29 GoodGymers came out on an otherwise deceptively clear evening to do good on Wednesday.

After a quick intro, and welcome to two newbies to the ranks - hello Paul and Dean; it was brill to have you with us. See you next week? Here's the run signup for next week if you want to book yourself on already!

As it's now the winter season, we split the task and group in two.

Our tasks

While I led the 17 strong group up to Susannah and Cecil Sharp House, Steve led the 12 good souls to the American International Church (C4WS) to make the beds at the homeless shelter.

After hearing what Susannah had to say, we got stuck in and started racking the lawn, sweeping the walkways and collecting all the fallen leaves. George deserves a special mention as he fell into the trap of going for a "Special Task" that basically meant he was the only raker entrusted with scraping the leaves from the garden. But true to form, he finished the job as the clock struck 8. Also, well done Rebecca, John and Hanry for such a perfect leaf clearing that it should be the new example of how to do it in the encyclopaedias of gardening out there. Beautiful work. Lizzy was also particularly excited to have supersized Hulk Hands (see pictures!) and was scooping away with astounding efficiency. Hat doffed to you!

Over at the American International Church, the team got started with making the 13 beds the shelter needed tonight. Duvet covers, pillowcases and towels in place by 7:45 (rapid work, team!) they waved goodbye to Jonathan (the C4WS minister) before heading to Granary Square for a quick fitness session and to see the new Christmas lights.

Meeting back at the Living Centre for 8:20, we all had a cool down and reminder of upcoming community missions and next week's run (and December's Christmas dinner), we said goodbye with some going to the pub and some going home.

Next time

COMMUNITY MISSION KLAXON While we don't - as Camden - have a Community Mission for you this week, Islington are after extra pairs of hands to go and help the Crouch End Open Space project by laying some woodchip, planting some trees and other lovely outdoor tasks. It's happening on Saturday 17th November and you can sign up right here.

NEXT WEEK'S RUN We're going to be splitting the task again - one half of the group will head back to C4WS to make some more beds for the homeless, and the rest of us will be running up the road to our friends at Alara Wholefoods! 100% likelihood of more granola as a thank you from Alex and the team, so more than one incentive to get your name down for next week's run!

🍕CAMDEN CHRISTMAS PIZZA PARTY 🍕Come and eat some pizza with us on the 11th December. We'll be running as one big group back to the Homeless Shelter and then once we've made the beds, we'll hotfoot it over to Granary Square to eat some pizza at Happy Face. You've got until the 27th November to sign up. Would be lovely to see as many of you (group runners, coach runners and missioners) as possible!

23 of us GoodGymers turned up for a night of do-gooding and running on another rain-free October night. We do run come rain or shine, but who doesn't prefer running in the dry, let's be honest!

After our introduction and our welcoming FOUR new runners (wooooooooooo!) to the Camden ranks with some big cheers and claps - welcome Leanne, Poppy, Abbi and Lucy - we stretched and got ready for the run! I hope you all enjoyed yourselves tonight and will be back at Group Runs and Community Missions with us very soon.

We had a split task tonight, with one team running to the Cecil Sharp House and another back to the SPCA to finish off what we started a fortnight ago. I led the first team to Cecil Sharp and Louise and John took the second half to the SPCA.

Team Cecil Sharp

After a quick 2km run up the road, we arrived at Cecil Sharp House. Susannah told us a little about the centre and some more of what we were helping with tonight, as a violin lesson and choir rehearsal were going on in the background. They'd just gotten some great news today that they'd won Camden's Best Business Garden and she was doubly grateful for the work we do for them. Well done for the continued weeding, clearing and raking efforts over the months - it's all paid off! We were set about clearing the gardens of the leaves, sweeping up the paths and sorting out their bin - extra big shout-out to CJ and Abi for going above and beyond with their task. If I could award double good deed points, I would. Tidying away 9 big bags of leaves and litter, we'd made the gardens neat, tidy and leafless once more and after a group photo on the steps, we said goodbye to Susannah and ran back to the Life Centre to regroup.

