34 GoodGymers hit the ground running in Camden last night as the final of the Christmas Tree Run loomed large.

We tried an slightly-earlier-than-normal intro speech so we could set the American International Church team off to avoid a crossover. From the good feedback we got from it, I'm going to keep doing this until our runs to C4WS finish at the end of next month.

N.B. If you can, try and get to us at St Pancras & Somers Town Living Centre for a 6:55 start (not the normal 7pm) for the next 6 weeks, it would be really appreciated. This is to minimise the crossover with the homeless shelter users and us. I'll keep reminding you about it in the GoodGym Camden weekly email on Mondays, just in case.

Tonight was also a special night for me as I - finally - hit 50 Good Deeds! Dear runner, you'll be pleased to know that I have - with all the haste of a thousand winds - ordered my black t-shirt and will be wearing it at least once before going back to the Trainer Red t-shirt. Thanks Abi for the shout-out and Liz for baking two of the most delicious cakes I've had in a long time. That chocolate one just melted in my mouth. Delicious. Go and give her a cheer if you had a slice.

C4WS Report (written by Beth)

10 of us ran 3km to help the American International Church with their winter homeless shelter. We made up 10 beds very quickly and then had a chat with Jonathan, the Minister. He said that they have had over 30 guests so far this season, the majority of whom have since gone on to more permanent living arrangements - a real testimony to the dedication of the team’s holistic approach to caring for the local homeless population.

Jonathan invited GoodGym to their Volunteer Appreciation Supper on 6th May - it would be great to have some representatives from GoodGym there, so do put the date in your diary and go along. We'll pass on more info closer to the time.

Christmas Tree Run (Part 2)

Tonight was the final outing of the Second-Annual Camden Christmas Tree Run and boy did we get some miles in! Collecting 23 trees this late in January was a great effort and well done all who took part.

Without further ado, the results you've all been waiting for:

WINNERS! Team Breaking and Entreeing - 8!

Team Cirque de Pine - 6 (with a whopping 9.23km run!)

Treem Tree - 6 (2.5km)

Team Januar-Tree - 4

Team Weren't We-Supposed-To-Be-Running-The-Short-Route?! - 4

It was lovely to see a mix of old and new-ish Camden runners running together in last night's teams. I was out on a Sadiq Bike (they change name with each new Mayor, right?!) checking in on a few teams as the competition was going and seeing you all sprint around, plan your attacks and lug trees to the various collection points all in the spirit of GoodGym was brill. Keep coming back - you're what makes good GoodGym so well... great!

Next time

COMMUNITY MISSIONS, AHOY! As the January Challenge approaches week three, we're cracking on with missions. Fancy volunteering at the Ally Pally Parkrun this Saturday 8:30-10? A few of us are heading up there and you're more than welcome to come along. Community missions are a good way to get a feel for what GoodGym's about without the numbers we usually get on Wednesdays, especially so if you're really busy in the weekdays as a lot of us are.

Sally's leading another community mission down in SE15 with Plastic Free Peckham from 2-4pm on Sunday. If you're feeling extra good, why not try both?

It's also the first Crouch End Open Space (CREOS) community mission of 2020 this Sunday 11-1pm. There was also talk of an after-task picnic, potentially with some cider in the sunshine. They're a lovely bunch up there and I'm sure they'd love to see even more people come along.

NEXT WEEK Normal Christmas-tree-less service resumes next Wednesday as we run back to C4WS (homeless shelter). A bigger group of us are running to Cecil Sharp House for the first time in 2020 for some weeding, clearing and tidying up of their garden spaces. Come one, come all.

Have a great week (and don't forget to get those Strava profiles linked to add your miles to the Camden January Challenge)!

Ben

LET’S EAT PIZZA! So, GoodGym Camden are going to eat pizza at Happy Face on the 11th December after our run. TODAY IS THE FINAL DAY TO SIGN UP, so please get your name down if you want to come!

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37 (!!!) brave and intrepid GoodGymers made it out to GoodGym Camden on a drizzly Wednesday night for another two-task night. We welcomed a shiny new person to the Camden herd - hello Hanna, I hope you enjoyed yourselves tonight.

Next week's run will be to C4WS again as well as back to Cecil Sharp House - sign up here if you want to get ahead of the game!

After a quick intro, we stretched and split up into two groups - C4WS (the Homeless Shelter) was led by our trusty light provider Hanry, the Scope group by me.

Arriving at Scope just before 7:30, we stormed the shop, met Helen and her incredibly organised list of activities for us to get stuck into before we split into teams:

• Team Jewellery
• Team Shoes
• Team Rag or Bag
• Team Shirley
• And finally, what can only be described as Team Fancy Dress.

A monster task - and one that we’ll definitely have to come back to - was to sort and price jewellery for the shop. No special marks for correctly identifying that this was Team Jewellery’s domain!

Also down on the shop floor there was some dusting, cleaning and organising of a shoe rack to be done, efficiently tackled by Team Shoes.

