Tonight GoodGym was on a rescue mission.

One grassy and weedy Tiny Forest confronted us. Clearly it had been lacking a bit of TLC over its lifespan, but luckily we were on hand to rip it and strip it down to the mud.

We chose to tackle one small section which turned into quite a big section. And we made a massive pile of grass and weeds to show for it.

Nice one team!

First Tuesday of the month is now Tiny Forest day. See you next month!

Shout out to Andreas for the pun 🙌

15 Goodgymmers, 3 mini-Goodgymers, and 3 paw-fect doggoes went on an epic walk in the woods for funtimes, hilarity, and litter picking.

Everybody Make Some Noise

We welcomed Matt, Kristina, and Great-Gramps himself Euclides Sr for their maiden Goodgym tasks. And they were aces. Boom.

Also, big hello for traveling Goodgymmers Caitlin (GGCamden) and Victoria (GGLewisham) who were fantastic guests. Boom Boom.

Everybody make a big fuzz for mini-Goodgymmers Brody, Theo, and Sebastian who, frankly, made some of our regular full-sized GGers look bad with their zesty and conscientious litter picking efforts. The kids are alright indeed. Boom³

And, last, but in no way least, a big round of applause for the furry ones. And I'm not talking about good ol' Gramps here but the lovely Murphy, Nyx, and Annie who were a joy to walk with. Good dogs! BOOM!

You can all come again!

Plogging And Dogging In North London

If this was a late 90s/early 00s film, the opening scene would look something like a cheerful but frazzled Gramps attempting for the fourth time to get three excitable dogs, three excitable kids, and fourteen excitable Goodgymmers to stand still somewhere in the woods of North London as he pleads for 'at least one good photo' just as the dogs decide to jump away from the shot again - followed by a screen freeze and some jaunty voiceover about how you must be wondering how I got here. The inevitable title that would follow would probably be The Dog's Bollocks, or something equally inappropriate.

Well, it all started with what can only be described as a momentary lapse in sanity when Gramps thought it would be a good idea to get together a group of dogs, kids, and Haringey Goodgymmers - the three groups that occupy the Global Top 3 of most likely groups to disrupt all best-laid plans. After all, the adage goes 'never work with animals, kids, or Haringey Goodgymmers,' for a reason.

I'm, of course, kidding. What a wonderful walk we had.

Our Goddgymmers, kids, and dogs were an absolute joy and armed with litter picks and Christmas songs, we managed to cover nearly 5k of woods - through Highgate Woods, the Parkland Walk, and Alexandra Palace - and collected about two bags full of litter along the way.

Boom.

If you liked what you saw, join us on Wednesday for more shenanigans. And we'll have our social on the 14th December - you definitely don't want to miss that!

Right, now, if we get a producer interested in getting The Dog's Bollocks off the ground, who would play you on the film. I wonder....

576 Goodgymmers ran just over 89000 kilometres to complete 536 group sessions, 187 missions to help older people, and 621 coach visits to an older or vulnerable person over 7 wonderful years as GGHaringey celebrates its seventh birthday! BOOM!

Happy Birthday To Us!

For the past seven years, red-shirted heroes have been crushing miles all across Haringey, running to and fro, in search of good deeds and good times.

In that time, Goodgymmers have scrubbed floors, painted walls, weeded flowerbeds, watered thirsty gardens, collected old Christmas trees, put up Halloween decorations, made cups of tea, handed out flyers... in fact, what haven't they done?

And it is quite a testament to the tenacity, commitment, and general and literal awesomeness of this motley crew that in spite of having spent a good third of its time in this world going through a literal global pandemic, as a group they have managed to look after each other, build each other up giving them the strength to go out there and crack on with what they do best: Do Good and Get Fit!

Here's to the next seven years!

#LoveHaringey

"Are they always like that?"

For our seventh birthday task, Gramps took us back to where it all began back in July 2015 - the Wolves Lane Centre. We were welcome by task owner Elki, and seven year old Zoe who was there with her mother helping out at the Centre. Tasks for the evening included transporting a big pile of very dry mulch from the front of the site all the way to the back. The dry weather had turned it into a fire hazard so it needed to be transported to a more shaded area, where it could be rehydrated and rehabilitated. Nurjehan and Sam took on shovelling duties while a team made up of Andreas, Geraldine, Gramps and little Zoe transported the mulch on wheelbarrows across the site.

Toyo, Sarah, and Louise were put in charge of working with the Centre's new fancy toy - an industrial size composter. We were very grown up and didn't even giggle when the machine was likened to a digestive system and the new glorious compost called organic poo. We're seven now, you know? That is around 49 in dog years.

Needless to say, it wasn't all that serious with this lot and the HashtagBANTZ got to the point that task owner Elki turned to our Sarah and asked her "are they always like that?" I'd like to say here that I think we were being very well behaved up to that point. What gives?

We were meant to finish the session by watering the very thirsty grounds but the heavens gave us an early present with a bit of rain so we called it quits and headed down to the pub for beverages and merriment. Happy days!

Running the Big Half? Let us know as a bunch of us are running it too. Want to run the Big Half and fancy a heavily-discounted community place? Ask Gramps for details.

Join us next week for more fun and games.