On what what a really really miserable evening, well done for getting yourselves out and into the rain, I'd normally say I don't know what all the fuss was about, it's only a little bit of rain...it wasn't, it was horrendous running conditions!

The highlight of upcoming Community Missions was discussed in great detail at the start, tree and hedge planting at Surrey Docks Farm. Not only do you get to see all the cute animals and do some good planting trees and hedges but you also get a qualification at the end. A qualification in tree and hedge planting! Saturday 10am at Surrey Docks Farm - I can't wait to hear all about it from those that attend.

As a group we voted to have the head count indoors and run straight from Glassmill to the task to avoid time spent in the rain.

The task tonight was to run to Crofton Books without getting absolutely soaked which we failed miserably because we all arrived rather drenched. The real tasks of the evening were:

• Reorganising the modern classics section that was completely out of order
• Categorising a set of books into theme/topic
• Organising the bookshop
• Moving books into sacks that will be sorted through and decided whether they stay in the bookshop
• Moving some heavy items (I'm not entirely sure what they were)
• Writing new themes for sections in the library

There were a lot of tasks to be getting stuck into and a lot of organising going on, and book buying (maybe that was just me). Before I knew it, there was 5 minutes to go and the reorganising of the modern classics had nearly made it to the end of the alphabet. We couldn't leave without completing that so in the meantime I gathered/dragged everyone together and away from the books for a group photo.

We began to make our way back to Glassmill, in the quickest route possible to avoid time spent in the rain. After a quick stretch and discussion about next weeks task, which is being led by Conroy.

Thanks Chloe for backmarking on the way there and Stephen on the way back.

It was the first group run in what felt like forever that it wasn’t raining!! But it was still windy, can’t win them all I guess.

A quick warm up of trying to make sure we didn’t get blown away and we began to make our way to Chelwood Nursery School which is mostly uphill...but that means it’s downhill on the way back!!

We were met at the task by a couple of GoodGymmers sheltering from the wind in a classroom, near the bananas and Kit Kat’s!

There were some big tasks to get stuck into, these were: - Raking the sand pit and checking for buried treasure - Moving the sand from the giant bag to the sand pit and spreading it out evenly - Wheelbarrowing a giant bag of bark to various points in the playground - Removing Velcro ties from the railings

Everyone got stuck into the tasks and it was great to see all the giant bags of sand/bark reducing in size and being delivered around the playground.

Emma was enjoying moving sand from a very large bag with 2 very tiny spades (or shovels) so much that I thought I’d have to leave her there to finish the job...until a larger spade was found for the task!

Before I knew it, it was time to finish up and we headed inside for a group photo which looked rather like a school photo!

On the way back I asked everyone to have a chat with someone they didn’t know to find out an interesting fact about each other and the most exciting would win. There was no prize but I didn’t say that and got to hear some very interesting conversations on the downhill run back to Glassmill.

Good luck to everyone running the Big Half at the weekend and like I said if you want to forward plan by a whole year then because we live in a borough it runs through and volunteer with GoodGym then we usually have community places available for £10.

Otherwise in less than a years time there’s volunteering options at the Hackney Half in May and plenty of missions - check out the website for more details.