36 incredible people joined me in Camden, helped Scope in their charity shop, ran over 6km, walked and celebrated TEN years of GoodGym!

Well what an evening that was! We returned to our usual home at the St Pancras & Somers Town Living Centre, we celebrated Kat and Rosie turning three, Rosie hitting 100 good deeds AND GoodGym's 10th birthday... AND we introduced everyone to Ben Hansen-Hicks the shiny new Camden trainer... and breathe!

As part of the #GG10 celebrations we had our lovely GoodGym flag with us and because we just do things better in Camden we had some shiny gold balloons to join our run for both Rosie's 100 and of course the 10th birthday. We also had copies of the wonderful Fit Together the book produced by GoodGym with stories from the first ten years.

After a huge intro with all of the above fitted in and news on #SuperSaturday (A day full of missions for every area this Saturday) and of course the health and safety and info on the task we headed on out and got warmed up!

On a celebratory night like this it was great to have everyone together and whilst it is always hard to manage we all safely walked and ran to the Scope charity shop. Once there Helen had us all queued up and divvied out roles. Tasks tonight:

• Donation collections outside
• Mannequin dressing
• Various cleaning work
• Shoe sorting
• Trouser measuring
• Clothes tagging
• and a whole lot more...

Half an hour of hard work later we were all piling out and getting ready for the next stage of the evening. With our flag with us, ably looked after by Ben, we headed off to various locations to get some fantastic photos for the GG10 celebrations.

• Camden Road Bridge
• Gasholders at King's Cross
• Francis Crick Institute
• Somers Town Coffeehouse

Thanks to George, Liuba, Ben and Steve for co-ordination and direction and phone-lending for all the photos.

Finally we stretched and then we headed to the pub to celebrate with cakes made by Liz and Rosie, some prosecco from the pub and party poppers from Sophie!

All in all a wonderful night of celebration with TEN and ONE HUNDRED being the key numbers!

Cheers,
Pritesh

SOCIAL! woop woop! hmm, so firstly, apologies for all the lateness this month (not as late as last month's social report... it's coming but read this while you wait!) but it all worked out ok and an awesome TWENTY NINE of you joined me at the lovely Queen's Larder!

Here's the report:

Heroes

• GG York continuing their good deed domination of 2018 with Egg hitting 18 good deeds in March - awesome stuff! Check out the rest of the heroes here or on the photo above.

• We had 22 people get their #ninja tshirts by hitting 50 good deeds, Tim (Newham), James (Islington), Mark (Lambeth) and Mary (Bath) got their #wings by hitting the huge 100 good deeds and we had an amazing four hitting 200 good deeds - Ana, Graham, Joel and Egg! Give them all a cheer!

• Area Heroes! So a massive well done to GG Bristol with 250 attendances and with 30 new runners the most new runners in a month prize goes to GG Camden! Congrats to you both!

News

• Launches - we launched in Liverpool and we have Waltham Forest on 11th April!

• Races - Big congratulations to all that ran the first Big Six race of the year at Colchester Half Marathon, the next Big six is the Great Welsh Marathon on 15th April, we have the GG Euro Trip to Bucharest on 13th May, and then the next Big Six at Lakeland Trails on 3rd June! Get yourself signed up!

• Marathons! We've got a bunch of runners doing Paris Marathon and Manchester Marathon this weekend and then the big one on the 22nd April - The London Marathon. If you're running get your details in here and if you want to come cheer sign up here and we'll update you with details (I can't recommend coming to cheer enough!).

• Dates for the diary! - Two big things coming up one is ultra fun and the other is bit more serious but totally fun too! So GoodGym's very own Lord Coe Tom Benson has released the date for the second GoodGym Olympiad - 30th June - sign up here and on the 20th July we have the GoodGym Shindig - have a look at what we got up to at the shindig last year and speak to your trainer if you are interested in attending.

...and finally, it's what it's all about and this month it got interesting with some live editing on the night and all kinds of antics! In any case there was a clear winner...with 16 out of 57 votes... a huge round of applause to the March International Pun of the Month winners:

"Wheelbarrows to the left, buckets to the right, here I am stuck in the manure with you" from GG Hackney

Amazing - well done all! If you'd like to know more about the edit speak to Aidan or contact Eva or Mireille who have pictorial evidence!

That is that and thank you all so much - i say this every month but the social really is nothing but me sat in a room with my notebook if you guys don't come along!

Next social is on 3rd May and we are on tour in GoodGym Bromley! We'll be at their usual start location - the Bridge House - get signed up here.

Cheers, Pritesh

p.s. June social has a minor problem - I'll not be here! The only time this previously happened the dream team of Paul and Axel stole the show in my place - now if you want the chance to run the show get in touch or we'll get the #PBAx dream team in again (hopefully)!

p.p.s. Thanks to John for extra photos!

31 GoodGymers ran between 5-8km to help Camden Society paint and C4WS make beds

Hey, hello, whatup - that was fun wasn't it! Brilliant night of great people, fun fitness and GOOD tasking. Welcome to newbies - Matt, Amy, Emily, Zahava and Imogen who joined us for the first time last night - lovely to have you along!

