Tonight nine noteworthy GoodGymmers ran around the streets of Brent posting flyers to promote GoodGym.

This week we faced another task cancellation, the second in a row, so after some last minute efforts to find something we settled on posting a range of GoodGym flyers. We had some to promote membership and to try and encourage coach and mission referrals, so, hopefully we'll see some results of that in Brent in the coming weeks.

Meeting at The Queensbury, we were joined by Lucy for her first group run! Go give her a cheer! There's also a bit of good deed competitiveness in Brent: with three runners close to 50, it's Debbie in the lead with 49...

After a quick warm up we set off and starting posting flyers. We had loads with us and the team made short work of the residential streets around Brent and posted them all.

It wouldn't be GoodGym without a quick fitness session of course, so we made use of some open space to run some quick drills and games.

From there it was time for team photos and back to Queensbury for applause and stretches.

See you all soon! D

16 glorious goodgymers came out in style to run roads and speed sidewalks, all in the name of wonderful willesden.

It's always going to be an ace evening when so many warriors show up to do good in terrible weather. Let me tell you, it was absolutely throwing it down this Monday in Jan. However, the Goodgym gods seemed to smile upon us, as the rain reduced and finally stopped ready for our evening of fun.

Welcoming all faces of the familiar and one new - James, who had joined me at the taster session a couple of weeks ago. This lovely lad making up a brilliant new battalion of SIX boys now!! woo hoo! Not to be outshone it was girl power all the way, with a gallant gaggle of ten girls as well.

Painting the (willesden) town (Goodgym) red After housekeeping it was a very swift jaunt down to our task for the evening - First one of the year for the community hub of the old police station, where the regeneration is now a full year in swing. Meeting our host Colin on arrival, we were quickly shown our two jobs for the night - Painting the entrance room ceilings and of course some extra hauling of debrit and waste outside into the van ready for removal.

So the teams split into two and began the 40min shape up of the old cop shop, quicker than you could shake an old paint brush.

In between the sweat and sawdust work, the teams broke off into mini teams of players for me. Of course I couldn't let them get away without some fitness fun in the yard: Relay races, squat combos and conditioning work for good measure.

Before long the final hour was upon us and after the final countdown chimed, we reviewed our amazing efforts!! What a team, who could tackle such a big task and get 90% done in just 40mins flat!! Even though it may have looked like we spent more time painting ourselves (liz getting a colour job on her very own crown) we did in fact paint the walls as well!

The hills are alive After the final farewell there was just enough time to hit the hills of St Peters Road for a short blast of tempos and a final chance to get heart rates racing and muscles aching.

This crew of fitties didn't let me down as they huffed and puffed their way to glory and all the way back home for a final cool down and stretch to say goodbye.

What a great night to paint, thank god we didn't faint, while running up hills, covered in painting spills.

See you next time!!!!

DO GOOD. FEEL GOOD. INSPIRE

13 Winter warriors, faced some fierce icy winds, to run 8km and task for GG Brent's first one back for the year!! pow pow!

FIRST ONE BACK!!! & Boy oh Boy was it a frosty one! But no weather was going to keep this gang of gutsy go-getters from the glory of the first task back in Jan! hurrah.

Joining the ranks of old familiar faces were two newbies in the midst - Kathy and Harold, who were wrapped up and raring to go along with the OG's on deck - Mouse, Dimple, Simon, Uzman, Karen, Liz, Joe, Debs, Pete and our very own Dinesh who's birthday it was today!!!!

In celebration of our fav warrior Dinesh's years on this planet, we sang a spritely rendition of HAPPY BIRTHDAY before heading out onto the pavements to pound the first half of the 5mile route.

The weather may have been cold and bitter, but the troops were quite the opposite. Gassing, chatting and smiling all the way, up hills and big climbs and windy, dark roads to the destination at hand - The Brent waterways stretch in Wembley, our adopted pride of land that we will be tending to for the whole of 2018!

After an excellent demo of fitness finese arrival came swiftly as we landed and approached Jack our host for the eve and his trusty white van.

