How many?

They didn't stop coming last night. A whopping 43 GoodGymmers - our second highest turnout ever - rocked up to Highbury Pool ready to get fit and do good.

Newbs

Big hand to first timers Cath, Weronica, Dan, Fran, Wendy, Kirsty and Alix and nice to see a couple of last week's newcomers now old hands in brand new red GG shirts!

Tasking

Our task for the evening was to continue putting the finishing touches to the ongoing project at Barnsbury Community Centre, and luckily there was plenty to do: one team worked hard on shifting sacks of soil from one side of the gate to the other; another team weeded and turned over soil around the magnificent centrepiece; we had a group watering the abundance of plants and flowers that are now everywhere; and a final group grabbed dusters and wipes and gave the heaters, sides and windows within the centre a jolly good clean.

Maths

People sometimes worry that 30 minutes or so on a task isn't all that much, but when you consider that 43 x 30 minutes = over 21 hours, which if you include breaks and going home to sleep and stuff is about 3-4 days work for a single person, it becomes obvious how effective the GoodGym style of volunteering is.

Bunch of Planks

As always, we stopped halfway through the evening for a biscuit which fuelled us well for the post-task PLANK CHALLENGE. The plank world record was set at the weekend and we wanted to see how close we could get to the eight hours and change achievement.

Everybody spread themselves out across the garden (a sight to behold) and just kept planking until they could plank no more. Everybody made the minute mark and a majority got to two minutes. Then they started dropping like flies. With five minutes approaching, and the sun going down, only four remained. We decided that anybody who made it to five minutes would be a joint winner and all four did. Core! Big hand to Patrick (still grinning at the end), Oli, Rich and Dan. Plank-off final next week?

Activities Abundant

For our journey back we split into four groups: Patrick led a group for a game of Coney McConeface on the fields; Simon took a group for some sprinty bits, including secret surges, indian file and the tennis ball reaction game, which badly needs a name; Aidan sorted out the long running group; and Kike worked people hard on the hills. For this final group their good-deed-doing for the evening wasn't over since they witnessed a collision with a motorbike and cyclist. Luckily no major injuries and first-aider Kike and co. calmed the cyclist down and got him off to have his scrapes seen to. Well done team.

Town vs. Country Club

Debate for the evening was town vs. country. Do you prefer the tranquility of the countryside or the hustle and bustle of a city? Some of us liked being able to drive, park, leave our doors open, seeing cows & sheep all the time and buying eggs from our neighbours; but the majority preferred a lifestyle that extended beyond Londis staying open until 9pm on a Friday night and the occasional car boot sale.

Next Time

Reckon we can manage 50 runners next week? We're going to have at least three tasks on offer which will be confirmed very shortly, but you can sign up now!

See you soon,
Simon

A massive thirty three of us gathered for a brand new task this week: a trip to Sunnyside Community garden up in Archway. Sunnyside is a community-led garden that is open to all, but specialises in therapeutic horticulture for people with physical and mental disabilities.

As well as ten newcomers Samah, John, Dami, Mariam, Chris, Toby, Fedja, David, Jade and Emma we had tourists Kevin from Hackney (soon to be Bristol) and John and Jackie from Camden and a few journalists included in the mix as well!

After a round of applause for Graham for completing 50 good deeds and another for Patrick for completing 150, we travelled up in three separate groups. Simon and Graham led the speedsters, with Patrick and Aidan taking a medium-paced group and John and Ama looking after the philosophers.

Up at the centre we were greeted by Yvonne and Alan, who were delighted to see so many keen faces and tooled us up ready for the evening's work.

We got stuck in for a good half hour. One group tackled shrubbery around the side of the centre with choppers, loppers, secateurs, scissors and all manner of cutting tools with a couple of the team being led back and forth with wheelbarrows by the enthusiastic Alan.

Round the corner muscle-bound volunteers were ripping rotten logs out the ground with their bare hands (and a mattock) while a third group tackled some very stubborn roots.

All this while Mariam & Dami and Chris carried out their interviews. We’ll post links when the video and article are out. Looks like they got some great material from us all.

The really amazing thing was we managed all this without stopping for a biscuit. This is unheard of in Islington (Simon is obviously a bit rusty after being away for a while and had left them back at the pool). Oh well, a good reason to run back quickly.

And it was FOUR groups for the run back. The original fast, medium and philosophers, plus a special “press” group led by Graham after we realised that having people carry back lots of recording equipment with the fast group might be a bit of a struggle.

The fast group worked extra hard with secret surges, the “lunge, skip, run” game (what could that involve?), stair running, hill running and a little obstacle running. Chris was desperate for some core work to offset the aerobic insaneness. Next week, Chris (and everybody will now know who to moan at when our abs are shot to shreds).

Back at the pool just a little bit later than planned we multi-tasked by holding stretches while receiving biscuits: a true test of balance, agility, coordination and greed.

