Well that was something else, as the clock ticked down to 7pm I won’t lie I was a little nervous however as soon as I pressed live (and it worked, this has not always happened in practice) we were off.

So after all the prep it was show time, Saturday night, after a whirlwind 2 months from thinking it up, it went live and I have to say what a fun experience it was.

Please note, Chris has done a super job of updating the website which features all the events, all the area videos and if you fancy watching the whole thing again, bingo it’s there.

Live Show

Events

Area videos

So in total 29 areas got involved sending in clips of their finest duvet making, tin stacking, shoe putting on, tin blowing, boat wafting, planking and jumping clips it was something else, we even had a virtual elimination 5km race, which if I don’t mind typing was extremely tense. I was bowled over by the level of entries, not only that but we also were sent loads of different area videos which feature a bit about what some of the GoodGym areas have been getting up to during these times. We even got the marching band back together to play the GoodGym Games Anthem.

All in all it was wonderful, from the commentators who provided such good commentary throughout to the participants who just got involved. I was delighted to see so many watched throughout and loved reading the comments, the aim for organising these types of things is to hopefully bring members of the community together as I think we have so many different and wonderful characters.

The overall winners of the two trophies up for grabs were GoodGym Lambeth taking the Kerry-Barnard Cup and GoodGym Haringey taking the Hunter-Sidhu Shield on the last event.

Not only did we have that going on, my inbox was full of delicious bakes and carefully crafted veg/fruit. I think the standard just keeps going up a notch through sourdough loafs to delicious cupcakes, however the winner this year in the public vote was Imogen with her winning baking creation "3 We're all having a good lime (cake)"

Craving it up on the veg side was a wonderful creation named "The Eye Test" curated by Andrea Lo. Both I’m sure we can agree were outstanding. Please see their winning creations on Here

Please note more photos from the entries will be added in the coming days.

I also do want to thank the GoodGym Games committee who have been wonderful to work with, I brought this idea to the table when the GoodGym in Oxford was postponed and together we made it into last nights show, they are deserves a massive cheer, with special mention to Mark Gilyead, who had edited more clips than I would like to say, thank you.

Thank you Aidan Padfield, Beth Hoskins, Graham Atkins, Mark Gilyead, Steph Turner and Will Dowsett. Massive cheers. Special mention also to GoodGym members John Gutteridge, Chris Howsen and Tim Wheatley for all your help putting this together also and to the wonderful GoodGym members who were the sounds for the night the comentators Steve Jenkins, Teresa Gebski, Tim Dwyer, Peter Gillibrand, James Kerry-Barnard, John Hunter, Catherine Speed and Ivo Gormley, just fantastic.

Here's a video for all the team: video

First up, big up totally fresh to GG; Josie, Andrew and Erica - thanks for coming along :)

Tonight GG Lambeth ran to Jubilee Primary School to smash through a massive task.

We had a couple of run options - Direct 2k with me or a little 5k loop with the burgundy boys (Alfie & Steve).

Then we arrived at Jubilee Primary ready to crack on:

1️⃣ Pulling out weeds - not the bulbs, the fake parsley or the tulips 💐 - just the weeds 🌱

2️⃣ Moving the big bags of soil and emptying them into the planter. 👜

3️⃣ Planting some lovely shrubs into the planter 🌳

Things we learnt:

1️⃣ There's a children's book called "Dogger"

2️⃣ Heads, ELBOWS, Knees and Toes is a great song to remind us how to run up hills (and it rhymes better than the original).

3️⃣I need to get another set of keys cut.

All tasks and knowledge learning was done extra efficiently, and what would have taken Juan hours on his own was done in 30 minutes by team Lambeth. ✊

GoodGym Lambeth, I love your work.

Hopefully see you next week for moving out a load of furniture from Brixton Road Youth Centre!

33 marvellous GoodGymers hit the pavements last night to run to Jubilee Primary School for a mystery task...

WOODEN you like to know!?

First we welcomed first timers Jen, Emma and Oscar to the gang and had a speedy warm up.

Steve lead a 4k route and the rest of us took the direct route to Jubilee where we were greeted by Juan. He had a big pile of wooden sticks/rods/planks hidden under a staircase which we awkwardly removed and took round to a shed - the kind of job we do so well!

So well that unfortunately by the time the splinter group had arrived, pretty much all the wood had been moved.

All that was left to do then was a serious HIIT sesh in the school hall. It was a hot one and everyone smashed it.

