Last night, 14 Goodgymmers came out to help out at Galleywall Nature Reserve.

First to arrive at our meeting point, Old Spike, was Steve, who had been away recently. Whilst we caught up, newbie Chong arrived - and then nipped back out to check out a bike shop. Similarly, Isaac came dashing in, only to dash back out to do a quick lap of the Rye. Emma, Sarah, Nelly, Fi, Tim and Katy arrived and stayed 😅

Once everyone had arrived, I started welcome speech, and we gave a proper welcome to Chong. Our ice breaker question this week was related to the task... "Imagine we're going on a nature walk together, what do you see?". Tim started us off with a caterpillar, Chong gave some insight into his favourite sports team, and everyone else built a beautiful scene with a river, a waterfall, some salmon swimming in the river, some light filtering through the trees...🥹. It was a great team effort!

After a quick warm-up, we set off on our 4k run to Galleywall. I think it was the warmest day we've had this year, so it was a sweaty one!

When we arrived at Galleywall, James, Richard, Daryl and Andrada were already there. Eddie from Galleywall welcomed us and explained to us the task: we had to move some logs out of a ditch, and then put them back in a less haphazard manner, so that it would be safe for children.

Even though outcome was clear, we were not certain about how to achieve it initially. Steve came up with the idea of taking everything out the ditch, and then putting the big things back first, to give a stable base, so we rolled with that. We got into pairs and started to self-organise, and we completed the task surprisingly quickly.

Eddie came to inspect out work, and during this, he had the idea to dismantle some of the bug hotels so that people at the bus stop would be able to look through the "windows" to see into the nature reserve. After some discussion and experimentation, we opened up two windows.

At some point Daryl got separately picked to mow the grass.

Just as I started to worry that there may not be enough work for us, Eddie came round with laminated booklets which was a guided nature walk of the nature reserve. We split off into fours and off we went!

We finished at 8pm exactly to run/walk/cycle back to Peckham, perfect timing for our social at Skylarking. 🍻

Last night 12 Goodgymmers ran 3k (and back) to the Old Alleynian Rugby club. It was an unusual session because Sam was not leading, and instead it was me - Paulin! The session started with cake - a surprise from Sam to celebrate my 300th good deed. Then it was over to me, starting with the welcome speech and the warm up.

The ice-breaker was a work-related question from me about things you’d ask to a chat bot that recommends recipes. The questions we came up with ranged from practical “What can I cook with only two tins of beans?” to morbid “What should I eat that is less than 50 calories?”. Either way, very useful market research, thanks a lot!

Once we arrived at the rugby club, we were met by Ian, who had the floodlights on ready for us. Our first task was to seed a muddy pitch, and it was great to see everyone self organise to methodically cover the whole area. After that, we did some edging - which means scraping off the edge of some grass which had overgrown into the carpark.

After a quick photo and some chocolate treats from Ian, we ran back to Old Spike. At the end when we were cooling down and stretching, we “collaboratively” remembered the task for next week’s group run, as well as a few missions that are on this week-end (Thorlands on Saturday at 12 and Peckham Rye Junior parkrun on Sunday at 9am.

Despite it being the end of the January Challenge, we still had plenty of GoodGymers keen to run on a Wednesday night and do good in their local area! Sam opened up Old Spike to meet the friendly faces of Daryl, David, Isaac, Lucy, Maria, Nelly, Roberta, Steve and Tim.

Sam went through his usual GG intro speech and tonight, he only had an ice-breaker snap-poll, which was to do with National (deep-pan) Pizza Day (in the US) and Lunar New Year happening on Saturday. He asked which one you would order when having an food app up: deep pan or Chinese?

Winning by a few votes was Chinese!

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Brushing up on our painting skills

After a quick warm-up in the alleyway, Sam led the group out back onto Rye Lane with Lindy backmarking as she was carrying her work items with her (as she wanted to make her way back home after the task). Speedy Sam rushed down Rye Lane, Surrey Canal Walk and into Burgess Park (with a slight diversion) before 500 metres later arriving at St. Mary Newington Close to find James, Paulin and Phil already tucking into a tub of pink paint and applying it onto a wooden bench. Yes, we came over to Southwark Communities to apply another lick of paint on the donated garden furniture as Spring is just around the corner and the residents will be out and about enjoying the garden. At the task, we met Lottie (task owner), Folarin and eventually, after taking the bus over, Louise.

With loads of paint tins and paint brushes, Sam split the team:

• As mentioned, James, Paulin and Phil applied pink paint to a bench and had to quickly sand a mossy chair before quickly putting pink paint on it.
• Daryl, Isaac and Lindy painted two wooden chairs pink.
• Folarin, Lucy and Steve initially had to sand a bench before applying a grey-ish green paint.
• Louise, Maria and Tim concentrated on one wooden bench and painted it blue.
• David, Nelly and Roberta applied blue paint on two wooden chairs.

It was such a therapeutic task and we had plenty of time (40 minutes) to apply a good coat of paint. Once it came to time, we took back the paint and paint brushes to the kitchen to wash up before taking our mandatory group photo.

On the way back, we said goodbye to a couple of runners as they peeled off home, but those who stayed until the end got a lovely stretch!

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Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came out last night! It was a chilly night, but hopefully running faster than usual helped with warming the core. Thank you to Daryl and Lindy for backmarking on the run. We're off to Salvation Army Camberwell Corps next Wednesday for more painting on Valentine's Day!