In the news this week:

1. There is a GoodGym Monthly Social next Thursday at the Square Pig in Holborn, come along it will be full of puns, fun and Pritesh...
2. Well done Beth Hoskins (who started at GG Camden and is basically one of ours) who was the first person ever to reach 500 Good Deeds in GoodGym, she was sent a letter by the Prime Minister and Huffington Post wrote a cool article about her

After an active warm up in the cold January air we split into our teams and got 'gooding'. Chris took a team of 10 to help C4WS at the American International Church make beds for the homeless, over January and March each year we send a team of 10 people weekly to help the shelter with this task - saving them lots of time and effort.

Camden Legend Sophie Hedges wrote a cool haiku about the task:

American Church

Bed for the night, basic right

Fold corners with care

We are going to have a different member each week do a haiku about the bed making - it's an incredibly important task but it's hard to write 10 normal reports on it. Chris' team made quick work of the beds and then ran up to Kentish Town to join us for a last minute cleaning job - smashing 8km overall!

Camden Society Report by PB:

A team of 20 ran to Kentish Town to go help Camden Society, it was 2.5km up there and everyone kept a good pace to our NEW TASK. The Camden Society runs services across London and Oxfordshire. With a reputation for creativity, innovation and enterprise they generate new opportunities for people with disabilities to achieve greater equality. All their services are person-centred, supporting people to develop their lives in whatever ways they choose.

This fantastic charity have 10 sites across London, including 8 cafes, their Head Office and a site which sends out our GoodGym t-shirts! These are all run and serviced by people with learning difficulties - amazing!

Steve is actually an artist

Our tasks for the evening were as follows:

• John and Laurence cleaned the shop windows; front, back and around
• A team of 5 cleaned and scrubbed the walls, doors and services on the downstairs kitchen
• A team of 4 sanded and painted the hallway
• A team of 3 sanded and painted and disabled toilet

Amazing work all! We stayed for 45 minutes and got tons done. Now joined by Team Chris we ate some flapjacks, took a group pic and headed home for a stretch.

Sign up here for next week, three tasks - Abbey, St Mary's & C4WS!

PB out

9 Fitness seeking GoodGymers hammered 60 minutes of Fitness 4 All action in Kennington.

Brilliant session this evening in Kennington!! Everyone put in a top shift of effort and execution!!

Welcoming a few first time GoodGymers to the fold we got going in Cleaver Square. Mobility warm up, muscle activation and some body weight strength exercises mixed in all while getting our mind sharp with some balance practice.

Jumping literally into a range of form drills to hone our running form and efficiency and get us being kind to our lower body by reducing down our impact forces.

With the drilled nailed we worked hard with some tag team pairs laps of the square to put it all into action!

Mixing it up with some plyometric bounces and hops in our drawn boxes to toughen up our legs. To finish the session we powered around 5 minutes of fast laps with an active recovery after each circuit.

Thanks for coming along tonight, hope to see you all again next week!

Smooth Running

Joel

Woohoo - on tour! We went North for the first time ever for our 'on tour' series and the wonderful GG Barnetwere our hosts! Thanks for your help with organising and for generally being awesome North London-ers!

So here's what you missed, didn't hear or just want to recap on:

Heroes:

• You can't keep Beth Hoskins down and she topped the good deed charts with 22 good deeds in August!

Speaking of Beth, in September she reached the incredible milestone of 500 good deeds - give her a cheer here, and read her story here and here! Congrats Beth, an inspiration to us all!

• Congratulations to GG Lambeth who had the most new runners last month with 25!

• Congratulations to GG Camden who not only smashed through the 200 barrier but also the 300 with the most total attendances last month of 317!

• Finally there were 11 new black tshirt wearers (50 good deeds) and 8 people earnt their wings (100 good deeds) - well done all of you!

News

• More new areas as we opened in Barnsley, Leicester and Ipswich!

• An amazing 61 GG runners took on the Tywyn train over various distances. Hats off to the four runners (Paul Bown, Graham Atkins, Sam Needham and Jacob Smith. Big thanks to our organisers Beth (is there anything she can't do?!) and Aidan!

• We're a big fan of getting the media and Ivo was at it again with a fantastic piece on the marathontalk podcast. Check it out from 51:50!

Boring Bit

• Hit up the missions please - we have loads, it's a great way to meet other runners, you don't have to run there and it can be a nice stepping stone to coach running too! Check out the new missions selector here.

• TaskForce - I keep going on about it but this is your chance to have your say in the way GG is run and to be a real influence in your own areas. Ask me or your trainer about joining or setting up a TaskForce in your area!

and last but not least...the International Pun of the Month:

"We've got to shovel what? You've goat to be kidding me" from GoodGym Lewisham!

Big thank you to GG Barnet as we broke the North for the first time!

That's all from me but get in touch with questions, suggestions and anything else! (pritesh@goodgym.org/07887802793/@pritski)

p.s. Please do follow me on twitter if you can for many many GG related updates and also join the 'Unofficial' Facebook Group here (remember to state your area) for more info on races, training runs, socials and other news from the GG community.