In the market for the community

Over 30 runners turned out on what was a rather nice Tuesday evening (we have definitely broken winter, good times ahead). Three tasks lay in wait, and three tasks were nailed and very much enjoyed.

Quick shout out to regular runner Tom Benson for coming 7th in the Clapham 15km at the weekend in a very swift time of 1hr 5 mins…. Tom’s improvement has been formidable. That is some serious running right there.

Anyway, back to the report. Here’s a little write up of all three tasks… thanks to James and Niamh for your excellent reports.

Portico Gallery, West Norwood. 5.5 miles

What is community? Why is community? These were the questions on John's mind as we arrived at the Portico gallery, pillar of West Norwood, ostensibly to wash the walls in preparation for an imminent painting. He'd been reading up on the link between the evolutionary desire for safety and how this manifests itself in communal activities, such as ceilidh's, yoga and running in a group to help people. And so we gloved up and got to work scrubbing the walls with sugar soap and pondered other questions. If you accidentally drown a spider called Gregory while washing a particularly web infested corner of a room, does that make you a bad person? If you poo on a plane and make a smell so bad that it has to turn around, is that antisocial or just unfortunate? How many goodgymers does it take to make a real difference to the cleanliness of a room in the portico gallery? 11 it turns out. And so we bade John the human and Methuselah the cat a fond farewell and trotted back to Brixton at a merry pace, ruminating on some of the new views and meanings that we had encountered that evening. When you use your run like we had, goodgym can be the only community you'll ever need.

James Barnard

Holland Estate, Oval. 2.5 miles

A group of us set off for Holland Park Estate, Rebecca's sage safety advice ringing in our ears "don't twat anyone with a spade". After a pacey mile and a bit run, we arrived in the estate and were greeted by Amena. After splitting into two groups a few of us started once again to tackle the Ivy which was infiltrating one of the residents' gardens. Janet's garden was still carpeted with a thick layer of the weed but there was a clear difference from what we did last week. However it turned out that under the ivy was...more ivy. As we flexed our muscles yanking at roots and filled 4 more green bags with the stuff, Sarah told us all about her upcoming fundraising challenge. She and a group of ladies from her swimming club are rowing 6 miles up the Thames to raise money for 'AHOY', a fantastic charity that does nautical activities with underprivileged kids and teaches them some important life skills along the way. Shameless plug If you want to sponsor Sarah and her team, who have never rowed before and so are training hard for the event, then speak to her at Goodgym and she can give you the details. We finished up for the evening and Amena waved us off, declaring one of the group who had been helping in the garden 'the king of bridal weed' - high praise indeed! Niamh

Coldharbour Lane, Brixton 1.5 miles (and circuits)

The rest of us took a shorter run to Coldharbour Lane. To meet John at Somerleyton Road to help work on a disused car park that was going to be turned into a night market.

We got stuck in hacking away and a bit of waste land and clearing up leaves and rubbish as John told us the plans for the site as a hub for the community to enjoy the arts and music at the night market. Famous Brixton Street artist Mary turned up and she’ll be providing the art for the wall, both watched amazed as the small group of GoodGymers make a huge difference to the ground.

Amongst all the digging, hoeing and raking there was also time for a few games of wheel barrow sprints and circuits, ensuring everyone’s legs got as much of a work out as their backs.

Before we headed back John took loads of photos and we ran off being cheered for our efforts (or were they cheering because we were leaving? Who knows}. A great task for an exciting community venture, and we’ll be going back to help more until the night market is up and running. They we’ll go back to party and toast our efforts.