We then headed back for a well needed stretch.

Top work everyone!

Wooden it be nice...

...if you came along next week for some furniture removal at Brixton Road Youth Centre? You can sign up here.

The Portico Gallery is an absolute gem of South London, hosting art exhibitions, tea parties, ceilidhs, yoga classes, an outdoor gym, craft workshops and even the occasional GoodGym wedding!

Tonight a killer team of GoodGym runners slogged it up the hill to help out with yet another interesting task;

SORTING GAZEBOS

We welcomed some fantastic new runners - Fenella, Tarig, Charlie and Eva and then split into 3 pace groups: speedy, medium and gentle, to take on the 4.5k run up to the Portico.

When we arrived, John told us about the West Norwood Feast - an awesome community gathering with food and crafts stalls which happens on the first Sunday of the month. John keeps some of the gazebos they use in the Portico and some live in the nearby leisure centre/swimming pool.

Our job was to sort the clean sides from the dirty sides. We got straight to it, with half the group heading to the leisure centre/swimming pool to do the same thing.

In no time at all, all gazebos were sorted and we hit the road, back to Papa's.

They were brilliant - John (via email)

---

NEXT WEEK we've got a NEW TASK - half the group will stick at Papa's for some gardening jobs and fitness drills whilst the other half will be heading to the YELLOW QUBE, a super cool community space on the way to Tulse Hill.

Be there or be cubed. Sign up here.

51 absolute heroes were out last night to start the year with a bang 💥

And some of those heroes were totally fresh to GoodGym! Massive cheer to Molly, Lawrence, Charlotte, Lara, Clare, Kirsty, Campbell, Jasmine, Faris, Mitch and Jessica. So great to have you along :)

Our task was simple - give Lambeth council a hand by picking up some of the trees from the roadside (they don’t have enough space for all of them in their van when they pick them up) so that they’re not clogging up the streets - and take them to the TREE-CYCLING (😅) plant in Clapham Common.

And after a quick warm up, we split into 5 fabulous teams heading to different areas to pick up as many trees as we could.

After worrying that we wouldn’t find any, we were blessed with absolutely loads - some on the pavements, some hiding behind bins, some small, some massive and some so dead they must've spent their Christmas getting intimate with a radiator.

Trees in hands, we all descended on the centre of Clapham Common like some sort of weird tree cult. Each tree was ceremoniously thrown on top of a big pile and then we ran back to base with plenty of bonus FITNESS DRILLS thrown in.

TREE-MENDOUS

Amazing stuff everyone and such bravery shown when awkwardly carrying trees through some very crowded areas...

Next week is Lambeth’s 6th Birthday!! To celebrate we’re going to Jubilee Primary School to do some GOOD. Then we’re going to the pub to eat cake. 🙌 Sign up here.

32 brilliant GoodGymmers arrived for our final GoodGym Lambeth group run of the decade!

We started by welcoming some lovely new runners - Lois, Katy, Jack, Sukhi and Ash.

We heard about what's coming up in the world of GoodGym (and beyond):

• Lots of community missions, including the chance to win a GoodGym jumper and a virtual badge (ooooh!).

• Dulwich parkrun and breakfast on Saturday 18th January 2020, as part of our monthly GoodGym Lambeth parkrun socials.

• Cross-country on Saturday 11th January 2020 at Wormwood Scrubs. Always fun, sometimes (aka mostly) muddy.

• Christmas and New Year parkruns - Many areas have extra parkruns on Christmas Day and New Year's Day. Just make sure you check the start time for your area.

After a quick warm-up led by George, we split into two groups:

George and Alfie led a group to Jubilee Primary School to help them with a project to connect the children with nature. Here's what leader George had to say:

"Well, we moved quite a few bags of garden waste from the garden to the car park, and a significant quantity of stone from the car park into a wooded glade (and build the worst dry stone wall). There was lots of wheelbarrow action, and a fair amount of standing around contemplating how to move a massive boulder."

GOOD WORK TEAM.

The rest of us went to Charleston House, a supported accommodation complex in Clapham. We'd been warned that a lot of the residents had gone out for the evening but fortunately, there were still four lovely gentlemen there who were very up for board games and chat. We split again so that half the group did some (actually quite intense, sorry/not sorry everyone...) festive fitness (aka The 12 squats of Christmas) while the other half chatted to the residents. Popular subjects included favourite types of champagne and what's on TV. And then we swapped so everyone got some good and some gym.

