Clean On Me

Doing things the Lewisham Way, 27 terrific athletes trotted 5km and got busy with the warm soapy water at MOSAC.

To your average commuter, heading home through Lewisham, this was a regular, slightly grey, freezing cold Monday evening, but to us it was full of warmth and LOVE. We like to celebrate the achievements of our fellow runners on Medal Monday and tonight was no exception, with shout-outs for our GoodGym Race Team members Nykolette, Conroy and Chris, who took part in Saturday's Met League cross country. This is the first time the team has taken part in a full season and the women came 6th and the men 4th - top work team! We also congratulated Milly on her parkrun PB and (in her absence) Rebecca on her first ever parkrun. Our celebrations took a turn for the extra special though, when Emma shared some happy news from her weekend...she got engaged! Congratulations Emma and Jack, you romantic pair, you gave us a spring in our step tonight :)

In the midst of all this Monday madness, we also welcomed two brand new GoodGym runners, Lewisham Love this week goes to Rachel and Juliet, welcome! We also opened our arms to Alice, who is an old hand at this group run thing, having clocked up an impressive 161 good deeds already, but was joining us here in Lewisham for the first time, lovely to see you Alice!

Squat's mud got to do with it?

Tonight's warm-up saw us shaking hands with our partner and squatting in the mud, we have all the fun. It's been a while since we ran out along the Lewisham Way, always a treat running up, up, up, giving a sideways glance to the rather delightful phone box library as we go - thank you to Clare and Conroy for keeping us together at the back. A quick sort through my group run memory bank and I can only think of one other task that has taken us to the heart of Brockley and that was when we delivered the Brockley Society Newsletter ages ago. This week we were right in there at Brockley Cross, helping out at a new task with MOSAC. MOSAC have been working to support parents and carers of abused children for over 25 years now, offering support through their telephone helpline, therapy and advocacy services. Tonight we were going to be giving their offices a good old clean.

You missed a bit!

Our first challenge was fitting everyone in! The space is big, with lots of smaller rooms leading off a long corridor, but when you try to squeeze 27 people in and organise them into groups, it can feel a little overwhelming! Taking it one group at a time, we split into the various areas, with people working on different tasks.

• washing the toys from the play therapy room (good thinking on the dishwasher!)
• cleaning and replenishing the sand trays (harder than it sounds)
• changing the light bulbs in the play therapy room
• sweeping and tidying the outside space
• cleaning the handrails, ledges, walls etc in the stairwell
• hoovering the stairwell and corridor (great work Chris!)
• cleaning the windows, lots and lots of windows, with great attention to detail (useful pointing Monica!)
• tidying and cleaning the toy shelves

I think that's everything!

After counting down and dragging people away from rubbing determinedly at a tiny smear on the glass (Malcolm, Alys, fine work there), we had to find a space big enough to take our group photo - thank you Kim for directing us at this point! As we left and made our way back to base, we also paused briefly to capture our group in front of the gorgeous 'Brockley - walk this way' mural, one that we have been waiting to add to our collection for a while now. Our run back was a little less gritty, with residential streets (and a little extra residential street, as I got distracted hearing Emma's romantic story, taking us in the wrong direction - sorry!) and skirting alongside Hilly Fields, with a sweeping downhill to home.

Thank you for sharing such delicious treats Emma and showing us some sparkle.

Next week is another new task, I know, exciting times! We are visiting VAL, Voluntary Action Lewisham, where we will be doing some painting, no snazzy kit please! If you're new to GoodGym, don't forget that you can click on any names highlighted in red here and give them a cheer. You can also keep up-to-date with any news and updates by following us on Twitter @GGLewisham.

Have a great week and see you at Hilly Fields parkrun or on Monday at Glass Mill.