Darryl Chamberlain

It was a record group run attendance (of mine, so from August 2021) and it was wonderful to see Christmas attire in the group, our elf had returned for the occasion as well!

First things first, the flag reveal and photoshoot in front of our start point. For those that have never seen the flag before, it was created as a team for the first ever GoodGym Olympics!

Onwards to Seniors, it's a slightly longer and hillier run than usual - great work everyone for powering up those hills!

We began the task by bringing up all the decorations from the basement via a human chain of GoodGymmers, in no time it was ready to be sorted into its correct rooms according to the plan left by Cathy.

Everyone got stuck in and trees, walls and any other surfaces were being made Christmassy! We stumbled on a slight problem with the hallway tree missing its top half but Sam Sam, Oli and Stephen created a solution that means you would never know it was missing its top half!

Before we knew it, it was time to head back and tackle one last hill before the downhill to Glass Mill.

Next week we have a shorter run to St Christophers Hospice Shop in Lewisham.

We started the community mission by heading up a nearby street to collect bags of leaves that will be composted in the community garden. We bumped into Clare and Darryl returning from Parkrun and in true GoodGym spirit they got involved in bringing the bags down with us (turning a couple of trips into 1) and then helped us compost them. After a quick litter pick and discussion over whether the obelisk should be painted, we waved them off and got on with the other tasks in the community garden.

We spent the next hour clearing weeds, cutting back trees, splitting plants and planting in the freshly weeded areas.

Julia then made a start on painting the obelisk, a tricky task of moving the climbing rose out of the way at the same time as painting! Great work!

I then headed to the other side of the garden to dig up a plant that was taking up too much space and clear away the leaves into a pile.

Before we knew it, over 2 hours had passed and lots of progress made in the garden!