Before we knew it, it was time to head back to the base for some final stretches and then to the pub for the GoodGym Lambeth Christmas Social. We enjoyed an epic quiz courtesy of Steve and George, complete with a tad of controversy (what actually is the most common tree in London?!). We were then graced with a poem by our gracious leader Mark, with an added impersonation by Steve that was just sadly missing the hat.

No GG Lambeth Christmas Party would be complete without SPOTY (S*** Prize of the Year). This year, four excellent GoodGymmers were rewarded for their efforts to both the good and the gym:

• Sam has run a brilliant 1427.90km this year (over 100k every single month), as well as doing 60 good deeds this year and maintaining a 33-month group run streak.
• Michael has run an incredible 2434.64km this year (over 200k each month!), including running his first marathon in Liverpool in May and also racking up a 33-month group run streak (coincidence?!), bringing his total number of good deeds to 113!
• Charlotte has done a fantastic 69 good deeds this year, keeping her streaks at 13 months for both group runs and missions. She's also started coach running this year and is already on an 8-month coach running streak.
• Tim has done an epic 74 good deeds in 2019, maintaining a 15-month mission streak and a 30-month group run streak. He also draws the most incredible cartoons that are greatly enjoyed across the GoodGym community. What a talented chap.

SUPERB STUFF TEAM LAMBETH. What a year it's been - from being crowned GoodGym Olympic champions to welcoming a new trainer and many new additions to task force and GoodGym Lambeth to the huge amount of good we all do across Lambeth every week. I'll leave you with Mark's poem to summarise, and to say

See you next decade. Oh, and Merry Christmas!!!

As we come to the end of 2019,

Feel the bond we've shared as a unified team,

So many new faces and people of old,

Coming together within a shared goal.

From Liverpool and racing some bloody big horses,

To Katie departing and tasty kebab courses,

For every deed done and Olympics won,

Lambeth, I love you. Merry Christmas, have fun.

(Gilyead, 2019)

Sponsored by Rightmove.

That’s a joke. Mostly.

Tonight’s SPOTM was a good’un, with a property theme. Highlights included:

• an open/closed sign for your estate agent business

• notebooks galore

• a tube of mud/compost/soil including seeds

• a fan that you plug into your i-telephone.

And many other top quality items.

These were awarded to the wonderful Issy Sloman. She recently did her 200th good deed and she's been a GoodGym Lambeth regular for almost 5 years!! Add that to the years of taskforce-ing and even triathlon-ing and that's some damn impressive stats.

👏 👏 👏

We then had a quick warm up and headed off to our BRAND NEW TASK.

We were greeted at Jubilee Primary School by Juan and Shona who gave us a rundown of the situation - As a way of connecting the kids with nature, they were trying to introduce some more greenery. Our job was to fill up some old steel drums with soil and then if there was time, there was some mulching to be done in another part of the school.

Our first task was done in 10 minutes with a mixture of solo and human chain delivered bags of soil from the car park smoothly delivered into the drums without a single spillage! When the other half of the group arrived, we moved more soil from huge bags into smaller bags to take round to the other beds elsewhere. Shona showed us how to mulch - not putting the soil and woodchip onto the plants. There was even some soil left over so we filled up a couple of beds outside the school gate too!

We then took a quick snap and headed back to base for a stretch.

Nice one Alastair for joining on his first ever GoodGym run! And hopefully see y'all next week for some leaf clearing at Brixton Road Youth Centre. (You can sign up here).

Ace work, GG Lambeth 💥

A WHOPPING 39 RUNNERS braced the 3-degree chillz 🥶 to help not one but TWO organisations on Tuesday night.

One group turned into a postie 📫 squad for the evening and delivered almost 1,000 flyers ✈️ for a local primary school around the Brixton area, whilst the other group headed up to Stockwell to shift a lot of earth 🌍 for a community garden.

We warmly (once we were inside) welcome some fantastic new runners this evening, so head over and give a cheer to Anna, Jon, Ranulph, Sarah, Shauna and Becca! 👋🏽👋🏻👋🏼👋🏿

INTERMISSION: Please find below the mathematical equation that validates this report's pun:

DOUBLE TROUBLE: we split into TWO groups, doing TWO tasks and thus helping TWO organisations

TOIL: the Spurgeon Estate group was subjected to some gruelling lifting on-task and some pumping bodyweight drills afterwards. The Richard Atkins group had to shift over 900 flyers in 30 minutes.

