Alex Bowring


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Doing good since December 2022

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Alex Bowring
Alex Bowring went on a community mission

Mon 26th Feb at 6:00pm

On Motivational Mondays, we Sh(r)ed

Southwark Report written by Sam Lefevre (he/him)

After work, Alex, Daryl, Gemma, Maria, Paulin and Sam met up at St. Faith's Community centre to help Andrea pack her van for the rough sleeper project, but since she received loads of donations on Sunday she needed help to clear the porch and put these new donations in Shed 2. We spent the first 20 minutes organising Shed 2 before half the team concentrated on preparing the rough sleeper bags whilst Maria and Sam put away foldable tables in Shed 2 that they forgot to put away.

We were all done with 15 minutes to spare! Many hands make light work.

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Sam Lefevre
Alex Bowring
Alex Bowring signed up to a community mission.

Mon 26th Feb at 6:00pm

Pack bags for GROAD's rough sleepers project @ St. Faith's

Prepare and give back donated warm clothes and essentials to the most vulnerable in society

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Sam Lefevre
Alex Bowring
Alex Bowring went on a group run

Wed 21st Feb at 6:30pm

Swiftly getting things done ✅

Southwark Report written by Sam Lefevre (he/him)

This wasn't our usual Wednesday night group run as we welcomed not just one, but three newbies: Alex, Damian and Louise came to claim their first good deed with GoodGym. Tonight was our special collaboration with Swifty Mondays running club.

Despite it raining all day, there was a dry window of opportunity, which happened to land on Wednesday evening. Our regular runners started to trickle into Old Spike in Peckham and as 18:45 arrived, Sam promptly went through his usual GG intro speech, but adding the 3 ways of getting involved with GoodGym for the newbies. Tonight, his ice-breaker snap-poll was to do with National Love Your Pet Day, which was on Tuesday. The options were: Cat, Dog, Other or Neither? There were a couple of votes for "Neither", one for "Other" (Goat) and "Dog" took the snap poll over "Cat" by a few votes. Sam even prepared an ice-breaker question that correlated with National Margarita Day (on Thursday) and he asked "Favourite cocktail or mocktail?"

Some found cocktails too sweet and opting for Gin & Tonic, there were a few saying "that cocktail with the mint..." Mojito, Manhattan and Long Island Ice Tea, but no one said Margarita until Rosalind said it at the pub.


Thank you very mulch, Swifties

After a quick warm-up in the alleyway, Sam led the group through the backstreets of Peckham and up Chadwick Road (the hill) and down towards Denmark Hill. We made a couple of stops along the way to re-group with Maria backmarking (both ways). Arriving at Thorlands on time, we met Simon, Rosalind, Jo and Vic who opted to walk / cycle to the task.

After gathering our tools needed for the various tasks from the "Walled Garden", we proceed to the "Forest Garden" to put down the tools and split the group, but not before Sam could explain the vision of this brownfield site.

There were three tasks available:

  • Lindy led a group to the mulch / woodchip depo to bring wheelbarrows of mulch for the beds where we will grow exotic trees. Alex, Damian, Louise and Rosalind joined Lindy.
  • A team consisting of the "True Swifties" - Jo, Maria, Nelly and Vic concentrated on weeding the beds as they needed to prepare this in time before the mulch movers came with wheelbarrows of mulch.
  • Alex, Daryl and Isaac continued with the woodchip path. They dug, flattened (by raking) and put a layer of cardboard and woodchip.
  • Louise was our resident photographer for the night, but also helped with the weeding.

In 40 minutes, we managed to take out all the weeds, bring eight wheelbarrow's worth of mulch and continue with the woodchip path by over 2 - 3 metres! Well done team! Maybe the extra motivation came from those Taylor Swift songs...

With the clocks hitting 20:00, we quickly put back the tools before running off back to Old Spike for a quick stretch as most of us were up for a pint (or two) at The White Horse.


Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came out last night! A great collab night with the Swifties! It was lovely to meet you Alex, Damian and Louise. Hope we can do another session in the Spring/Summer. Finally, a massive thank you to Maria for backmarking on both runs. We're off to Salvation Army Camberwell Corps. next Wednesday to put on a second coat of paint in their entrance room, so why don't you join us?

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Sevan
Sam Lefevre
Alex Bowring
Alex Bowring signed up to a group run.

Wed 21st Feb at 6:30pm

Group Run: Community Gardening at Thorlands

Tidying up this community garden as we continue with its project and vision

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Alex Bowring
Alex Bowring went on a group run

Wed 31st Jan at 6:30pm

Lit(t)erally, blown away by Maria's major milestone

Southwark Report written by Sam Lefevre (he/him)

We came into this last group run of January knowing that we needed 12 more good deeds to reach our our January Challenge! Sam was keeping his fingers crossed for at least 12 Southwark members. With 21 sign ups, it was looking hopeful. Slowly, but surely, people started to stream into Old Spike. By 18:45, he looked up at everyone and gave a silent count. 14 faces, but 11 Southwark members... but just as he was about to start his speech, David entered the door. We did it, 200 good deeds in January! Hit both targets having already hit our distance target of 2,000km.

There was a lot to get through tonight, but we started by welcoming Chalomi and Jack from Central Team as well as David and Roberta who came for their second GoodGym session. Yet, tonight was special as not only we were celebrating hitting our targets and GG Southwark's 8th birthday, but Maria after four months and a half from her first good deed hit her 100th! Claiming her wings (and a cake) in the process. Kudos and well done Maria!

Sam went through his usual GG intro speech and his ice-breaker snap-poll and question tonight was about National Croissant Day and National Hot Chocolate Day, which fell on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively. He asked which one is more preferable: croissant or hot chocolate? He also asked, if anyone wanted to share about their January highlights.

For the snap poll and winning by one vote....croissant! People's January highlights included going on holiday, birthdays, raves and learning new skills.


"Is Stormzy from Southwark?"

After a quick warm-up in the alleyway, Sam led the group out of Old Spike with Maria backmarked (both ways). The idea was to do a loop around Peckham Rye Park but speedy Sam realised parts of the group were behind, so he decided to change it up last minute and do an "out and back" course. It was a busy night in the park with other runners and Peckham Pacers. Yet, after our just under 4k run, we made it back to Old Spike to take a breather and a sip of Athletic Brewing IPAs.

With litter pickers and black bin bags at the ready, we had to split the group into four teams to cover 4 different areas:

The rules were simple. Tick off as many items on the litter bingo card in 30 minutes and cover as much distance as the winning team would be determined by items x by distance (in kilometres) = points.

After 30 minutes, each team came back with two bags worth of litter and ticked off their items (out of 25). The results were as following:

  • 4th place: Team Peckham = 22 items x 1.75km (38.5 points)
  • 3rd place: Team Nunhead = 21 items x 2.75km (57.75 points)
  • 2nd place: Team East Dulwich = 23 items x 2.95k (67.85 points)
  • 1st place: Team Queen's Road Peckham = 23 items x 3km (69 points)

The winning team took home small body gels from Body Shop. There were awards for those in Southwark that did more than 5 good deeds and covered more than 25 kilometres plus we had cake to celebrate GG Southwark's 8th birthday and Maria's 100th good deed milestone before most of us headed to The Old Nun's Head for a few drinks and pizza!


Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came out last night! I did go off on a faster pace than usual as I was conscious of time. It was a long run, but we managed to squeeze in the 4k run and a litter pick after my longer than usual speech and ice-breaker. Thank you to Maria for backmarking, Paulin, Emma, Katy and Laura for being sub-team leaders for the litter pick bingo. Finally, thank you to all for coming to these group runs in January, we managed to reach our targets!

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Jack Da Silva

Mon 5th Feb at 9:44am

Thanks for the warm welcome all, great to meet you!

Alex Bowring
Alex Bowring signed up to a group run.