As always the van was filled to the brim with pickers, high viz vests, bins bags, torches, sticks and stones and everything else you could possibly imagine that could get the job of clearing our patch achieved!! So wasting no time (as we only had 30mins on the clock), the team set to work on the rocking and rolling and lets watch this show unfolding!

For 25mins the team picked and pulled, dragged and grabbed all number of articles of disguarded waste from the canal and its banks. From peculiar pants, to mossy plants. Beer cans and follys and supermarket trollys. The spoils were as varied as a stocking stuffed full on xmas morning thats for sure!!

After a cold 20mins, the weather took a turn for the even colder and this sped up our efforts indeed! A quick final flourish took us to the end of our mission and we packed up quick smart, thanked our host and waved goodbye before our fingers froze too much to wave!!

The last leg of the journey was a mad dash for home, with every runner lifting legs and making dashes through every gust of chill, to get back to base before turning into ice sculptures!! But do you know what, it was a blessing in disguise this cold, because it proved to us all that no matter how many mince pies we'd all enjoyed over the festive season, we still had the skills and thrills to throw caution to the damn wind and bang out some fast miles home, smiling all the way no less!!

Back at base and we all couldn't believe our speed through the last legs! Perhaps there is something to say about being based out of a pub - The promise of beer jackets and toasty fires for relaxing! HA HA!!

But in all seriousness, this troop of terrific taskers, could not have proved their honours in a more gallant way, on this first session back! Demonstrating the promise of our teams capabilities of wonderful, worthwhile magic, for the new year ahead!!

I cannot wait to see you all next time!!!!

** DO GOOD. FEEL GOOD. INSPIRE**

A dozen do-gooders, dashed miles, shared some smiles. Then trees they did sprinkle, in baubles and tinsel & wrapped up some gifts for some deserving local kids.

Run report to be read, to the tune of "All I Want For Christmas Is You"

We don't want a lot for Christmas There is just one thing we need. To run and wrap up all your presents, for Goodgym we must do a Good Deed

We just want to run from base, all the way to Kilburn, Kingsgate. To make their wish come true.... Goodgym elves with Christmas tasks to do!

We don't want a lot for Christmas. There is just one thing we need. To run and wrap up all the presents. For Goodgym we must do a good deed.

Half the group will get to working, there upon the trees outside. Hanging baubles makes us happy. We will finish in time, come what may!

The other half will get to know, how to make those windows glow. Hang baubles from the roofffffff. Santas going to want to stop by too!!! Oooohhh and Rudolph!

Oh, we won't ask for much this Christmas, we won't even wish for snow. We're just gonna keep on waiting For more chances to help this community grow.

We'll be back in new year, AJ, don't you worry about a thing. To volunteer some more of our time. Running fast & get our pulses racing!

'Cause we don't just want to help tonight. We'll be back, even though, now we take flight. But what more can we do? That's one more Goodgym task done by this crewwwww.

Oh, all the lights are shining so brightly everywhere. As we run back home down Kilburn High Street's glare.

And all the crew are happy, even though its nippy. Lets get moving, as the time is nearly at an end, I don't want to miss 'First Dates' on TV.

Oh, we don't want a lot for Christmas, this is all we ever want. To help the people of dear Willesden, while our legs take us on a little jaunt.

Now it's time to say Goodnight. See you next week? I hope we might. Make our wish come true.... All we want is more good tasks to do!!!! 2018 with this fantastic crew!!! Without them I just don't know what I'd do!!!! ohhhhhhh baby!!!!

TA DAAAAAAAAAAAA.

See you next time familia for the last Goodgym of the year!!!!!

DO GOOD. FEEL GOOD. INSPIRE

This awesome run report was written by equally awesome sister sledge - Debs and Tabs!!! YAYYYYY!!

10 Goodgym runners braved the cold, less than 10 degrees so I'm told. To help Jack our trusty man, with the help of tools from his van.

We started off running through the bitter chill. Dinesh setting off fast against our will. Before long we arrived to the task at hand, ten-ding the canal, soon to be our piece of land.

