Marking our marq(uee)!

29 GoodGymers braced the drizzle with GoodGym Camden on Wednesday night's run up to the Kentish Town City Farm.

Turning up at the Living Centre to locked doors and nobody at Reception, we decamped to the main Crick Institute reception for our intro. We had a load of new runners with us tonight, as well as a group of tourists from GoodGym Tower Hamlets. Welcome Andy, May, and Khaliun! You certainly picked a good night to join us, and I hope you enjoyed yourselves.

We'll be running back to the Kentish Town City Farm next week for the marquee takedown by the way - get your name down for some goat petting and manure-bag moving!

After a rapid fire intro and warmup we got going - so the question was asked of the new runners to find out what actuallyis the difference between a community mission and a mission? Do you know? Answers at the bottom of this report please!

Our task

Arriving to the sweet smell of wafting manure, we met Mel from the City Farm who told us all about the task:

• Assembling and erecting the two marquees ahead of their annual Apple Day on Sunday.

We split into two teams and got stuck in, using wheelbarrows, people power and our headtorches - thanks again this week Hanry - we marched up to the field to get them built.

Teams seem to be becoming a regular thing in these reports, and this week was no different; Marquee Team A were pitted against Marquee Team B in the battle of the marquees.

Which poles went where proved to be a challenge for both teams, but with the best GoodGym minds at work both marquees were up in 15 minutes flat, with Team B being the far and away winners. With both marquees up, it was time to gather the manure bags to tie to the bottom of the poles to make sure they didn't fly away in a gust of wind.

With our task completed - and 24 bags of poo tied (pendulously some might add) - we assembled for a team photo and after an extra 5 minutes petting the goats and checking on the piggies we said goodbye to Mel and sprinted back to the Living Centre for a cool down and - for some of us - a trip to the pub.

Next time

COMMUNITY MISSIONS GALORE: As mentioned on the run, there's not one but TWO community missions to get stuck in with this week. Thursday (24th) will be another trip to Story Garden. Turn up from 5pm and help do some good with Abi. For those of you who can't do weekdays, Mel and the team would love to see you up at the Kentish Town City Farm on the Apple Day itself this coming Sunday from 11am-4pm. Liz is organising this one - head here to sign up. Don't worry if you can't do the whole time, just comment on the signup page which hours you can do.

NEXT WEEK: So next time, we'll be running back up to the Kentish Town City Farm for Apple Day Part 2 (The Takedown!) to take down the marquees we put up last night. It's yet another opportunity to pet the goats and see the oinking pigs, so there really is no excuse good enough not to attend.

Happy Running!

Ben