupid heat meant the combination lock for the cabinet had seized up completely. Despite the best efforts of Caroline, Patrick and a pair of pliers it remained stuck. Not to worry: we'd just have to be extra careful.

We spent 25 minutes carrying old pallets and broken bits of wood round to the estate's waste disposal site, having a thoroughly good weed and watering plants. Nice work.

Following the task we played "Dice of Doom" with Simon's new giant foam dice: everybody had a chance to throw the dice and determine the activity that had to be performed for 15 seconds. There were alternate squat thrusts, running high knees, start jumps (LOTS of start jumps), sprints, dreaded burpees (boo) and the elusive jogging on the spot. We then played a game that Caroline made up. Nobody was quite sure what it was.

Back at the pool we had a free stretch, a biscuit and voted on the proper way to eat scones: jam then cream, cream then jam, or Claire's suggestion, butter, jam then cream (which is apparently the traditional Cornish way of doing things)? Jam then cream won by quite a large margin. Some people were disgusted at this - especially Steve - but the people have spoken.

If anybody wants to make scones for next week maybe we could put it to the test.

xxx,
Simon