21 GoodGymers ran between 3-8km to help St Mary's & leaflet for Queens Crescent Community Association & KTCF

Thanks for coming along on another hot summer evening. It's always one of my favourite times of the week doing good with you guys :)

In the news this week:

1. A MASSIVE WELL DONE to Pritesh who hit 300 Good Deeds last night, and was gifted with a cape and sword to run around Camden with - THIS IS CAMDEN!!!!
2. Track Thursday - Kat is organising weekly track sessions on Thursday evenings at Regents Park Dirt Track. Meet for 6.30pm - contact me if you want more details
3. July's Monthly Social will be next Thursday in Wandsworth - more details coming soon.

Task One - Leafletting for QCCA & KTCF:

Chris and Pritesh led a team of 10 to leaflet for the Queens Crescent Community Association's Summer Party on the 21st July (there is a mission to help them setup - sign up here) and Kentish Town City Farm's community projects, which include many summer events for older isolated people in the area.

600 leaflets!

With over 600 leaflets to distribute the group did a brilliant job of covering 8km and coming home empty handed! Nice!

Task Two - Compost Run for St Mary's

To continue on from last week our first task was to collect ten bags of compost from the Eco Compost Plot at Alara. Unfortunately we were not able to access shovels so the team became inventive with using bin bags as gloves, using plastic containers to shovel it into their bags and well using Rosie's pair of gloves.

Our next task was to the run the rather warm compost through the streets of Camden (and a churchyard) to St Mary's Flats. This 1km trip was hard work with the warm weather and warm load but we got it done. I wonder what people thought those 10 runners in red t-shirts running with black bin bags were carrying.....

Jon from St Mary's Flats was very grateful for us bringing so much with us. We split into teams getting the following tasks done:

1. Using the compost we'd brought with us a team of 5 re-potted lots of plants and then positioned them around the communal garden areas.
2. Hanry and Thomas cut down a dead tree and carried the soil from the large plot for our next tasks
3. Kat and Liz emptied an old tree plot where the ground was rotten, used the healthy soil from the tree plot to refill it.
4. We then used the remainder of our soil and compost to lay over a residents gardens, areas that are in need of the richness
5. Finally we weeded a garden for a resident - filling two bags of the stuff

Sadly a baby bird had fallen from it's nest over the last week so Hanry and Liz buried it in our re-soiled plot. RIP.

Wow - lots done! Good work guys, Jon was very pleased with our efforts. We finished the evening with x4 strides to activate our muscles nice!

Sign up here for next week when we have the classic combo of Abbey and Cecil Sharp.

PB out.

26 Camdenites ran between 5-10km to help Abbey Community Centre and Cecil Sharp House

No newbies this week but lots of lovely people as always - thanks for coming as always.

In the news this week:

1. This month's long run is on Sunday 24th June with either 11km or 16km options - all details here
2. Danny is organising volunteering for the British 10km, with a GG team taking over an aid/water station - in return you'll get a free entry for a Virgin Event. See full details here
3. Kat is organising track sessions at the Regents Park Track every Thursday from tomorrow. Meeting for 6.30pm and starting the session from 6.45pm.
4. Well done to Chris Howson who hit 200 good deeds last night, Chris has been coming to GoodGym Camden for nearly 5 years and has made a huge difference in that time.

After the intro we set Pritesh's group off early to head the 5km out and back to help Abbey Community Centre with watering the garden. The group got the work done in amazingly quick time and enjoyed the run up Primrose Hill - nice views :)

Folking around

The rest of us headed to Cecil Sharp House to do our monthly gardening for the home of English Folk Music. The venue has a big event in the gardens at the weekend so our work focused on making sure everything was tidy and weed-free.

We split into two teams with one looking after the garden and walkway entrance and the other group taking care of the car park. The weeds had nowhere to go but in bags for mulching :)

A beautiful and very tame Robin joined us by flying and bouncing around all the activity. Over 30 minutes we did what is equivalent to 10 hours work for Susannah - she is very appreciative of our efforts.

Before heading home we did x3 hill sprints up Primrose Hill to focus on building our strength and aerobic base.

Thanks all as always!

Sign up next week here when we will be helping Sheltered Housing.

PB out

24 GoodGymers ran 7km to help Antrim Allotments with some summer gardening!

Welcome along to Susannah whose first time it was last night, lovely to have you along :)

In the news this week:

1. The GoodGym Monthly Social is TODAY at The Slaughtered Lamb in Shoreditch - gonna be a good one! Go along :)
2. On Saturday (9th June) GoodGym is taking over Mile End Parkrun with pacers needed! See all details here!

After warming up we headed north on what was a beautiful summer evening. Our task this week was helping the Committee and plot owners at Antrim Allotments up in Belsize Park. The final part of the 3.5km run up there is Belsize Park Hill, it's a corker but everyone did really well!

We've been going to see the guys at Antrim Allotments for 2 years now, they always really appreciate our hard work. A lot of the plot owners are unable to do all the heavy lifting and work alone.

Once arrived we met Piers and explained our jobs for the night:

• A team of 5 forked, dug and cleared an overgrown plot that can hopefully be used by a new owner soon. They had company with some ants biting everyone - pesky things!
• Lorna and Alysson constructed a border around a corner plot which had recently had string placed around it. Their hard work saved someone from potentially loosing their plot.
• A team of four moved some heavy planks and then dug for naughty weeds that struggle the nice plants!
• The rest of the teams did similar jobs digging up weeds, cutting things back and loosening the ground for planting.

Forking good time!

Over 30 minutes we got lots of work done and made a real impact. We grabbed a quick group picture and then headed down the hill home.

Next week we will be heading to Abbey Community Centre and Cecil Sharp House - sign up here

PB out.

31 GoodGymers made 12 beds for the homeless and did Char's brilliant fitness session

Welcome to Lucy whose first time it was last night, also lovely to have Tim and Nick from GG York along for the evening and of course thank you to Char (New Liverpool Trainer) who was getting a taste of GG Camden last night!

Last night was the beginning of a 10 week slot where we make the beds for C4WS at the American International Church, I believe this is some of biggest amount of GOOD we do for Camden all year. We are essentially making beds for people to sleep in that night, what could be gooder.

After a great dynamic warm up led by Char we headed towards Goodge Street, bouncing around the busy streets of St Pancras and Russell Square for 1.8km. Upon our arrival we entered a room with lots of empty mastresses and bags of bedding. Jonathan from the American International Church, who heads up the shelter on Wednesday evenings, spoke about the importance of their work in Camden and how we helped each year.

Bed time!

The race was on - who could be the quickest pair to make a bed - armed with sheets, pillows, sheets and even a towel for the guest. People had various new and old techniques, Richard Foster appeared to make about 3 beds! Jacob and Imogen made their bed the fastest - very neat toooooo!

As we were packing up Jenna, from C4WS, talked about the amazing impact the charity was having on homeless people in the area - getting them rehoused, providing counselling, language classes and steps to move forward. This is truly inspiring stuff and it's fantastic to be apart of it.

Char's Star Jump Fun!

We headed to Russell Square for our evening's fitness session where Char took control, we did the following:

• Fast Lap of Square in 3 groups with various conditioning exercises added before each group went off
• Conditioning Sesh - Squats, Calf Raises, One-legged Calf Raises and Balancing - NICE!
• Another run around the Square!
• Star Jumps Relay!

Thank you to everyone for coming and to Char for leading the fitness session!

See you next week where we'll be making beds for the shelter and painting a cafe called Flapjack! Mmm flapjack..

PB out