Team SPCA

Louise and John's team ran over to the Saint Pancras Community Association to carry on with the task we weren't able to finish last time; sorting and bagging up the rest of the garden waste pile that had been stacking up over the summer. After speedy teamwork and FIFTEEN bags later - excellent work everyone - the job was well and truly finished off. It was time to say goodbye, run back and meet up with the other team.

Thanks again - as we say most weeks now - to Hanry for being the official Camden Headtorch Champion. You're a hero and I'm sure we'll be calling on your help in the coming months.

Next week and other news

NEXT WEEK! We are going to be running to the Ashdown Crescent Sheltered Housing project to give them a hand with keeping their gardens in check. There may well be a fitness session next week, so we'll make sure you keep warm!

A COMMUNITY TASK! Abi never stops good deeding (she really doesn't) and will be back at the Story Garden on Thursday 10th from 5-7pm if you'd like to help them out in one of the polytunnels - a sort of indoor-task if you squint at it for long enough - you can click right here and come on down!

LET'S GET SOCIAAAAAAL! It's almost time for a good old GoodGym social! There's already 29 friendly GoodGymers signed up to the social on Thursday 10th October, so why don't you too? It's going to be at the Islington Town House from 6:30pm - come one come all. It's also a potentially final chance to celebrate International Pun of the Month, as Pritesh is stepping down from this wonderous role. Get in touch with him if you'd like to find out how you can take up the mantle and carry on this hilarious GG tradition.

That's all for now, but I hope to see you all on next week's run.

Happy running,

Ben

29 of us GoodGym runners assembled at the Life Centre on Wednesday night for what was to be my first run as your new GoodGym Camden Trainer without stabilisers - thanks for all your help and support Pritesh!

We welcomed two new runners to the ever expanding posse that is Camden - hey Olivia and Rebecca, we hope to see you on another one soon.

Tonight was also special for another reason for someone else; Abi! Our run tonight was her 200th good deed(!) and with everyone else clapped and cheered, Sally duly presented her with the beautiful GG Camden crimson cape with 200 sewn on in big silver numbers. 200 good deeds is such a brilliant milestone and I hope you'll all pile in on Abi's page and give her some good cheer and congratulations; that's 200 times you could've otherwise said no or not bothered to get stuck in, and it's a wonderful achievement. Whether you're new or old to GoodGym, keep doing what you're doing and the good deeds will soon add up.

Tonight's task was Alara Wholefoods, just up the road and over the canal.

After listening to Alex from Alara about what we needed to do, we split up into Team Mulch, Team Wheelbarrow, Team Weeding, Team Harvest and got to it in the best GoodGym production line you could possibly dream of. With two wheelbarrows and spades, mulch was dug out, loaded onto the wheelbarrows and sprinted round the corner to the nearby orchard. Here another team was in place to scrape around the trees and load up the mulch - 2 loads per tree. Elsewhere Team Weeding were doing an excellent job of tidying up a path and some of rubber tire planters. Down the road and through the trees, Team Harvest were getting on with plucking as many apples from the trees (with Alex's permission!) and clearing a bean field.

We mulched, we weeded, we cleared, we stripped bean poles and we harvested some apples. Special shoutout to Hanry for providing the lion's share of the headtorches for tonight's task - we would have been ruined without them!

How much fun did we all have? Toooooo mullllchh fun!

By 8pm (perfect timing!), we'd managed to mulch an orchard, picked a lot of apples from the trees, stripped the bean poles back and done a lot of good weeding and sweeping and it was time to run on. As a special treat, Alex had some boxes of granola ready for us. There wasn't enough to go around, so he invited us into the granola warehouse (actual heaven for some of us) to pick up some more. A few group photos later, we waved goodbye to Alex and motored on.

Down along the canal, with our headtorches beaming and granola rattling, we hit Granary Square for a few laps before jogging back with our granola boxes as our maracas, for a cool down stretch. Some of us headed on to the pub for a celebratory drink and a piece of John's homemade vegan brownies - it was his birthday on Tuesday (and they tasted delicious by the way, John!) - and others headed home.

If you enjoyed yourself last night, why not sign up to our next run?

And don't forget we've got a Community Mission coming up on Thursday 3rd October at Story Garden - you can sign up here