Back to school

It was a task-with-a-difference this evening as 31 of us headed off to the Royal London to undertake some intensive training, under the care of fabulous task owners Nancy and Richard of Barts Volunteers.

Preparing to head onto the wards...

We've enjoyed a few tasks at the hospital over the last few months and so with runners previously expressing a desire to visit patients on the wards, Nancy and her team arranged for us to participate in an evening's training at the hospital's Education Academy. The training covered not only the logistics and health & safety aspects of going onto the wards, it also gave us an insight into what's involved when visiting wards which treat patients suffering with dementia.

No sooner had we arrived at the hospital, were we all seated on benches in the lecture theatre, and learning about what goes on inside the Trust, and watching invaluable and moving footage of a hospital experience through the eyes of a dementia sufferer. The runners became absorbed in the training and engaged well - well done as usual, team!

Nancy also took this opportunity to thank the runners for previous work undertaken at the hospital, explaining that the litter-picking and gardening previously blitzed by Good Gymers in the hospital's John Harrison garden had been really well maintained, and, Nancy felt, had contributed to an improved perception of the hospital's green space, leading to less litter being deposited. What a thing to hear! What a thing to be responsible for! Another well done, team.

Greyhound and hare-ing it back to base

And then a brief hour later, we were heading back to base, playing our favourite greyhound-and-hare game, with Danny leading the greyhounds who caught us up at...the first set of lights, before co-hosting the stretching session with Leanne.

It was a really great night, and we look forward to returning next week to pick up where we left off.

A record number of first time runners!

And what a fabulous number of new runners joined us tonight! A big hello and welcome to our 8 first time GG runners: Hannah, Jess, Pippa, Lynda, Sarah, Sian, Sean, Sophie and Cath (new to TH but not to GG).

Monday night medalists

Tonight's Group Run thank-you's go to: Leanne and Lisa for back-marking; Leanne and Danny for leading our post-run stretching session (great job!); Danny for leading the greyhound runners, and to Joel for this week's perfect pun.

Come and join in next week! (even if you didn't come this evening)

Next week we're returning to the hospital for Week 2 - but if you didn't attend this evening's training - don't worry, there'll be tasks available for you to do that don't require training!