Southwark News

• We are as of today at the top of our league for the January challenge with 104 good deeds done so far this month and 832 collective kms run and it is constantly climbing. Blimey! That deserves a big pat on the back

• Next week we're going to Southwark Tigers on Burgess Park to fill a skip. It's a 6km run overall sign up here.

• We just turned 3 years old! In that time we have done some form of good 3580 times, including 1038 coach runs and 249 missions. That's a huge impact on the local community you should be proud to be a part of.

That's enough of the business

Saturday was a MASSIVE day (hence all the photos)! It started at 9am sharp with GoodGym tshirts dotted all over the place at Southwark parkrun. Dom marshalled and caught some snaps of some very happy runners. Nice one Dom!

We then gathered at the rather cosy Southwark Park cafe for a hot drink and in some cases a sausage sandwich. Gradually people began to arrive for the starter session and at 10.20am we started the briefing.

At GoodGym we get fit and do good in three special ways

Those ways are: Group runs, every Wednesday we meet at Old Spike Roastery on Peckham Rye at 18.45 to run to a local community project to do good. Missions: one off tasks done in an isolated person's home that improves their wellbeing eg. changing a lightbulb. Coach runs: pairing you up with an isolated older person in the community for weekly social visits.

After a warm up and intro we set off for the 1.6km to Surrey Docks Farm. On arrival we sought out Rachel who provided us with brushes and shovels and showed us into the goat enclosure. Our mission? Collect up all the poo! The scooped poop then went over to the steaming (literally, steaming) muck heap.

Scooper pooper GoodGym's gonna find ya

Having cleared the area and dumped it on the muck heap we had an opportunity to feed the goats. Some were more patient than others...!

Surrey Docks Farm is a working community farm in Rotherhithe, SE16 that aims to educate local people about where their food comes from and promotes getting active outdoors. From Old Spike Roastery it's quite a long run so we don't get to go too often which Saturday the perfect time!

'You've goat to be kidding!'

Could be heard when a goat chomped Lucy's feedbag in half right out of her hand. We also coo-ed over the gorgeous Oxford Sandy and Black pigs, the sheep and Hermione the donkey.

Time to stop mucking about, we needed a goat-o-shoot

Finished up with feeding, we went back into the enclosure for a team photo. The highlight of this being the moment that Emily leant down to stroke a curious goat and it began to wee - very narrowly missing her!

And now, a song:

Right on the Thames was a lonely goatherd

Lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hee hoo

'Help with this task!' could her loud cry be heard

Lay ee odl lay ee odl-oo

Folks from GoodGym came to help the goatheard

Lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hee hoo

Scrapin' and sweepin' all that lovely goat turd

Lay ee odl lay ee odl-oo

14 runners crossing a borough (again) to clear hedges & weeds at Surrey Docks Farm.

Finally, the rain cleared and the mugginess came back for us to run across into the shadow of Canary Wharf to the lovely farm. After bobbing and weaving down Rye Lane and waiting for a lot of green men, we eventually, and rather sweatily, made it to meet Gemma. She had already gotten to work with a chain saw on the hedge along the Thames Path and we were to clear it.

Lots of glove matching and hoeing later and we were filling wheelbarrows with green stuff. Zoe took the challenge of jumping on the compost heap to crush it down.

Trampoline time!

After almost no time, we had to pack away. Luckily, we got to walk passed all of the animals we'd seen last time. The tallest goats in the world were hiding. too much height pressure the beautiful calf was looking much more grown up. Esther, the pregnant sow was due to give birth on Monday. We watched with baited breath for her to...

go to the toilet...

No piglets tonight but it was still lovely to see all of the animals and work somewhere so amazing in the shadow of the concrete jungle.

A few press ups, tricep dips and wall sits later and we were back at Old Spike.

A decent crew of us made our way over to The Rye pub for some food and much needed fluids.

Lovely stuff GoodGym Southwark. Until next week.