"I'm late, I'm late, I'm very very late, hello, goodbye", like the white rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, Sam (for the first time in his 2.5 years as Area Activator) was very late for the group run and opening Old Spike Peckham as he was held back at work.

Arriving at 18:47, Sam saw everyone gather outside Old Spike Peckham, but to add to his woes, he found out for the first time too that whoever locked up Old Spike Peckham locked the bottom lock too, which he didn't have. Thinking on the spot, he asked the Georgian Wine Bar next door whether the run group could drop bags and coats in their cupboard room at the back. With some persuasion, the bar manager agreed. That was one less stress to deal with. Amongst all the chaos, Sam managed to introduce Tony who came for his first GoodGym session. Hooray and welcome!

The group were led by Paulin to the alleyway as she is preparing to complete her run leader training and wanted to put a practise in tonight. She did a quick jumping and squatting warm up to get us warm.

Noticing the time was approaching 19:00, Sam skipped the ice-breaker (for now) as he led from the front and Steve volunteered to backmark.

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Refreshed walls

Through the backstreets of Peckham, up Chadwick Road (the hill) and down towards Camberwell, we went as we stopped in various places to re-group. We finally made it to Salvation Army Camberwell Corps. in time (19:15) as we met Valentina, Folarin, Phil and Richard who opted to walk / cycle to the task.

After taking a moment to introduce Valentina and what happens at the Salvation Army in Lomond Grove, Valentina gave clear instructions on what needed to be done after learning what we did from the first session. We had to ensure the entrance hall was clear and that there was lining on the floor before any paint could come out. There was enough tools for everyone, so picking up a paint brush or roller and sharing a paint tray, which Lucy had kindly poured out, everyone picked their bit of the wall and concentrated on applying the second coat of paint.

Having missed out on the ice-breaker poll and question earlier, Sam proceeded to ask: Since it was National Pokemon Day on Tuesday, what is your favourite Pokemon from Pikachu, Squirtle, Charmander and Bulbasaur? Plus, he threw in the ice-breaker question which was to do with "Employee Appreciation Day" on Friday: Do you have any cool perks at work that you want to share?

Pikachu won by a few votes, but Squirtle was a close second. Isaac shouted out that his company is doing the 4 day working week (more or less) as he logs off by midday on Friday. Others had flexi-working, which is almost a similar concept, but with a 5 day working week contract.

Once the paint was out and conscious that we had to clean / wash up afterwards, after 30 minutes, we managed to put on a second coat of paint and the team started to head to the kitchen to wash up the water-based paint brushes, rollers and trays.

Valentina was happy with what we had achieved and she will get one or two volunteers to touch up certain parts of the wall that needs to be touched up.

By 20:05, we had to rush off back to Peckham as like a school bus, we said our goodbyes to Adrian, Andrada, Folarin, Isaac and Nelly. After a quick stretch and having reached the Georgian Wine Bar, it was only fair that we brought something from the bar/shop, so Sam and Steve bought a lovely deep red, which was recommended. A great way to end the night!

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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 bit of a hectic start and we managed to work out a solution to drop off our bags and coats thanks to the Georgian Wine Bar next door. I will ensure Old Spike Peckham does not lock the second lock next Wednesday. Thanks to Steve for backmarking both runs and kudos to everyone for getting stuck in. Another warm welcome to Tony and we hope to see you at another group run or GoodGym session soon. Next Wednesday will be a calm one as we run over to Denmark Hill and Champion Hill to deliver Get Rid Of And Donate (GROAD) flyers to homes and flats around there and on top of that, we have our monthly social, so why don't you join us?

Love was in the air! ❤️

10 love-sick (not really) GoodGymers opted for on a date night with GoodGym.

8 out of 10 cats...GoodGymers were up for the just under 3k group run to Salvation Army Camberwell Corps and met Sam at Old Spike. As runners came in, we caught up on our week and the festivities of Shrove Tuesday (Pancake Day) and Valentine's Day, the former social date was a more preferred topic. As 18:45 arrived, Sam promptly went through his usual GG intro speech and his ice-breaker snap-poll for the night was to do with, of course, Valentine's Day. Would you prefer to receive a dinner, gift or flowers? Everyone voted for dinner... Sam even prepared an ice-breaker question: Awkward / unusual first date question or scenario?

We had from consoling a Prince fan upon hearing he had died to the date assuming our GoodGymer took drugs in the bathroom (she just had a runny nose...) and from headbutting, the date leaving half through a date to spirit animals not matching....there's been a few awkward dates amongst us.