Wed 31st Jan at 6:30pm

Group Run: Litter Pick Bingo & GG Southwark 8th birthday party

Clean up the streets around Peckham, Nunhead and East Dulwich

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Alex Bowring
Alex Bowring went on a group run

Wed 24th Jan at 6:30pm

Gravel (with GoodGym), it's not just a road surface, it's a lifestyle!

Southwark Report written by Sam Lefevre (he/him)

With two group runs left until the end of our January Challenge, Sam was keeping his fingers crossed for a high attendance as this group run would not only contribute to the amount of good deeds, but since this was the longest group run distance, it would add a lot of kilometres to the distance target.

13 out of the 14 GoodGymers that came out tonight met at Old Spike Roastery for the start of the group run. We waited slightly longer as Alex was running late. Yet, knowing it was a longer run, Sam skipped the warm up, but delivered his typical GG speech including his ice-breaker question which was two snap polls to determine whether people liked Haggis and crunchy or smooth peanut butter as it was going to be Burns Night and National Peanut Butter Day.

It was pretty much a straight victory for "yay" to Haggis and "crunchy" peanut butter.


Every day I'm shovellin'

Sam led the group out of Old Spike with Katy backmarked (both ways). We ran down the busy Rye Lane through the dark cycle/walking paths of Surrey Canal Walk before reaching Old Kent Road crossing over to the quiet backstreets of South Bermondsey. After running 3.7k, we arrived at Galleywall Nature Reserve to meet Emma, who lives close by.

Straight to it, Eddie talking through the two main tasks and one smaller task on offer. Sam split the group calling out on who wanted to shovel gravel into wheelbarrows: Isaac and Nathan were keen whilst operating the wheelbarrows: Daryl and Laura put their hands up. On the other end, when Daryl and Laura would tip the gravel onto the pre-determined areas, Alex and Elena would be there to rake it out to a smooth surface. The second major task was to secure three wooden beams into the growing bed, so that visitors and gardeners can walk on these beams rather than on the soil. More shovels were needed to dig out the soil, so Andrada, Emma, Katy, Sander and Steve took on this task. Finally, Tim took on the smaller task of finding bags of leaves and bringing them back to a pile that had already been stacked up for the leaf mulch they want to make. Maria was our resident photographer and videographer as she wants to start a TikTok account for us!

After 30 minutes, we had finished the three tonne bags of gravel (they weren't all full), secured the wooden beams and brought over the bags of leaves. Finishing the tasks with 10 minutes to spare!

Eddie was very pleased that he took videos and photos to share with the Galleywall Nature Reserve committee. We will be back at the tailend of February to get the reserve ready for Spring! We all ran back apart from Elena and Emma as they live closeby and Andrada peeled off towards the end to go home. The rest that stayed on made it back to Old Spike and were treated to Lindy's belated 200th good deed cake. We ate it for her as unfortunately, she dropped out from tonight's task last minute.


Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came out last night! It was a long run than our usual distances, but we managed to blitz through the task in 30 minutes in our alloted 40 minutes. Thank you to Katy for backmarking and thank you to all for consistently coming to these group runs - it means a lot for me. Next week: it's the last one for our January Challenge and we're cleaning the local streets up with a "litter pick bingo".

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Sam Lefevre
Alex Bowring
Alex Bowring signed up to a group run.

Wed 24th Jan at 6:30pm

Group Run: Back to the Nature Reserve [Winter edition] 🌱

Helping the Nature Reserve with their re-development project and get the site "winter ready"

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Alex Bowring
Alex Bowring went on a community mission

Sat 6th Jan at 12:00pm

Thawning at Thorlands

Southwark Report written by Sam Lefevre (he/him)

It wasn't that cold, but the pun for the title works.

We welcomed Holly who came for her first ever GoodGym session and claimed her first good deed.

As we gathered at the Walled Garden to get the tools, we decided to use these next two Saturdays to prepare for the group run on Wednesday 17th, when we put down the edging of the woodchip path in the Forest Garden.

This meant we had to split into two teams:

Holly, Maria, Mikhail and Nathan were team mulch as they transported just under a dozen wheelbarrow loads from the woodchip depo to the Forest Garden. Meanwhile, Alex and Sam took it in turns to saw logs as despite having three saws, only one really works.

