GoodGym Lambeth is off to a flying start for the January challenge with a bumper group of GGers heading out to collect Christmas Trees for recycling.

The group met at Papa's despite the weather warning and the set off towards Clapham Park where Lambeth Council collect the extra trees not collected by the recycling trucks and then turn them into mulch to be re-used.

Check out the awesome photos and many thanks to Joao for leading the run as well as to Nathan for the pics.

Let's make January an absolutely awesome month for doing good and making a difference - COME ON LAMBETH!!

Our fantastic foursome - Louise, Ellie, Manuel, and Mikhail - turned a mountain of food from the Felix Project into neatly organized piles of edible joy. Picture this: lettuce leaves fluffier than clouds, fruits shining like gems, and an array of mince pies and ready meals that could make a banquet look modest. The team, armed with smiles and swift hands, dove into the delightful chaos.It was like a festive food fiesta! Our volunteers, each a hero in their own right, transformed what seemed like an endless supply of veggies, fruits, and treats into neatly sorted stacks, ready to be shared with the community tomorrow. They laughed, they sorted, they conquered! As they wrapped up, the air buzzed with a sense of accomplishment and the sweet scent of success (and maybe a bit of lettuce).

We'll keep it brief this week as it's part 2 of 2 tasks with Juan and Jubilee Primary School.

We kicked off the evening with a brief warm up / activation session and the AA asked everyone to share an interesting fact with the group (it could be about themselves or it could be a general fact but bonus points for the personal ones!) We were 'dazzled' by science (it takes more energy to get from the earth to the moon than the moon to Mars due to gravitational pull), medicine (the first clinical trials conducted were on ships to discover that Vit C cures Scurvy), and Zoology (cats drink salt water and the collective Noun for a group of Zebra's is..... a DAZZLE!)

Manuel also shared a story from childhood so gained thousands of extra points but sadly lost them all as the outcome of the story was Net negative for ornithology.... sorry my friend.

A quick 1.7kms up a VERY slight incline and we were back at the school to see Juan (we love Juan) and he shared that the soil we were due to shift had actually been moved by the tradesmen so we were tasked with binning the old timbers then pebble collecting (seriously) and weeding duty. It turned out that there was a huge amount of weeding once you looked for it, along every wall and up stairs so in the end we maxed out our time and collected a load.

In keeping with the Astronomical theme the run back was like a re-entry to Earth's atmosphere with runners peeling away to head home leaving a crew of 5 arriving back at base (Cape Papa's).

Thanks to Maya for chatting to me about all things Task Force, it's great to have interest in the group and Aimee I'll be sending more details your way soon, and Charlotte for back marking this evening.

Tuesday evening in full summer and as you would expect we were facing rain storms.... but as ever Lambeth GoodGym managed to glide between the raindrops and it had cleared nicely by 6pm.

The number of runners had ticked up nicely and we had 12 ready and raring to go to help out our friend Juan at Jubilee Primary School.

I was delighted to see Manuel make his Tuesday debut with us having met him at the GG Shindig - great to have you with us!

The AA was at a loss for a category so opened it up to the floor this evening and Charlotte had a doozy for us - favourite ice cream!! We had everything from classic vanilla, a New Zealand classic with honeycomb, rum and raisin (not for kids) and of course who remembers Gino Ginelli??! Check out the WA group for a few tasty recommendations as well.

The debate continues to rage at GoodGym about warm up / cool down / stretching around Group Runs with our Run Leaders and AAs split in their opinions - answers on a postcard please or in the WhatsApp group on your thoughts, we continue to do ours as a way of helping those who sit all day for a living loosen up!

With Yianny still managing knee issues Joao once again agreed to use his newly acquired Run Leader skills to take the group up to JPS and they could all reconvene there.

Juan was waiting for us and explained the tasks: 1) Carry all the chopped branches and greenery to the bins at the back 2) Empty the soil from the broken planters and leave in the 2 tonne sacks 3) Bonus task, clearing some alien lifeform florafrom the side garden (more below)

We considered taking to the bikes and transporting the green waste but sadly like Daleks were foiled by having to navigate stairs!

The group all helped with task 1 then with limited space we divided into two groups for soil digging and garden clearing. The soil group felt the effects of global heating with the dry soil so compacted that it was a real effort to chip away and shovel it into the bags although we had brains and brawn with some heavy forking (steady...) going on and some fine skilled mini shovelling (Kaz you genius!)

Garden clearing group discovered a breed of plant with a beautiful but malevolent spiky bloom which attached itself to any form of clothing, skin or hair and was almost impossible to remove, rolling itself with every attempt to brush it away and leaving tiny hair like bristles behind with little hooks to nicely embed in your skin..... The only solution once these were removed was found to be a warm wash!! (Thank you to Emily for demonstrating these effects by throwing one at me).

As ever we had fun, we got through a huge amount of work (with plenty left so we might be back next week) and Juan was delighted with us.

A quick 1.5kms back to base for stretching - yes we stretch - and we were done. I'm off to the supermarket to look for bougie Booja Punky Munky or some such delight, thanks for the tip Maya!