As quick as we could we began picking the litter. Luckily for Jack this bunch couldn't be fitter. The bin bags themselves were pretty small, so we set ourselves the task to fill them all.

5 minutes to go and we moved to our biggest task of the night: Pulling the trolley out of the water, what a sight!

The boys set to it, that's right we had four! We're hoping they're all back next week, and even some more.

We hot footed down the road, back to our bit of Brent. Along the way dropped off Debs and Tabs, away they went.

A great task was had by all and thank goodness unlike last time, not one fall!!

See you next time!!!!

Eight runners met up at the Queensbury for the short run down to Willesden Green's former police station-cum-community hub in the making to brush up on their painting skills.

We welcomed Lucas to his first GG run, and Simon who was out doing a bit of GG tourism for the evening - and seems to have bagged most of the boroughs already! They were joined by Simon H, Tabitha, Debbie, Coralie, Liz, and deputy run leader Claire, who all already had an idea of what was in store...

We were met by Colin with his usual bags of energy - despite claiming to be knackered, he still managed to get us all tooled up, find lights, find power sources for said lights, show us what to do, not trip on any cables, and all whilst regaling us with fantastic and incredible stories of parties to end all parties... and probably managed to apply more paint to walls than the eight of us put together!

We rolled up our sleeves and got out the rollers, brushes and trays and set to work to transform the indoor space into a symphony of white and orange - seriously, our painting and decorating talents are wasted in our day jobs!! We left, paint spattered but happy to see how the place is evolving, it is almost unrecognisable from our first visits here a few months back, especially the beautiful gardens. It gave us a warm glow inside to think that we had contributed a bit to this transformation. Inspirational!

A wee run back up the hill to the pub, with a few stretches, and off home to wash paint out of our hair, aaah....

Thanks everyone!!

17 awesome athletes got a litter bit more than they had bin expecting in BRENT this week.

Twas a beautiful sight indeed to behold, when 17 lovelies up to THE QUEENSBURY strolled YES!! Full squad in place, ready to race, down Walm lane for some tasking and of course fit, fun and games!

First up was the run, but it didn't take long, for high jinx was in the air and all of our usual GG Flair. Running and funning our usual route, smiling at passers by and giving salutes.

Next, we arrived at our base for the night, but poor Rosa from St Andrews was in for a fright. For she had forgotten the required equipment, plastic gloves and bin bags for a lot of litter pickin'.

NO FEAR!, said I, with a glint in my eye, While you go and collect, the task can come next... We can begin with a hop, skip and lark and run a wee bit further down to Gladstone Park!

So off we cantered, with plenty of banter and not before long, were ready to crack on! Wasting no time, onto each others backs they did climb, for piggy back races, making haste with their paces. The winners were easy to see it was simple, girl power all the way, with Zara carrying Dimple.

Following swifty, 100 squats bashed out nifty. Then Core on the grass, before back to the task!! Speeding along each step taking us closer and in no time at all, we were back to meet Rosa.

Ready and raring to begin our task and to - pass the bin bags was our only ask. So with latex gloves adorned, although some were too small and in no time were torn, we embarked on our mission, of speed litter picking.

Not 15mins in and it was all drama in the street, for what I'm about to say, I hope we'll never see a repeat. Drunken locals fighting and throwing cans.... QUICK Said Nicola HIDE BEHIND THE VAN Thankfully for us, quick to arrive, the coppers appeared, phew, we weren't scared, only the brave cower in fear!!

So then we could complete the rest of the night, with no further distraction, of crazy men in sight. We continued until the end with determined action, filling up the rubbish bags in quick succession. In no time at all, the bags were all full, so we said our farewells and turned on our heels.

Peeling off home, the group soon diminished, with only a few left to race me back to the finish. But with stretches and hugs and goodbyes complete, it was homeward bound, now everyone can eat!!

Another brilliant event, in our beloved Brent. See you next Monday for another chance to play!

DO GOOD. FEEL GOOD. INSPIRE

POW POW!