After an hour, we completed as much as we could for the first session back. More of the same next Saturday!

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Sam Lefevre
Nathan Wood
Alex Bowring
Alex Bowring went on a group run

Wed 3rd Jan at 6:30pm

It's a pine, but someone has to do it 🎄🏃‍♂️🏃‍♀️

Southwark Report written by Sam Lefevre (he/him)

After two weeks off, we were back with a bang! Quite literally as 25 runners showed up for GG Southwark's first group run of 2024. With last year's average being 12 runners, it was amazing to see such high numbers and 4 newbies! A warm welcome to David, Jenny, Josie and Roberta. We also had new GoodGymers to this area including Laura and Lucy.

Gathering in the intimate space that is Old Spike Roastery, everyone listened in on Sam as he delivered his typical GG speech including his ice-breaker question which was all about the darts due to the World Darts Championship final. After introducing themselves, each runner had to answer:

Underrated or Overrated: Darts as a sport?

It was a close-call, but underrated won the snap poll.


Live and let live

With the rain starting to chuck it down, we skipped the warm-up in the alleyway as Sam led from the front and Maria backmarked to ensure no one got lost or left behind. During the 2.5k run over to Telegraph Hill, we met up with Mikhail who ran from home to the task and at the task, Jessie found us.

Having reached what felt like the top of Everest... we split the group into teams of five with a taskforce member as their team leader. We had Team Daryl, Team Emma, Team Katy, Team Maria and Team Mikhail. With a healthy competitive competition going on with the five teams heading out in different directions as they had 30 minutes to find as many Christmas trees to bring back to the drop-off point and covering as many kilometres and metres as possible.

After 30 minutes, the results stood as such (trees x kilometres covered = final weighted points):

  • In 5th place, Team Mikhail collected 2 x 🎄 and covered 2.2km 🏃‍ = 4.4 points
  • In 4th place, Team Maria collected 3 x 🎄 and covered 2.71km 🏃‍♀️ = 8.13 points
  • In 3rd place, Team Katy collected 2 x 🎄 and covered 4.1km 🏃‍♀️ = 8.2 points
  • In 2nd place, Team Daryl collected 3 x 🎄 and covered 3.63km 🏃‍♂️ = 10.69 points
  • In 1st place, Team Emma collected 4 x 🎄 and covered 3.12km 🏃‍♀️ = 12.48 points

This meant Team Emma won and collected a Quality Street and Winegum boxes for her team, which she kindly shared with everyone! It's still the Christmas spirit!

After our group photo, we said our goodbyes to Mikhail who ran home from Telegraph Hill whilst the rest of us ran back 2.5k to Old Spike via the front of Nunhead Cemetery. We finished off with a much needed stretch before heading over to Angel Oak for our January social and to watch the World Darts Championship final. 180!


Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came out last night! Firstly, welcome to all the newbies and thank you to everyone who came out last night in the pouring rain. I appreciate the commitment and I am sure the Lewisham Council and neighbours of Telegraph Hill thank you too! The competitive fun task was done in an efficient manner, so thank you to my taskforce members for getting your teams coordinated and top marks on your time management too! Finally, thank you to Maria for backmarking the run. See you all soon!

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Hide comments (4)
Theresa Joseph
Theresa Joseph (she/her)

Thu 4th Jan at 4:32pm

What a great start to the year Nice to see the turn out and that rain did not stop play

Theresa Joseph
Theresa Joseph (she/her)

Thu 4th Jan at 4:33pm

loving the tree scoring too - welcome back all

Jack Da Silva

Thu 4th Jan at 4:44pm

Great work all, really enjoyed reading this!

Sam Lefevre
Sam Lefevre (he/him)

Thu 4th Jan at 5:01pm

Thank you Theresa and Jack! It was such great fun and really impressed with the numbers too! At one point, we had 30 sign ups, but I reckon the rain did deter a few plus I got some messages from those feeling poorly or stuck at work (with it being the first week back...). To more great group runs :)

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