What do you get when you mix seven GoodGym legends, a historic windmill, and a mountain of woodchip? Pure, unadulterated mill-ificence, that’s what. 🤩

This week, Tilly, Adam, Michael, Marie-Noelle, Nicole, Katie, and the brilliant Emma descended on the Waterworks allotments to lend a hand to Annick and Jean from the iconic Brixton Windmill. ❤️ And lend a hand we did — both of them, repeatedly, with shovels.

Emma was joining us for her second ever session and her first group run — and she didn’t just show up, she showed out, bringing the extra scoop on our Million Acts of Hope crossover. Turns out we weren’t just doing good deeds — we were contributing to something genuinely huge. 💪🏼🍾 No pressure, but we may have helped save the world. Provisionally.

The task list was, shall we say, eclectic. We shovelled and shifted woodchip to lay a brand new path (the glow-up was real 😱), got stuck into some serious weeding and pruning, carefully sorted edible leaves from the compost (a surprisingly meditative experience), and rounded things off with a litter pick to leave the whole place gleaming. ✨🌿

In short: we came, we chipped, we conquered. Annick and Jean — it was an absolute pleasure. The allotment looks windmill-iant. 🌬️

See you next week, you beautiful lot! 🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️

Sunday started early - VERY early. 7am at Aid Station 4 on the Hackney Half Marathon Route (just by Broadway Market!). There were plenty of bleary eyes, but thankfully the sun was already shining as we arrived ready for the day ahead.

Our first mission: water station setup. And if there’s one thing permanently burnt into our minds now, it’s the maths of the tables - 20 by 8 cups on each layer, 5 layers high, over and over and over again. Tables after tables after tables. Somewhere between the endless cup stacking and chatting away, the morning flew by! The best part was meeting so many brilliant Goodgymers from all over London - and, naturally, we even ended up recruiting new members whilst we were at it!

Then the motorcade arrived and the first runners appeared… From that point on it just never stopped for the next 2–3 hours. Thousands of runners streamed past as we handed out water as fast as humanly possible, cheered people on, tried to decipher names scribbled across bibs, shouted encouragement at every fancy dress costume we spotted, and kept our eyes peeled for our fellow GoodGym runners amongst the crowds. There were even a few famous faces mixed in too. Some runners just wanted a sip, others their bottles filling, others wanted us to throw a cup of water over them!

It was loud, sunny, exhausting, and genuinely brilliant - such a fantastic community vibe. Before we knew it, the runners had passed through, the cups had disappeared, the tables were packed away, and by around 1pm we were wrapped up after an amazing morning.

A huge well done to everyone who ran, volunteered, organised, cheered, stacked cups, handed out water, and kept the energy going all morning long!

Until next year! And who knows — you might even spot some of the people handing out your water this time swapping volunteer bibs for running bibs and taking on the 13.1 miles through the streets of Hackney themselves…

What a Tuesday! The GoodGym Lambeth crew descended on the Woodlawns Centre armed with rakes, good vibes, and apparently a keen eye for unexpected discoveries. 👀

Fi, Ben, Patrick (welcome back, stranger! 🎉) and the fully-restored Adam — back to his best like a freshly serviced lawnmower — showed up ready to make a difference for The Lunch Club Streatham, who use Woodlawns for half their service days. ❤️

These are the people feeding the community, so the least we could do was make sure their garden isn’t a leafy, twiggy obstacle course.

And boy, did we deliver. We’re talking many. MANY. bags of leaves — composted, not binned, because we’re environmentally virtuous like that 🌱.

Litter was picked. Twigs were sorted (yes, twig sorting is a skill and yes, we have it). The pathway was cleared to a standard that would make a Chelsea Flower Show judge weep with joy. 😭🌸

But the highlight? Nestled amongst the foliage like a peculiar nature reserve exhibit: one twin pack of unopened condoms. 😱 We will not speculate. We will simply note that the garden is clearly a space full of life and possibility. 🤩

The Woodlawns garden is now ready for everyone to enjoy — which is the whole point, isn’t it? Community spaces, cared for by communities. That’s what we’re about. 💪🏼🍾

Big love to Fi, Adam, Ben and Patrick for getting stuck in. Same time next week? 🏃​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​