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You colour my world

After a quick warm-up in the alleyway, Sam led the group through the backstreets of Peckham and up Chadwick Road (the hill) and down towards Camberwell. We were quite pacey this time with Paulin backmarking (both ways). At the task, we met Valentina, Richard and their son, Lucas as well as newbie, Diana and arriving as we just arrived, Sander.

Richard and Valentina had prepared loads of paint, paint brushes and liners to put down to protect the carpeted floor. Yet, before we got going with the painting, our runners got a deserved drink of water, biscuits and heart-shaped Haribos sweets.

Since there were 10 of us and plenty of painting to be done, everyone picked up a paint brush, stirred the paint and concentrated on their section of the entrance hall. Diana and Joely concentrated on painting the main door from inside as it had received a lot of marks over the years. Isaac and Paulin had their fair share of paint on them as they took on the ceiling and high wall roller paint brushes. David, Fi, Laura, Sander, and Steve had smaller brushes to paint the finer parts of the walls.

In 45 minutes, with romantic tunes blasting, we managed to complete the first coat of paint. It was such a therapeutic task and we will be happy to come back in two weeks' time to put on a second coat. But next time, we will ensure we have plenty of time at the end to clean the paint brushes as we left that to the last minute and I feel guilty for leaving it all for Valentina to do!

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Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came out last night on Valentine's Day! Appreciate the love and the faster than usual pace on the run there and back! It was lovely to meet you Diana and thanks for coming back for your second GoodGym session, Joely. Finally, a massive thank you to Paulin for backmarking on both runs. We're off to Thorlands Gardens next Wednesday to continue with the garden project there!

Another Saturday session at Thorlands Gardens and this time, the team ensured the Garden was nice and tidy by weeding and continuing with the woodchip path as well as bringing over mulch for the beds.

Thank you to David, Laura, Jo, Maria, Michael and Tim for coming along.

With two group runs left until the end of our January Challenge, Sam was keeping his fingers crossed for a high attendance as this group run would not only contribute to the amount of good deeds, but since this was the longest group run distance, it would add a lot of kilometres to the distance target.

13 out of the 14 GoodGymers that came out tonight met at Old Spike Roastery for the start of the group run. We waited slightly longer as Alex was running late. Yet, knowing it was a longer run, Sam skipped the warm up, but delivered his typical GG speech including his ice-breaker question which was two snap polls to determine whether people liked Haggis and crunchy or smooth peanut butter as it was going to be Burns Night and National Peanut Butter Day.

It was pretty much a straight victory for "yay" to Haggis and "crunchy" peanut butter.

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Every day I'm shovellin'

Sam led the group out of Old Spike with Katy backmarked (both ways). We ran down the busy Rye Lane through the dark cycle/walking paths of Surrey Canal Walk before reaching Old Kent Road crossing over to the quiet backstreets of South Bermondsey. After running 3.7k, we arrived at Galleywall Nature Reserve to meet Emma, who lives close by.

Straight to it, Eddie talking through the two main tasks and one smaller task on offer. Sam split the group calling out on who wanted to shovel gravel into wheelbarrows: Isaac and Nathan were keen whilst operating the wheelbarrows: Daryl and Laura put their hands up. On the other end, when Daryl and Laura would tip the gravel onto the pre-determined areas, Alex and Elena would be there to rake it out to a smooth surface. The second major task was to secure three wooden beams into the growing bed, so that visitors and gardeners can walk on these beams rather than on the soil. More shovels were needed to dig out the soil, so Andrada, Emma, Katy, Sander and Steve took on this task. Finally, Tim took on the smaller task of finding bags of leaves and bringing them back to a pile that had already been stacked up for the leaf mulch they want to make. Maria was our resident photographer and videographer as she wants to start a TikTok account for us!

After 30 minutes, we had finished the three tonne bags of gravel (they weren't all full), secured the wooden beams and brought over the bags of leaves. Finishing the tasks with 10 minutes to spare!

Eddie was very pleased that he took videos and photos to share with the Galleywall Nature Reserve committee. We will be back at the tailend of February to get the reserve ready for Spring! We all ran back apart from Elena and Emma as they live closeby and Andrada peeled off towards the end to go home. The rest that stayed on made it back to Old Spike and were treated to Lindy's belated 200th good deed cake. We ate it for her as unfortunately, she dropped out from tonight's task last minute.

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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 long run than our usual distances, but we managed to blitz through the task in 30 minutes in our alloted 40 minutes. Thank you to Katy for backmarking and thank you to all for consistently coming to these group runs - it means a lot for me. Next week: it's the last one for our January Challenge and we're cleaning the local streets up with a "litter pick bingo".