30 GoodGymers helped Freightliners City Farm, ran 5km and did a fitness session!

Welcome along to newbies Jenny, Evelyn, Rose and Lily - whose first time it was last night, hope you enjoyed it! Also welcome to Pete, GG Stockport Runner, who was doing a bit of tourism last night!

In the news this week:

1. Come along to the last Thursday social of the year this week in Bethnal Green - see full details here.
2. November's Long Run is on Saturday 17th November along the wonderful Southwark Circle led by the fantastic Frances - see more info here.
3. Lastly of course is the GG Christmas Party - gonna be lots of fun! What woman will I dress as this year?

Corrrrr what a fun evening, we were off to the amazing Freightliners City Farm where Liz (Farm Manager) was on fireworks watch as the animals can understandably get a bit jumpy around with all that banging! On our run there we did a little run around Highbury Fields and arrived at the farm ready for work! While everyone chilled out with the animals Liz explained the tasks to me:

Team Poo: Remember Remember the Poo of November.... A strong team of 10 armed with gloves, wellies and forks worked hard to shovel and fork poo over three piles. Essentially new strawy poo was put on top of the older firmer poo on pile number one, the task was to fork the top layer of strawy poo from pile number one to pile two and three. It was steamy, it was smelly but the team did amazingly well.

Scrub-a-dub, pub

Team Scrub: Another team of 10 was tasked with scrubbing and cleaning the classroom floor next to the indoor animal enclosures. Firstly the team took and carried out tables, chairs and more so they could fully assess the floor. Then using a combo of hot water, paper-towl and scrubbing cloths to clean the floor - and wow that floor was dirty! Good work guys!

Team Everything Else: The remaining 10 people shifted bags of debris and wooden rubbish into a van, plus they swept and raked leaves and straw around the gardens, yard and animal pens.

Once we were finished we headed off to the Emirates for a round of circuits, a fartlek session and biscuit time! This was beautifully followed by sparklers fun and a trip to the pub - thanks for organising Graham :)

Sign up for the next week here, we are off to shift 5 tonnes of woodchip/mulch for The Single Homeless Project.

PB out.

31 Goodgymers ran 4-6k to help paint vegboxes for Friends of Grenville Gardens!

Welcome along to newbies - Christina, NJ, Annie, Mary, Sophie and Jess thanks so much for coming along! Last night was GG Islington's highest attendance for over a year and also exactly a year since we've been meeting at the Arsenal Hub - awesome!

In the news this week:

1. It's the GoodGym Monthly Social this Thursday in Angel at the Islington Townhouse! Full details here.
2. Cross Country Season starts next week, 5 races for £5 - yes deal! If you want to join see the full details here.
3. Hannah talked all about the "Our Borough, Our Planet" Event, an open meeting taking place on Oct 8th from 6.30-8.30pm in Islington Town Hall. The aim is to bring local residents and environmental groups together to work towards a vision for a zero-carbon Islington. More details are here

After a nippy intro and a warm up we headed in two groups to go help Friends of Grenville Gardens (aka FROGG), unfortunately Sue who was supposed to meet us was in a car accident last week so we had to take care of ourselves. Our task this week was to paint the park's veggie boxes!

We collected together the 11 brushes and 11 containers of paint, and then in pairs we got to work - with one person painting and the other holding up lights and holding the container full of paint. The 15 veg boxes need two coats of paint to protect them from the embending weather... Winter is Coming...

Veggie McVeg Vegbox

Thanks to Steve Coman, who used to be a painter and decorator, for leading the painting team! The remaining people weeded, swept leaves and collected debris to put in compost bins. Nice!

Once all the paint was gone we packed up, we ate bourbons and put the brushes in a bucket of water. Steve led a group on a longer run home, while Kike led a group directly down the hill back to the Emirates. Once there we focused on the socket to pocket arm technique and played the meet & retreat game - cool beans!

Thanks for coming guys, sign up for next week here when we'll be helping Sunnyside Community Gardens.

PB out

21 Goodgymers ran 4-5k to help Holloway School prepare the roofgarden for horticultural activities

Welcome to the newbies - Savannah, Caz and Chloe - great to have you along!!

In the news:

1. Well done to everyone who raced this weekend - lots of Goodgymers at Rutland Races, Berlin Marathon, Brighton Triathlon and Dart 10k Swim - amazing!
2. Dave Guest from GoodGym Bristol became the 3rd person to reach 500 Good Deeds over the weekend - wow! Read about it here :)
3. There is now a new committee for the GG Raceteam with Frances as the Chair and Pritesh the Secretary. Join the raceteam here.

After warming up we headed through the backstreets to Holloway Road, where we encountered tons of red traffic lights, which meant squats and star jumps while we waited!

Back to School!

Arriving at Holloway School we met Jonathan - we ran through the school halls (naughty) and made it up the stairs to the roofgarden. Jonathan explained that our task for the evening was to clear, weed and prepare an area so the kids can get involved in lots of horniculture activities. Splitting into teams we got were tasked with the following:

• Weeding around the apple trees where the chicken coop is going to go
• Digging up bushes with the roots intact, these were then taken down to be replanted in the playground.
• Removing any weeds and laying five bags of manure to feed the garden

Around 12 bushes were taken down to the playground in bags, a job that involved lots of stairs climbing! After 30 minutes we finished the tasks at hand with some sweeping and then a group photo under Aspire, Achieve, Success sign.

On the way home we went back the long way and did a fartlek around the Emirates!

Sign up here for next week, we'll be helping Single Homeless Project and Thornhill Square Gardens.

PB out

While America was nailing things down for the tropical storm, more locally in Islington, Al/Lex/Alex said no to the couch and yes to his first mission! We were joined by local hero Hannah and joined forces to give Flo's garden a makeover that left her speechless

Flo (not her real name), has deep roots in this fine borough: she's lived in her home for 44 years and previously around Tufnell Park. She was telling us how much Finsbury Park up the road had changed and that there was once an infamous "street" where I think people went for their vices.

After a bit of nostalgia we got to the task at hand. At the ripe young age of 90, our Flo simply can't keep up with the garden maintenance but she can see and enjoy it from her living room.

Our task today was to do a general tidy, remove the weedy interlopers and sweep up the fallen leaves and debris. Actually quite a straightforward task and nice inaugural one for our newbie. Nothing tricky for us and we were told everything must go; no need to decide what's a weed and what's to stay.

Warm and a tea cup

We were lucky enough to be offered cups of tea to give us that final boost to clear the last of the summer vines.

A clean sweep

As an experienced missioner, I know the beauty of sweeping up to make the transformation even more dramatic. Three teas drunk, two black bags full and one mission was complete.

We then reached tipping point

On the telly was Tipping Point and we had finished and showered with praise and delight.

Flo was so happy with the transformation she could barely speak. Making her day made our days; that's the funny thing about volunteering

Axel may have left goodgym, but there are still opportunities to learn un peu de français ! If you didn't know, racine means root!