On what what a really really miserable evening, well done for getting yourselves out and into the rain, I'd normally say I don't know what all the fuss was about, it's only a little bit of rain...it wasn't, it was horrendous running conditions!

The highlight of upcoming Community Missions was discussed in great detail at the start, tree and hedge planting at Surrey Docks Farm. Not only do you get to see all the cute animals and do some good planting trees and hedges but you also get a qualification at the end. A qualification in tree and hedge planting! Saturday 10am at Surrey Docks Farm - I can't wait to hear all about it from those that attend.

As a group we voted to have the head count indoors and run straight from Glassmill to the task to avoid time spent in the rain.

The task tonight was to run to Crofton Books without getting absolutely soaked which we failed miserably because we all arrived rather drenched. The real tasks of the evening were:

• Reorganising the modern classics section that was completely out of order
• Categorising a set of books into theme/topic
• Organising the bookshop
• Moving books into sacks that will be sorted through and decided whether they stay in the bookshop
• Moving some heavy items (I'm not entirely sure what they were)
• Writing new themes for sections in the library

There were a lot of tasks to be getting stuck into and a lot of organising going on, and book buying (maybe that was just me). Before I knew it, there was 5 minutes to go and the reorganising of the modern classics had nearly made it to the end of the alphabet. We couldn't leave without completing that so in the meantime I gathered/dragged everyone together and away from the books for a group photo.

We began to make our way back to Glassmill, in the quickest route possible to avoid time spent in the rain. After a quick stretch and discussion about next weeks task, which is being led by Conroy.

Thanks Chloe for backmarking on the way there and Stephen on the way back.

It was the first group run in what felt like forever that it wasn’t raining!! But it was still windy, can’t win them all I guess.

A quick warm up of trying to make sure we didn’t get blown away and we began to make our way to Chelwood Nursery School which is mostly uphill...but that means it’s downhill on the way back!!

We were met at the task by a couple of GoodGymmers sheltering from the wind in a classroom, near the bananas and Kit Kat’s!

There were some big tasks to get stuck into, these were: - Raking the sand pit and checking for buried treasure - Moving the sand from the giant bag to the sand pit and spreading it out evenly - Wheelbarrowing a giant bag of bark to various points in the playground - Removing Velcro ties from the railings

Everyone got stuck into the tasks and it was great to see all the giant bags of sand/bark reducing in size and being delivered around the playground.

Emma was enjoying moving sand from a very large bag with 2 very tiny spades (or shovels) so much that I thought I’d have to leave her there to finish the job...until a larger spade was found for the task!

Before I knew it, it was time to finish up and we headed inside for a group photo which looked rather like a school photo!

On the way back I asked everyone to have a chat with someone they didn’t know to find out an interesting fact about each other and the most exciting would win. There was no prize but I didn’t say that and got to hear some very interesting conversations on the downhill run back to Glassmill.

Good luck to everyone running the Big Half at the weekend and like I said if you want to forward plan by a whole year then because we live in a borough it runs through and volunteer with GoodGym then we usually have community places available for £10.

Otherwise in less than a years time there’s volunteering options at the Hackney Half in May and plenty of missions - check out the website for more details.

A very warm welcome to Lewisham Margarete, we hope to see you again soon! Thanks to Amber for leading our walking group this evening, and to Sarah for backmarking.

Well done to everyone who made it out in Storm Dennis for some soggy running this weekend! Thankfully the weather was significantly drier this evening, but we still needed a mexercise wave of squats, lunges, jumping jacks, high knees and heel flicks to warm up.

We set off for the relatively short run round the corner to St Christopher's Hospice shop. The shop manager Sara had plenty of tasks (as well as plenty of snacks!) lined up for us to tackle this evening, including:

• Hanging up sorted clothes in the back
• Tidying up the shop floor, to some very exacting standards
• Sorting the scarves into colour and length order
• Dressing the clothes model ready for spring (who wore it better... the shop model or Caireen?)
• A bit of Top Gun action adding blank labels to the newly hung clothes, ready for pricing
• And did I mention the snacks??