AND: a truth-functional operator of logical conjunction

RUBBLE: we had to move a shit tonne of rubble

Please send pun of the month award and / or prize money to: Goodgym Lambeth, Papa's Park, Brixton

Ok, onto the actual run reports. First, Tom Benson and the Richard Atkins Primary flyering squad:

So me and a merry band of 16 Goodgymers hopped on the good foot and jogged up Brixton hill to Richard Atkins Primary School. Where we met Owen who gave us our mission, which was he had 1,000 leaflets promoting their early years centre which had spaces available in January and they wanted us to spread the word around the area.

As every single person in Tom's group said,

I believe I can fly(er)

So getting into teams of 2, folks splits up and got leafleting. Within 20 minutes we had covered the surrounding area all that was left was the long road home. So split into two teams we efficiently worked like a goodgym caterpilla and made our way down the 1 km road making sure we posted to every door. All in all we delivered around 900 leaflets. All that was left was to jog back and stretch it off. Nice one team, you were all great posties.

And then, the Spurgeon Estate team:

23 of us headed 1.8k up to Stockwell to meet Fred, an organiser of the Spurgeon Estate community gardens. The gardens have recently expanded, turning an area called 'The Secret Garden' from a locked-up wasteland into a productive and beautiful garden with raised beds (which we helped build back in July) and lots of edible nature that goes straight onto the plates of those on the Estate. Fred needed a huge team to shift some displaced earth and rubble, which had been bagged up in the garden and was soon to be taken away - but guess what IT NEEDED TO BE OUT ON THE STREET FOR COLLECTION. Not a problem for these guys.

As Fred said when she saw us arrive,

I knew you moved rubble when you came in

There's only so much you can say about moving sacks of dirt but the highlight was one of the most highly-functioning (and sassy) GOODGYM LAMBETH HUMAN CHAINS ever seen. A lot of people had a go at thinking of chain puns because we were so proud of the chain. Here are but a few:

1. A chain of scenery will do your good
2. No chain, no gain
3. A chain is as good as a rest

And then we ran back to Papa's for the classic 3-team competitive bodyweight drills. Everybody won. The end.

30 excellent GoodGymmers met at Papa's Park on a particularly chilly Tuesday evening for this week's group run.

First of all, we welcomed two lovely new runners Harriet and Nick.

We then heard about some upcoming GoodGym events to get involved with:

• A fun community mission at the O2 in Greenwich supporting the Rainbow Trust charity this Saturday morning/early afternoon.
• A Dulwich parkrun takeover with our friends from GoodGym Southwark on Saturday 23rd November.
• The monthly GoodGym Lambeth parkrun and brunch social at Brockwell Park on Saturday 30th November.
• Pub after the GoodGym Lambeth group run next Tuesday 19th November.

Back to tonight, Victoria led an excellent warm-up that involved herding the chickens (as all good warm ups should).

Next, Freyja and Tim led a small-but-perfectly-formed team to complete our flyering for the brilliant Repowering who are installing solar panels in two local primary schools and encouraging local people to invest in shares to tackle climate change and benefit the community - LOVELY STUFF. They blitzed this super speedily and even had time to run an extra loop on their way back to base - what a group of heroes.

Meanwhile, the rest of us headed up the hill to a NEW TASK at GLOWS - a community co-working space. Sam and I led a direct party pace route while Victoria and Phil led a longer route. We arrived and met the lovely Magdelena who explained with great amusement that they had mistaken the choir who met there for us - WHOOPS!!! Once we had clarified that we were the runners, we got down to work moving some big tables with some lovely background music from said choir, including local classics such as Lambeth Walk and some festive favourites to get us in that Christmassy spirit. Whilst half the group shifted some HUGE tables, the other half did some FITNESS, making sure we kept warm in the chilly night air. And then we swapped, so everyone got to do some lifting and some fitness. Because that's what GoodGym is all about.

Heading down the hill back to base, the two task groups merged smoothly together, as if by magic. After some final stretches, we enjoyed MORE CAKE (definitely not stringing this whole Bake Off thing out, honest...), courtesy of Aislin (EXCELLENTLY chocolatey chocolate cake) and me (Yorkshire parkin because, well, Yorkshire, obviously).

Thank you everyone, BRILLIANT WORK. Join us next week for some more good deeds with the lovely John, what may be the last week of Bake Off cake, and PUB NIGHT (and you wouldn't want to miss that).