A Night at the Winter Shelter

Daniel and I spent last night supporting the Winter Night Shelter at St Mary’s Church Hall in Finchley.

This is a fantastic initiative run by Homeless Action in Barnet (HAB), bringing together churches, synagogues, mosques and volunteers to provide people experiencing homelessness with a safe, warm place to sleep, an evening meal and breakfast throughout the winter.

We arrived between 9pm and 10pm, taking over from the wonderful St Mary’s volunteers who had provided the evening meal.

Our job was relatively straightforward: staying overnight to ensure someone was on site for safety and insurance purposes. Despite the cold night, we had good bedding and I managed a decent night’s sleep!

A real pleasure to support such a worthwhile cause. We’re hoping to return next month, with other GoodGym members also contributing throughout the winter.

Sometimes doing good simply means being there.

A change of scenery this week as we headed to the historic Bull Theatre in High Barnet, rather than our usual Phoenix Cinema starting point. Always good to spread our wings a little!

We started with a chat from Carly about the upcoming High Barnet Christmas Fair, a great local tradition which GoodGym has been invited to support. If you’d like to get involved, you can sign up on the GoodGym website. https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/help-the-bull-theatre-at-barnet-christmas-fayre?legacy=true

Unfortunately, our usual contact Susi was unwell, which meant some of our planned tasks had to wait. But there was still plenty to do, with the team getting stuck into weeding the garden areas and pathways, accompanied by the usual GoodGym chatter.

With the gardening done, George led the runners out onto Hadley Common while I stayed behind for a chat with the theatre team. Apparently, there was a slight navigational hiccup, but Victoria R spotted the error and soon had everyone back on track!

A few special mentions this week. Subham who had already run over 8km just to get to the start. Fantastic effort! Patricia , out for her fifth GoodGym session, and Beattie, who has now clocked up an impressive 150 good deeds! Awesome stuff!

And a big thank you to Victoria, who has kindly offered to help promote our activities on Instagram using the GoodGym handle. Every bit of publicity helps spread the word!

After the usual stretches and a final chat, we headed off in our various directions, some running, some cycling and others taking the Tube.

Another enjoyable evening of exercise, community support and good company. Well done, everyone!

From Finchley Facts to Harry Potter Magic!

Eight GoodGym explorers, a little local history, hidden woodland, famous faces, competitive Poohsticks and a few surprises along the way!

At 11am, eight curious GoodGymers gathered at Finchley Central station for another of our social discovery walks. The idea? Get outdoors, have a chat, enjoy a few games and discover some of the extraordinary stories hiding in our own neighbourhood.

As is traditional, we gathered round, numbered up and shared our favourite Finchley facts. Margaret Thatcher, former MP for Finchley; Harry Beck, the genius behind the iconic Tube map; and Amie Winehouse, who grew up locally.

We headed along the high street, stopping at various buildings, including the former St Mary’s Primary School, where yours truly was once a six-year-old pupil! The school has since moved near the Dollis Brook Viaduct, and much of the old site is now occupied by a courthouse.

Next was St Mary’s Church, whose history stretches back to the 12th century, with fragments of Norman stonework still surviving. A wonderfully welcoming place, with plenty of stories to tell, including memories of local people helping to raise funds for the church organ.

Then on to Stephens House & Gardens, where we joined Spike Milligan on his bench for a few stories about this much-loved comedian, who lived in Finchley for nearly 20 years. Sadly, Spike wasn’t contributing much to the conversation!

Winding through Finchley’s attractive back streets, we came across the rather extraordinary Beechwood Mews development. I researched this later..

Designed by award-winning architect Peter Barber, this clever scheme squeezes 97 homes, half of them affordable, onto a narrow strip alongside the busy North Circular.

Its striking brick frontage acts as a noise barrier, protecting a pedestrianised residential street behind it. Special acoustic glazing and ventilation measures help tackle the challenges of living beside one of London’s busiest roads.

Then time for the Tiny Forests... Crossing the North Circular, we entered a very different world: the four Tiny Forests at Mutton Brook.

GoodGym has helped Earthwatch, Barnet Council, local schools and residents plant and care for these little forests.

What makes them particularly interesting is that the three newer plots use different soil preparation methods, allowing us to compare how the trees grow and survive.

It’s a fantastic outdoor science classroom where families can discover trees, wildlife, biodiversity and climate resilience while contributing to real scientific research.

The great Mutton Brook Poohsticks Championship then started...

Just beyond the Tiny Forests, we gathered on the bridge for a fiercely contested game of Poohsticks. Stick selection proved crucial, and with an actual cash prize at stake, the pressure was on! Congratulations to Louise, whose superior stick selection and remarkable understanding of stream dynamics secured a famous victory.

From there, we ventured into Little Wood, an ancient woodland with its own remarkable open-air amphitheatre, built in 1920 and still used for summer performances.

Through Big Wood, we emerged into the beautiful Central Square of Hampstead Garden Suburb, with its two magnificent churches designed by Edwin Lutyens.

Here we heard about Henrietta Barnett, the remarkable woman whose vision helped create the Garden Suburb in the early 20th century: a place where people from different backgrounds could live among beautiful buildings, gardens and green spaces.

Our next stop caused quite a stir among the Harry Potter fans.. if I could find them! We passed the house used in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, where Hermione casts a spell to erase her parents’ memories of her, hoping to protect them from Voldemort. ( researched later )

For some of our explorers, seeing the actual filming location was a magical moment. Others were rather less impressed and took the opportunity to enjoy the views across Hampstead Heath Extension instead.

Our final stretch took us through the lovely open spaces of the Heath Extension and onwards to Golders Hill Park, where a café and refreshments provided a very welcome finish.

What a lovely way to spend a few hours! Good company, a few laughs, fascinating local stories, a bit of friendly competition and some beautiful green spaces, Magic!

Fancy joining our next GoodGym discovery walk?

Keep an eye out for our next walk on the GoodGym listings. Everyone welcome!

On short notice, we found out the Phoenix had no leaflets for us, but a quick message to the Artsdepot and our evening's activities were sorted. I trekked over with 450 of their Autumn programmes in my backpack - which slowed me down a bit! - but lucky for me a whopping seven other Goodgymmers were out for the session, including our favourite four-legged jogger, Gus. Great also to see Lucy taking a break from too much work and join us, and Patricia sticking with us for her fourth session in a month!

We warmed up as usual, taking it turns to pick exercises to our heart rates up. Beattie and Rachel had tonight's question: what item of furniture do you wish you had? A couple of sofas, a standing desk, Richard's wish for a sun lounger, and Paul wanting a tempur mattress (not a tempuRA mattress, which would need a very large deep frier).

Paul and Gus took up backmarking to keep out of the way, while the rest of us got started, splitting into teams to cover each side of the road. We leapfrogged our way through the back streets, occasionally tagging back to Paul to collect more. And we were done with 450 leaflets in about 25min.

Wanting a little more fitness, we jogged across the High Road to Market Place Gardens - a parklet and playground Goodgym Barnet helped prepare the ground for several years ago - for a little bit of circuit training. Push ups, reverse push ups, step ups with cardio inbetween - star jumps, burpies and variations, and squat kicks to finish. It only took another 15min tops and while Subham was keen for the game of tag Paul suggested, it was just a bit too dark and trip-hazardous, so we jogged back to the Phoenix for a decent stretch down and a quick snack and drink.

Well done to Beattie for clocking up a whopping 150 good deeds - a mini-milestone, but not far off 200. Plenty more to keep fit with!