We managed to get through everything that was lined up for us, which meant only one thing... We had time for a time trial! I was very impressed with the effort everyone put in, and enjoyed a thrilling sprint finish with Nick just pipping Adam to the post!

"I feel the need ..." "... the need for speed!"

Thanks everyone for a fun task! Keep an eye out on the upcoming community mission listings for some weekend fun with Caireen at the lovely Wildcat Wilderness, one of GoodGym Lewisham's perennial favourites.

Have a fantastic week everyone, and happy running!

A huge well done for everyone braving the rain last night and it had luckily stopped by the time we were due to set off! We had a quick round up of Lewisham news (Cross Country, 10k races and January Challenge) but mainly every seems to be off out on long runs in preparation for the Big Half in March.

An uphill run over to the task and we arrived at Chelwood Nursery to be treated to bananas, kit kats and hot drinks (and Amber, Nykolette, Stephen and Jacqueline keeping warm in one of the classrooms).

There were a selection of tasks to be completed:

• untangling a beaded curtain which Amber turned out to be very very good at, there was a little bit to do when it was time to leave but they could still be there now as they were determined to finish it!
• removing cable ties from the fence
• sweeping the sand away from the drain
• carrying 30 bags of (Irish) compost from car to school
• stapling the membrane to the newly built planters
• filling the planters with compost
• planting the herbs that had been donated

After refueling and dividing all the tasks depending on preference and who was feeling strong to go back and forth with the huge bags of compost, everyone got stuck in.

From what I could hear the stapling was rather a fun task and possibly more stapling went on than necessary because it was so fun. Better to be more stapled than less stapled!

Before I knew it, I was giving 10 min warning and it was lovely to see the difference in all the tasks that were going on. The planters were looking amazing and the stray soil was being sweeped up so it was ready for the teachers and children arriving Tuesday morning to began planting more herbs and plants in the remaining planters.

After checking no tools had been left in the planters by accident, especially the sharp tools and all counted back in, it was time for a group photo which I'm not going to lie, took a bit of coordinating (read: me eventually moving people into place)!

We had a downhill run back to Glassmill as a reward for the uphill run there, we arrived back at Glassmill ready for a stretch and chat about next weeks task.

We had a couple of tourists this evening from various areas, I hope you enjoyed yourselves in Lewisham and we look forward to seeing you again if you're ever in the area on a Monday evening!

It was cold, and raining, and dark but you all made it out, ready for doing good in Lewisham.

There haven't been many races over the Christmas period but there has been a lot of parkrunning, also a huge well done to Jacqueline and Caireen who spoke so wonderfully about everything GoodGym during their TV debut (not a debut for Jacqueline, she's always staring in TV roles such as the Pure Gym advert) at the Community Mission at Hither Green Station over Christmas.

We had a welcome to our new faces this evening and a quick warm up as we had a longer hilly run this evening over to Seniors, we were on our way. After all the hills, and a sprint up one of them for some, we arrived at Seniors and were met by Amber, Sarah and Clare, who were waiting outside for us to arrive.

A third of the group began bringing up the boxes for the Christmas trees and the rest of the group began taking down the decorations on the walls and decorations off the trees, and wrapping the lights around pieces of cardboard so we don’t need to struggle putting them up next year.

It was all rather hectic (in a good way, I hope) with missing boxes and too big Christmas trees for too small boxes, there was so much chatting which was amazing but I couldn’t shout loud enough to get everyone’s attention (I did with Emma’s assistance though).

All decorations and trees down and packed in boxes with instructions for next year and the master instructions safely with the decorations, it was time for a (many) group photo.

The hills are straight out of the way on the return journey and then you know it’s all downhill back to Glassmill. I might’ve took a slight unplanned detour which nobody questioned, not like when we went to put the decorations up and everyone shouted that I’d gone the wrong way!

We made it back to Glassmill, a slightly smaller group than we started with, for a stretch and chat about next weeks Christmas trees task which is my 5th favourite task, maybe because my group collected the most trees last year (I’m still deciding on the order of the top 4).

