We're fully booked 📚

After a bitterly cold start to the day (and week), it was an inviting feeling to be welcomed into the cosy and delightful Old Spike Roastery! To my surprise, Adam, was the first to arrive as I saw him sign up to another task tonight, which I found out from him got cancelled. Hannah, Emma , Rebecca and Katy arrived one after another in a short space of time. I looked at my watch and it had just turned 18:30! Thus, everyone arrived early. Thinking we could go for a longer run, but I looked at the sign-ups and saw that we still had Emma on the list as I knew we were going to meet Liam at the task. Yet, when it struck 18:45, there was no sign of Emma and after letting everyone know of what's coming up, we headed outside to the alleyway for a quick warm-up. Yet, I knew the run would warm us up more, so after our ice breaker question - What are you thankful for today or this week? - we headed out for our short group run into Peckham Rye park!

Thankful for you coming out tonight to help out, thankful for my lovely flatmates, thankful for going out on this run tonight and meeting new people...

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Short Group Run run

The contrast from last week couldn't have been any more different! From running a constant 8k run (as we were flyering) to running half of Peckham Rye Park before heading down to Nunhead Green. The 1.9k (let's round it up to 2k) route took us 12 minutes (including waiting for two traffic lights). It just about kept our bodies warm from the warmth of Old Spike to the warmth of Salvation Army Nunhead.

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Setting up a bookstore

Where's Polis?!?

Liam was waiting for us outside Salvation Army Nunhead as we jogged in. There was no sign of Polis, so after a quick text and a call, he came down to greet us. We were back for more! A couple of week's ago, we assisted Polis shift and lift bags (and I mean BAGS) of books from the storage space underneath the stairwell to the first floor and started sorting these books out into categories. Yet, this time around when we came up to the first floor, there were signs that the space had turned into a mini bookstore. Polis had made a start with it, but needed our help to tidy up and organise the space.

CDs, DVDs, hardback, softback, gardening, children and more

There were so many books, CDs and DVDs that were donated and Polis mentioned that they get a daily donation of books. We had a set task and 45 minutes to spruce up the place, so we split into three/four teams. Hannah and Emma were on softbacks in all sorts of categories from romance to cookbooks. Rebecca and Katy were tidying up the children's and hardback section whilst Adam (close by) was sorting out a very niche set of books. Liam and I were in charge of sorting the DVDs and CDs left in plastic bags and boxes and putting them on the trays. We were all entertained to whatever song was coming from the radio and of course, Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas" came on for the first (and probably not the last) time this year!

Video cassettes, tapes and Guinness Book of Records 2013

Maybe a bit of a pessimistic comment, but items that will be collecting dust for many years to come.

Before we knew it, the task was approaching 20:00. The time seemed to vanish as we finished off our sections. All the unsorted books were placed under the table and covered up for us to tackle another time. We had just enough time for the all important group photo before wishing Polis well.

I knew the group run back would be shorter (600m) to get back to Old Spike, but still thought we should finish off with some stretches on the green despite not running a massive amount tonight.

Thank You Polis

GoodGym is all about getting fit and doing good! We praise the runners/cyclists/walkers who come to get fit and help out, but we often forget about our task owners and I would like to take this opportunity to thank Polis for agreeing to stay later than usual and host us. We'll be back for our final Group Run of the year to help out with more book sorting and other smaller tasks!