9 Goodgymmers braved the High Road in Tottenham during match night to lend a hand at Tottenham Green as they started getting the site ready for bulb planting.

Funckeredd To The Maxx

We were pleased to join Laura from the Friends group who had been out of action for a while with Covid. Glad to have you back!

It's always a pleasure to do a task at Tottenham Green, in many ways it feels like going back home. Just ask Nurjehan or Alex, for instance, who described this task tonight on more than one occasion as their favourite. 

And tonight was no different. We started the evening with a bit of litter picking and, oh boy, did the Green need it. Within 15 minutes our team had managed to fill up around 6 bags full of bottles, cans, and even a duvet. Always thinking about the environment, our team sent a couple of Goodgymmers to the recycling bins on the North side of the park to dispose of the litter responsibly.

Meanwhile, we got on with the task of clearing the pathways of leaves and some hardcore weeding. Special mention here to the wonderful and thriving hedge bindweed with its wonderful heart-shaped leaves that was ruthlessly and efficiently obliterated by Frankie and Carolina. Haven't seen that many destroyed hearts since they refused to call that ship Boaty McBoatface.

Aaaaanyway, towards the end of the evening, we were tasked with some buddleia maintenance which of course meant some hardcore chopping and we rounded things up piling the garden detritus on the composting beds in the church yard.

Highlights of the evening including Nurjehan force feeding people her cupcakes, Carolina completely dragging Gramps by saying she had seen him running and thought that 'he was just walking and taking a break,' and the introduction to our Goodgym Haringey Lexicon of the wonderful funckeredd but you really had to be there for that one.

Next week, we're moving our task night to Monday to coincide with Halloween! And we're celebrating by having a themed double good deed evening... Task 1 here and task 2 here. Join us!

In between sporadic rain showers, Area Activator Simon caught up with a top crew of Goodgymmers (a mix of regulars and new starters- welcome Michelle!) outside the Arsenal Community Hub for our weekly group run. After a count-off to introduce each other (and to show off our favourite firework sounds to celebrate Diwali!), we ran approximately 1 mile together towards Elizabeth House Food Hub on Hurlock Street (utilising some hills on route!).

Upon our arrival, we found that Ernestas, Natalie and Natasha were already helping the super busy food bank crew with their half term operations. Elizabeth House Food Hub has been set up to act like a supermarket of donated produce that can be affordably purchased by the immediate community. During the holidays, more families and individuals require additional assistance with deliveries, so Goodgym Islington were asked whether would lend a hand. Half of our runners paired up together to deliver these essential parcels to households across the borough. The rest of our team assisted with cleaning and closing up the tables used for the food bank, and with loading any additional produce back into the kitchen (after some quality control). We finished off the evening with some recycling, and breaking down food boxes for collection.

The Elizabeth House Food Hub core yeam were absolutely thrilled with the amount of work completed within such a short amount of time, and asked is to definitely return in the future! Well done all!

Our final event of the night was the introduction of our monthly "Emirates Stadium Time Trial"- a personal test run with your fellow Goodgymmers to see how quickly we can run the 700m loop of the Emirates Concourse. It was so great to bring back this "Paul Bown" tradition to Goodgym Islington again.

---

NEWS

Highbury Quadrant Soil Shifting

On Wednesday 26th November, Area Activator Simon and Ernestas of Highbury Ward will be helping Octopus Community Network with filling up some newly constructed flower planters around the Highbury Quadrant Estate.

Sign up here to get involved:

https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/highbury-quadrant-bonus-shingle-and-soil-shifting

---

VI Guide Running at Emirates Stadium with Achilles International

Every Thursday, Achilles International will lead a group run for visually impaired runners and local guides at Paddington Rec Track or The Emirates Stadium. This week, we will be returning to North London for our session. Open to potential guide of all abilities, and for anyone up for a group run!

https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/come-and-guide-run-with-achilles-international-emirates-stadium-session-0f94bb20-d637-4871-ad0b-60f023004982

---

Halloween Hampstead Heath Headtorch Group Run

On Friday 28th November, AA Simon will be leading his annual Halloween headtorch run around Hampstead Heath- starting at the Bull and Gate Pub in Kentish Town, and looping around the gorgeous trails of North London. Costumes and trail shoes are advised, but not essential! Social group running pace will be the aim for the evening- please bring your own headtorch if possible.

https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/ghoulgym-halloween-headtorch-run-hampstead-91d1a716-63e8-4785-8a51-376d43bdf009

---

Caledonian Park Junior parkrun Half Term Holiday Help

On Sunday 30th November, the lovely event directors of junior parkrun in Caledonian Park have asked if any of our Goodgym crew would be available to help with course marshalling, time keeping, tail walking or barcode scanning for their free weekly timed run for 4-14 year old runners. Volunteer numbers from parents and usual assistants tend to be down due to the half term break, so any help would be awesome!

https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/volunteer-at-caledonian-junior-parkrun-half-term-help-b670c7e2-0349-494a-9129-de06bbc8ca2d

---

Penn Road Gardens Volunteer Open Morning

After Junior parkrun, the resident volunteers of Penn Road Gardens will be hosting their monthly open morning for composting, mulching and garden maintenance near Holloway Road. A wonderful way to spend a Sunday morning with a potential Goodgym double task!

https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/penn-road-gardens-open-morning-october

10 unholey Goodgymmers dug their way into punny shenanigans as they lent a hand at Chapmans Green tonight.

Musical Interlude 

"Don't forget your shovel if you want to go to work. /Oh don't forget your shovel if you want to go to work./ Don't forget your shovel if you want to go to work/ Or you'll end up where you came from like the rest of us/ Diggin', diggin', diggin'"

It doesn't hit the same when it's not Niamh singing, but here's Christy Moore's version

Kudos Corner

Everybody make some noise for Karen who joined us for her maiden GGHaringey run - talk about a baptism of fire! I hope we haven't scared you away, Karen.

And someone we managed to scare away is poor Frankie who's running away from London for reasons that she claims have nothing to do with Goodgym. Sure. We'll miss you and come back soon!

Holy of Holies

Let's call a spade and spade and admit from the off that most of my notes from tonight are frankly unprintable. Forks, foxes, big holes and a bunch of rowdy Goodgymmers led to a smorgasbord of punnery and smutty banter.

All the same, let's see what we can salvage for this report.

The night started harmless enough. Our task owner was running a bit late so we opted for a little fitness session ahead of the task. We first tried some cariocas but there weren't many takers for this one so someone suggested the very popular "that-thingy-that-Islington-Simon-Does-With-The-Walking-And-The-Running." World renowned, that.

Our task owner arrived as we were just finishing up and he opened the gates for Chapmans Green for us.

What a lovely space the Green has become. We have now been visiting for over three years and it's great to see the progress the Friends group have made with the space. Tonight we were helping to prepare the ground for an orchard-planting session next weekend, which involved digging up 12 holes to an arm-deep depth. With those instructions, Alex the task owner handed us a bunch of spades and the ingredients for some very unsavoury banter.

To be fair to them, our Goodgymmers did an excellent job. They dug and dug and dug. But they also chatted as they dug. And the chat? My god, they dug a metaphorical black hole with their chat. Poor Alex from Chapmans Green took it all in good humour and before you knew it, he was trying to get us out the front door in a hurry. I wonder why! :)

All in all we had dug 12 tree pits and left them ready for the orchard-planting session on Saturday.

Boom.

Selfies here, selfies there and we then said our goodbyes and we all ran in different directions into the night, feeling a little bit more/ less (delete as appropriate) holy.

Join us next week for more fun.