Well done to everyone for tackling those hills wonderfully and for everyone whose first GoodGym run it was, I hope you enjoyed it!

A couple of things coming up in the next few weeks: - Community mission litter picking after Hilly Fields Parkrun (11am) on 18th January - The Big Half - 1st March - The January Challenge, to do as many good deeds and run/walk as far as possible in January, we made a good start last night and all km recorded on Strava will be added to our total

Wow, what an evening!

Firstly, a very warm welcome to our new runners Romona, Taz and Zac - go and give them all a cheer! And also worth a huge cheer is Vic's fantastic achievement of a 24 month streak of group runs! That's two whole years of running and doing good, what a wonderful woman!

After a rather dog-eat-dog (or rather, runners-watch-dog) warm-up, we soon set off towards Lee, stopping at pretty much every set of traffic lights along the way. Thanks to the lovely Jacqueline, Clare and Oli for helping to keep such a big group together and safe along the busy route to Lee.

As always, there was plenty to do at Big Red Box HQ. There was a huge new donation to sort, many bags of which had been collected by our friends at Hilly Fields parkrun over the weekend. The packing station needed to be replenished, boxes had to be assembled, and pallets lined up ready for the 5 minute challenge.

You gotta be tin it to win it

We got not one, but two attempts at the hotly anticipated 5-minute challenge. For the uninitiated, this is one of the most glorious human chain experiences you could ever hope to be a part of, with each empty box making its way from one end of the corridor to the other, being packed full of one of each type of food, before being closed up with a lid, and stashed on a pallet ready to be sent out for distribution.

(Pal)Let battle commence!

After a fantastic first attempt where 35 of us managed to pack 36 boxes in just 5 minutes, a 2019 record. We restocked our food stations, assembled a few more boxes ready for round two. Nicely warmed up, and either enthused or intimidated by my constant shouts of "pack smart" and "tesselate harder", we managed a whopping 52 boxes in our second round! A Big Red Box all-time record! If you add in the extra boxes we finished filling after the countdown was over, that's well over 100 boxes in less than an hour. Just think what a difference that will make to so many people in our community over this festive period.

Official heavyweight boxing champions

There's plenty more festive fun to be had in the next few days, including putting up decorations at St Christopher's Hospice with our friends over in Bromley tomorrow night (nice to see you Ian!), the GG x Xmas Xtravaganza! where you can meet GoodGym runners from far and wide, distributing Christmas trees for Kings who we were supporting this evening, and a trip to Crofton Books next week where no doubt the Christmas tunes will be out in force.

Thanks to Marta for this week's run report title, and to Oli for the smattering of puns (as always!).

A very warm welcome to our new runners this evening - go and give Kabba and Magda a cheer - what heroes you are for making it out for the first time in such miserable weather!

With a bit of a task mix-up this evening, we managed to organise a last minute flyering session to spread the word about Kings Christmas Trees, the profits from which fund The Feast, a weekly outreach meal for homeless and vulnerable people in the local community.

Kim, Amber and Clare chose the relaxed option, covering streets within walking distance of our start point at Glass Mill. Everyone else went up Lewisham Way, and covered a number of streets adjacent to Hilly Fields. Pairs ran off to cover a street at a time, reconvening at the corner of Hilly Fields (with those lucky first finishers "encouraged" to do some hill repeats to keep themselves warm!). Despite the soggy weather and a rather large stash of flyers, we soon got through them all, and headed back to Glass Mill for a cool down and an early finish (hill reps in the rain felt like more than enough hard work for one evening!).

Thanks everyone for your enthusiasm and dedication, even on a chilly wet evening. It's really quite something to spend the evening roaming around the cold dark streets of Lewisham with such an enthusiastic bunch of runners!

There's so much festive excitement coming up in the next week or so, including: our Christmas get together at Ninth Life, tree planting at Forster Memorial Park, one of my absolute favourite tasks sorting and packing at Big Red Box, GoodGym's Christmas extravaganza, and seeing the fruits of our flyering labours distributing Kings Christmas trees!

See you all soon I hope!