31 Goodgymers ran 4-6k to help paint vegboxes for Friends of Grenville Gardens!

Welcome along to newbies - Christina, NJ, Annie, Mary, Sophie and Jess thanks so much for coming along! Last night was GG Islington's highest attendance for over a year and also exactly a year since we've been meeting at the Arsenal Hub - awesome!

In the news this week:

1. It's the GoodGym Monthly Social this Thursday in Angel at the Islington Townhouse! Full details here.
2. Cross Country Season starts next week, 5 races for £5 - yes deal! If you want to join see the full details here.
3. Hannah talked all about the "Our Borough, Our Planet" Event, an open meeting taking place on Oct 8th from 6.30-8.30pm in Islington Town Hall. The aim is to bring local residents and environmental groups together to work towards a vision for a zero-carbon Islington. More details are here

After a nippy intro and a warm up we headed in two groups to go help Friends of Grenville Gardens (aka FROGG), unfortunately Sue who was supposed to meet us was in a car accident last week so we had to take care of ourselves. Our task this week was to paint the park's veggie boxes!

We collected together the 11 brushes and 11 containers of paint, and then in pairs we got to work - with one person painting and the other holding up lights and holding the container full of paint. The 15 veg boxes need two coats of paint to protect them from the embending weather... Winter is Coming...

Veggie McVeg Vegbox

Thanks to Steve Coman, who used to be a painter and decorator, for leading the painting team! The remaining people weeded, swept leaves and collected debris to put in compost bins. Nice!

Once all the paint was gone we packed up, we ate bourbons and put the brushes in a bucket of water. Steve led a group on a longer run home, while Kike led a group directly down the hill back to the Emirates. Once there we focused on the socket to pocket arm technique and played the meet & retreat game - cool beans!

Thanks for coming guys, sign up for next week here when we'll be helping Sunnyside Community Gardens.

PB out

21 Goodgymers ran 4-5k to help Holloway School prepare the roofgarden for horticultural activities

Welcome to the newbies - Savannah, Caz and Chloe - great to have you along!!

In the news:

1. Well done to everyone who raced this weekend - lots of Goodgymers at Rutland Races, Berlin Marathon, Brighton Triathlon and Dart 10k Swim - amazing!
2. Dave Guest from GoodGym Bristol became the 3rd person to reach 500 Good Deeds over the weekend - wow! Read about it here :)
3. There is now a new committee for the GG Raceteam with Frances as the Chair and Pritesh the Secretary. Join the raceteam here.

After warming up we headed through the backstreets to Holloway Road, where we encountered tons of red traffic lights, which meant squats and star jumps while we waited!

Back to School!

Arriving at Holloway School we met Jonathan - we ran through the school halls (naughty) and made it up the stairs to the roofgarden. Jonathan explained that our task for the evening was to clear, weed and prepare an area so the kids can get involved in lots of horniculture activities. Splitting into teams we got were tasked with the following:

• Weeding around the apple trees where the chicken coop is going to go
• Digging up bushes with the roots intact, these were then taken down to be replanted in the playground.
• Removing any weeds and laying five bags of manure to feed the garden

Around 12 bushes were taken down to the playground in bags, a job that involved lots of stairs climbing! After 30 minutes we finished the tasks at hand with some sweeping and then a group photo under Aspire, Achieve, Success sign.

On the way home we went back the long way and did a fartlek around the Emirates!

Sign up here for next week, we'll be helping Single Homeless Project and Thornhill Square Gardens.

PB out

26 GoodGymers ran 6km to help the Single Homeless Project shift 5 tonnes of woodchip!

Welcome along to the newbies - Joe, Thomas, Henry, Mark and Sheyee - lovely to have you join us :)

In the news this week:

1. The wonderful Arsenal have given us 50 tickets for this weekend's Legends Game against Real Madrid - we have 12 left if you want one?!
2. Come along to the social this Thursday in Hammersmith - Pritesh will be talking the talk. More details here.
3. Goodgym is taking over Peckham Rye Parkrun this Saturday - we still need pacers, volunteers and general red tops. Full details here.

It's back to School week, September always means lots of Goodgymers and the task tonight sure kept us busy!

Splitting into two groups we headed north to Crouch Hill to help the Single Homeless Project on Shaftesbury Road. This hostel, one of many in the borough, helps single homeless people with providing accommodation, activities, training and therapy. The garden is used by all the residents and staff for work and play so it's important it's well looked after.

Our task last night was to shift, lift and move 5 of your finest tonnes of woodchip from the street to the back garden. As you can see from the before photo there was quite a lot of it! With group one arriving first the team got to work shovelling and ferrying the woodchip in pairs, meanwhile Kike, Ernie and Frances became the evenings spotters telling the incoming woodchip carriers where it needed to be spread.

Legends of the Woodchip

One of the main places to put the woodchip was in the planter, this however needed to be under the soil already in it. Anyway with some logistics worked out the team got to work, with Frances jumping up and down on the woodchip/soil. With the parkland walk group arriving our numbers doubled and the pace really picked up.

Over 30 minutes we smashed through the task. Shoveling compost, dragging bags, raking, sweeping up and more. Well done guys - amazing work!

On the way back we split back into two groups with some of us doing a fartlek around the Emirates - nice!

Sign up for next week here when we'll be helping the Ramsey Flower N1 Group.

PB out

14 Goodgymers ran 4km to help Thornhill Square Gardens with some summer gardening

Welcome along to Kat and Katie whose first group run it was this week :)

In the news this week:

1. Well done to Dom, Steve and the gang for doing August's monthly long run on the weekend. September's monthly long run will be led by Beth and Andy and is on this date.
2. Great work to all the GoodGym crew who took on the races at East Farm over the weekend, we had three podium finishes and lots of fun!
3. The Cross Country League is coming very soon - GoodGym have got male and female teams out and we'd love for you to join. Join the raceteam here and find out more details about the league here.

After our intro and warm up in the local park we headed to Angel, across Upper Street and a right turn up Liverpool Road on our way to Thornhill Square Gardens. Anna and a team of volunteers helps look after several of the plots and general garden area in the public park, every month or so we come and do lots of work very quickly. Making a real impact.

Our tasks this time were as follows:

• A team of five cleared a plot of weeds and dug up any roots. Steve and Aidan then brought in the warm car mulch to spread over the area.
• Molly and Hannah hoed and weeded a rose garden plot - it was a bit of pro-bono hoeing as the it's the council responsibility.
• 99 Good Deeder Ben did some solo work on a plot clearing dead heads and weeds, he was later joined by Steve 'weed man' Coman for some bagging work.
• Finally a team of three weeded and dead-headed a rose plot which we mulched last time we helped out.

Over 30 minutes we got tonnes done, as normal - time for a fitness session!

On the minute for a minute - 5 star jumps, 5 press ups, 10 situps, 5 squats and 2 squat jumps. The idea is that you have one minute to do all the exercises and recover. The longer you take the less time you have time to recover - deal or no deal? 5 mins of fitness and we were done - good work guys :)

After an easy run back home we only took 5 minutes to get the door open of the Arc Centre... no need to panic haha

Sign up here for next week, we'll be off to help the Single Homeless Project and we'll be back meeting at the Arsenal Hub.

PB out