Yule log loads of miles tonight

Three newbs tonight. Welcome Dwane, Eden and Anita. Also nice to see John from Lambeth (looking for Mark and the other John who didn't show ) and to see Andy back again.

Kike led a group of four to St. Luke's. Here's what went down:

4 good gymers including newcomer Eden headed back to St Luke's to continue our good work in their back yard. Our run to the task mostly involved talking about missions and how awesome they are and how rubbish the burst water main on Upper street is. Our nice back route kept us off the main roads and we mostly had the streets to ourselves.

When we arrived at St Luke's we got our head around the task - to arrange a big pile of logs in to the bottom of the planters which will help with the drainage. It looked simple enough but turned in to being a bit like giant, irregular Jenga as we needed to ensure none of the logs were overlapping but only had 5cm max gaps between them.

Our team work prevailed and we managed to fill the 3 designated planters before jumping into one for a cheeky selfie. After finding out a bit more about the centre (more info here http://www.slpt.org.uk/), how it is funded and how great their cafe is (great tasting food and the profit funds the centre) we headed home safe in the knowledge we had truly logged a good deed!

Kike

The rest of us travelled to Caxton House to make some bamboo lanterns for the giant fir tree outside. Split into pairs we worked away, bending, snipping and masking-taping until we each had a beautiful lantern. But whose was best? Put to the democratic vote cheer Frances and Dwane won hands down.

Debate: should advent calendars have 24 or 25 days? Fairly evenly split. Other votes were "I don't care" and "They should start on 1st Jan".

It doesn't matter anyway, since according to Dwane, "their days are numbered".

Biscuits: Thanks to Alex CS for supplying Jammy Dodgers and posh ginger Christmas ones.

We're all going back to Caxton House next week to decorate the lanterns with tissue paper. That's gonna be our last run until after Christmas.

See you then,
Simon