In the back we had Team Rag og Bag running a tight ship, leading the sort through of donations into bags that the shop will keep and sell and one they’ll recycle. Like a little production line of elves, they worked away right until the final minute we were there.

Upstairs were both Team Shirley (the brilliant husband and wife team of John and Jackie and Team Fancy Dress. Team Shirley were in charge with cleaning the upstairs bannisters, kitchen and floors which they did magnificently if I say so myself.

Finally, Team Fancy Dress! De-facto led by Rosie in a jumpsuit/Oompa Loompa dual-purpose item, there was steaming, sorting through, pricing and tagging clothes to go out onto the shop floor. See the photos for some particularly sharp Christmas suits, great wigs and strong Christmas jumpers!

Just gone 8pm, we waved goodbye to Helen and headed back to the Living Centre to meet back up with Hanry’s homeless shelter team for a final stretch and cool down.

Over at C4WS, the team did a fantastic job of making up 16 male beds and 4 female beds for the homeless users of the church. Jonathan was very impressed with what you achieved, so well done everyone! After the task was done there, it was a run over to Granary Square for some laps and fitness before heading back and regrouping.

We had a particularly good turnout at the pub after the run tonight. Everyone is welcome and it’s a great way to carry on chatting to GoodGym folks over a drink. Abi is the de-facto pub leader, and I know she’d love to see you there if you fancy coming along next time.

COMMUNITY MISSION ALERT: David from Russell Square Garden got in touch to say how impressed he was with our work a few weeks ago in the bulb-planting and fence-post-putting-up and asked if we might be able to come and [clear some leaves this Saturday 2:30-4:30.] Please do come along and help out - Liz is bringing cake!

NEXT WEEK: We’re going to be running back to the Home of Folk (Cecil Sharp) and C4WS again next week for some more leaf-clearing and bed-making. Would be great to see you there and you should definitely sign up now!

LET’S EAT PIZZA: So GoodGym Camden are going to eat pizza at Happy Face on the 11th December after our run. TODAY IS THE FINAL DAY TO SIGN UP, so please get your name down if you want to come.

Happy running,

Ben

Well, that was something else wasn't it?!

42

Yup 41 of you amazingly wonderful people popped down to Camden on a freezing November evening to run around 5km and help out two wonderful organisations! Give yourself a round of applause!

So where to begin on this wondrous night - well everyone piled into the St Pancras and Somers Town Living Centre and after a far too long intro we split into two groups and so the night began!

The intro:

• We were joined by the lovely Hannah from Red January - she was down to experience a goodgym run first hand and to tell us about the upcoming partnership between RJ and GG. You can read all about Red January here, but Hannah, the founder, told us all about how she wanted to get people to beat the blues in January by using exercise - sounds perfect for us!
• Christmas is coming! Sign up to the Camden pizza party by the 27th Nov here, that's on the 11th December after the run and don't forget to warm up to that by going to the GG-wide xmas party on the 6th December, details here
• Did i say there were 42 of us!? Well a whopping SEVEN of that number were at GoodGym for the first time - a huge GGC welcome to: Alex, Maryam, Layli, Harriet, Laura, Eileen and of course Hannah from Red Jan!
• Finally shout out to Debbie who was indulging in a bit of GG tourism coming all the way from GG Newcastle!

Right, on to the night itself:

• Chris took a total of 16 people to the American International Church to make beds for those needing shelter last night. Whilst we're not pleased with the number it was rather serendipitous that 16 beds needed to be made! Well done to all of you including our walking group of Liz, Rosie and Frances!

• The remainder headed with me to Alara to do various mulch and leaf related tasks. We split into groups and had three teams working to collect leaves at the front of the space and collecting it all into a big pile. Another two teams collecting leaves at the back and transferring those leaves to the compost heap (while avoiding falling into the pond!) and finally we had one team working to wheelbarrow mulch to various parts of the back area. Everyone worked hard and kept themselves warm and before we knew it our time had passed! As ever Alex kindly rewarded everyone with a box of granola and with many thank yous in the air we headed to Granary Square to meet the other team.

G- RUN - ary Square:

• After taking everyone on a sighting run (it is right, right, right and right again) we split everyone into pairs and did a meet and retreat event. It was described with such spectacular levels of poor planning and organisation that it could only work impossibly well and after some initial troubles everyone lined up and shot off in opposite directions and before we knew it everyone was back and warm! Amazing stuff!

With that done it was time for some group photos with Hannah for Red January promotion and then we headed back to base. Once there we bumped into Ivo G, GG's Founder and Top Dog who had sadly missed the entire evening's fun - sad times! He joined us for the stretches and then the evening was done.

It was great to be back and so wonderful to see so many new and old faces - keep on coming and keep Camden great!

Cheers,
Pritesh

p.s. huge shout to Liz for the awesome Stereophonics pun!
p.p.s. apologies my photos are SO bad!