27 Goodgymers ran 3-5k to help Thornhill Square Gardens and Frelighters City Farm!

Welcome along to Cosmo and Becky whose first time it was. Great to have you along!

In the news this week:

1. A big well done to Steve Lee who just hit 200 Good Deeds - amazing!
2. Fantastic stuff from Steve Coman who ran 3.49 at Edinburgh Marathon recently - winning his age category, getting a big PB and a good for age time - woop woop!
   
3. On Thursday it's GG Monthly Social in Old Street (I think) - go along and have fun - more details here.

Thornhill Report by James:

Around a dozen of us split off to head to Thornhill Square Gardens in Barnsbury. This is a task we visit at least a couple of times a year and it was lovely to see it in the light, since last time we visited we were wearing head torches.

WATER HERE!

We were met by Anna who was delighted to have us on short notice and soon had us working efficiently around one lucky garden plot. We were variously: pulling weeds, cutting back grass, re-anchoring wicker fence, and planting - sunflowers, dahlias, geraniums and primrose - the watering of which was elevated to an artform by our skilled irrigationists. To the melodious incantations of "Water here!", "Need water here!" and "Does anyone have some water?" there wasn't a dry bulb in the house.

Farm Report:

15 of us headed to help Frelighters City Farm, we went via Highbury Fields to extend the route slightly. Upon our arrival Liz told us our tasks, which was as follows:

• A team of five weeding the front of the farm, swept up and made inroads in weeding the back garden
• Meanwhile a group of eight shifted some soil. First of sieving old soil from broken down planters, and then this was wheelbarrowed over to Chris and Aidan who developed a progressively advanced system to get the soil into the planter.
• Lastly Frances and Nina broke up bags of compost, checking for rocks and roots, and then wheelbarrowed it over to near the planter and made a pile.

After we finished up we said hey to the animals - pigs, shaven sheep, an 18 and 19 year old cow's, big goats, little chicks and a loud bird! We then ran to meet James Thornhill crew to do a time trial around the Emirates - nice!

Sign up for next week here when we'll be helping Caxton House Community Centre.

PB out

22 Goodgymers ran 4-6km to leaflet for Green Gym and sweep leaves for Castlehaven!

Welcome along to Miki, whose first time it was last night! Lovely to have you along.

In the news this week:

1. Well done to John who hit 200 Good Deeds last night - big numbers!
2. Welcome to Abi Perrin, Liz Mills and Katie Roberts to the Camden Taskforce, they are joining Kat and John.
3. Many thanks to Katherine and Rosie who have been part of taskforce for the last 18 months and have now stepped down.

It was a bit chiller than predicted but we were still out there doing good and getting fit - nice!

Green Gym Leafleting:

Chris and Frances led a group each to leaflet for the wonderful Green Gym, a group that organises monthly outdoor tasks in the community, a bit like us but no running.

Leaflet fun!

Frances' group headed to Kentish Town and Tufnell Park area to circulate around 150 leaflets, meanwhile Chris' team headed to Primrose Hill area to deliver there's. The most exciting thing that happened was a passerby telling Steve he has nice legs!

Castlehaven Community Centre:

The rest of us headed to Castlehaven to finish off a task we started three weeks ago. This fantastic community centre have big plans for their Nature Area, but before they can get started they need all the leaves cleared from the compost area (where they put all the leaves in Autumn from the two parks).

Armed with rakes, grabbers and big sacks we got to work collecting all the leaves up and then dragging the sacks to area for recycling. Good work! We then headed along the canal for a run back to base - lovely jubbley.

Sign up for next here where we have a new task helping Age UK and we'll be back making beds for the homeless.

PB out

13 GoodGym runners joined forces with CREOS volunteers to ‘chip in’ on the Crouch End Open Space monthly working party.

What a day. The weather always seems to be good to us when we do a community mission at the Crouch End Open Space, yet today may just have been the brightest most sunniest CREOS task yet. Under the warming sun we eased into a few hours of good honest outdoor work, t-shirts and in some cases shorts out in force.

There was woodchip to be laid on paths. There’s always woodchip! It was very satisfying watching the woodchip piles get smaller as the woodchipped portions of the paths grew larger. Yep we’re getting pretty good at this here woodchipping business.

Elsewhere, loose branches and sticks were collected to continue building up the dead hedge GoodGym volunteers helped build at last month’s working party. This was to protect the ground around a very old oak tree that had been diagnosed as ‘stressed’ due to high footfall above its roots. I must say it did seem a touch less tense this month. I’d say that dead hedge is doing the trick.

GoodGymmers also got stuck in digging through soil and buried asphalt to make holes for the CREOS team to plant saplings - tough work this, well done to those that took it on. There was also clearing of cherry laurel which is a pest in these parts.

At 1pm we enjoyed the traditional picnic put on by the CREOS team for volunteers at the end of their working parties. What a lovely way to spend a few hours on a Sunday - thanks to all who came along and hope to see you next time at CREOS.