Ooft. The suit suits you, sir!

A whopping 35 runners trooped out of St Pancras & Somers Living Centre on Wednesday night to get out and do some good in Camden.

We had two newbies join the herd - welcome Collette and Katie - as well as TWO big celebrations of the milestone variety:

Becs (as in the Rebecca Clarke, GoodGym Media and Comms extraordinaire) reached her 50 Good Deeds milestone tonight and Laura Lambert hit 100 Good Deeds! Stop reading right now and go and give them a cheer! Well done to you both. Big milestones deserve cake baked by Liz, but more on that later.

As normal, the team split with 10 runners going with John to C4WS and the rest of the rabble coming with me to see Helen in the Camden Scope shop on the high street.

C4WS Report (by John)

A group of 11 threaded their way through the crowded streets of St Pancras and Bloomsbury, avoiding swiftly opened van doors on the way, for our 12th visit this winter to the homeless people's shelter at the American International Church. We knew the routine by now, setting up a human chain to move sheets, mattresses and other bedding from a storage area to the warm area where less fortunate Londoners can spend a night away from the streets and enjoy a hot meal in comfort. In a few minutes we achieved what would have taken an hour for the busy helpers in the church. Afterwards we jogged back to Granary Square for a fitness session: three laps round St Martin's School of Art at a steadily increasing pace, before a relaxing warm-down on the swivel chairs at Coal Drops Yard.

Scope Report

23 of us arrived to Helen's Scope shop in Camden high street, ready to get stuck in. A queue formed and our very drilled taskmaster handed out the jobs to the waiting teams. Jewellery needed sorting and pricing, mannequins needed re-dressing (by the GoodGym visual merchandising team - "Sorry if it's 'Devil Wears Prada' but I think we need a belt here."), shoes needed polishing, donations needed sorted (and steaming) and the upstairs office needed an early spring clean. So many jobs and so little time, but we managed to do them all and boy did that place shine as we left.

By the time both teams got back to base, it was time for blondies and fudge (both made my the inimitable Liz!) to celebrate the two big Good Deed milestones. Liz's recipe for the delicious blondies are at the bottom of the report if you'd like to try at home.

NEXT TIME

COMMUNITY MISSIONS AHOY: There's not one but TWO plogging Community Missions today - one at 1pm at Red Lion Square Gardens and the other is Glebelands Wood Nature Reserve from 4:45-5:20pm! Let's beat Lambeth to be the top scoring London GoodGym in the January Challenge. We can do it!

NEXT GROUP RUN: It's official, we're going back to Alara Wholefoods and there'll be a box of granola in it for every runner after you've helped shift some manure, tidy up the pond and do some weeding. A smaller group of us will be heading back to C4WS to make the beds again. It's going to be a brilliant night whichever task you choose.

Liz's Peanut Butter and White Chocolate Blondies:

Ingredients

125 g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

100 g butter at room temperature, plus extra for greasing

150 g crunchy peanut butter

175 g light brown sugar

1 egg, beaten

1 tsp vanilla extract

100 g white chocolate, chopped

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 170C/gas 3. Butter the sides of a 20 x 20cm square cake tin and line the base with greaseproof paper.

2. Sift the flour and baking powder into a small bowl and set aside.

3. In a large bowl, cream the butter and peanut butter together until very soft. Add the sugar, egg and vanilla extract and beat until well combined. Add the flour, baking powder and the chopped chocolate and mix to form a dough.

4. Place the dough into the prepared tin and bake in the oven for 25–30 minutes, or until golden brown and almost firm in the centre.

5. Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tin, before removing and cutting into squares.

6. Eat!