Finally a vote on the evening’s hot topic of debate. Mice: vermin or cute adorable little critters. Definitely a few votes for vermin and a few stories of cats bringing them in in various states of mutilation, but the majority thought they were delightful creatures and just wanted to give them a mouse-sized cuddle. Next week: Are cats complete psychopaths?

A great first task at Sunnyside. We’re heading back there in a few weeks, but in the meantime we have another brand new task next week. We’re visiting West London Mission for some more gardening joy.

Great to be back. See you next week,

Simon

P.S. Should have a few more photos later on.

On Monday evening 20 brave Islington Good Gym-ers gathered in the cold to jog and do good. Oh, and because it's Islington, eat biscuits. In fact that was the subject of the days run debate. What biscuits should we have? Results later.

Paul warmed everyone up with some high knees, lunges and other associated exercises, and we were off! A faster group led by Patrick and Graham shot off sprinting around the park, before heading to our destination. Whilst Paul, Caroline and myself took a slower group, I say slower........in fact, it was like a herd of wildebeest charging across a busy Upper St, past the tube stop and to the relative quiet of the streets behind. I'm pleased to report that no pedestrians were trampled.

Wildebeest

Disappointed by the lack of trampling, as we neared our destination of Barnsbury Community Centre, Caroline dramatically threw herself on the floor mid-jog, in the hope she would get trampled. What a team player.

With both teams having arrived, we set about our task. Well, first we had to interrupt some sort of religious ceremony by all quietly charging through the middle of a room, like tip-toeing wildebeest, so as not to ruin the nice gospel singing going on around us.

'Dunk'

Like the previous week, half the group were banging stakes into the floor, and half shifting mud. Graham took the brave task of holding the stakes as people whacked them with hammers. You could see him physically vibrate every time a hammer went 'Dunk' on top of a stake.

The mud shifters stood around for a bit pondering where to put the mud, as all the bags were full. Then someone had a brainwave of clambering on top of the mud bags and stomping like they were making wine. it worked a treat and the mud shifting could commence.

Caroline nipped off to get biscuits, and despite the debate results being chocolate hobnobs or tim tams, came back with double chocolate. To be fair, who can resist double chocolate? One Good Gym-er had 5 biscuits!!

Double chocolate!

After the task we gathered for a nice group photo, and then set off back in to Highbury & Islington. On the run back Anna displayed her evasive skills, in panic jumping over a big black dog, only to find it was a bin liner (easily confused).

With everyone back Paul led the group through a few stretches, and then we departed, content with a good evenings work.

(Run Report by John Chyriwsky)

Caroline Townsend (Taskforce Member) wrote the lovely run report below:

This week we returned for another sequel to Barnsbury Community Centre. We got up to a range of awesome tasks there. Sadly Simon couldn’t make it but Paul flew in (Camden Trainer and ex Islington taskforce) like Batman to save the day. Caroline was Robin for providing biscuits (oreos) at last minute.

On the way we split into two groups; a mega fast group who did an extra lap of Highbury fields and the philosopher’s group who talked about cake. We all arrived at the same time.

At the centre we had a party due to Patrick’s awesome tunes again. We split into 3 teams… team paint, team heave soil and team stick poles.

Team Paint

Team paint struggled to open a paint can and nearly bent a few keys in the process. However, Patrick had a tool kit (his backpack is a TARDIS) so it was opened in the end. The team then painted flower pots.

Team Soil

Team heave soil continued to remove soil from the circle of dirt. We have been working hard on this area for a few months now and it’s nice to see that it’s nearly done. It helps with team stick poles with their work as well.

Team Stakes

Team stake poles, led by Steve, stuck poles into the circle of dirt at specific heights in the shape of an ‘S’. This sounds complicated and it was. They made a lot of noise and sounded a bit like a tribe due to one of the tools sounding like a bell when it pushed poles into the ground. An installation in being put in this space in the near future.

On the way home we split into 3 groups and continued to talk about cake. A few things we heard was cupcake mix served in a jam jar and what would an iced carrot taste like instead of having carrot cake.

Thank you very much again guys for coming. We hope that you had a groovy time.

Yesterday was Frances 50th task. Congratulations Frances!

On a very blustery night 12 GoodGym runners headed down to Stepney City Farm with Anna and Andrew Cornick masterfully navigating the mazy East London streets. Splitting up into three teams we worked hard for 35 minutes moving fresh compost across the farm, one team loading wheelbarrows, one team running the barrows to the other compost heaps and one team on top of the heap turning the fresh compost over.

After the task was complete Simon from the Farm took us into the barn to see the 48 hour old new kid goats with their less than sprightly Mum over seeing proceedings. After 10 minutes of learning about goats and making suitable 'ahhh' noises Tom took us back down to earth. We ran out to Mile End Park where we followed the parkrun route completing fartlek intervals of 15 seconds, 30 seconds, 45 seconds repeatedly as we made our way back to base.

After a short stretch we disappeared into the gales of the night.