Last night, 10 intrepid GoodGymers traded stories of the fantastic beasts we've discovered on our various travels across the globe, or what we've witnessed vicariously through others 😁 Answers ranged from cheetahs, tigers, a leopard family, a herd of reindeer, to riding elephants, running with bulls and almost being eaten by a crocodile. What a fascinating bunch we are!

We ran and walked the short uphill distance to Glyndon Community Centre where Andy awaited us with an indoor and an outdoor task so we split into two groups and got underway. The indoor group went down to the gym where we apologetically walked through the gym-goers (one recognising Ashton from a Lesnes Abbey task) and got stuck into tidying up the storage room. It was jam packed with a mixture of gym, church and kids equipment and so we spent a happy 20minutes shifting tyres, bikes, drums and having a general sweep up and we left it much clearer with lots more space for extra storage. Then we venutured outside to join the outdoor team who'd been weeding and having a tidy up of the car park and back garden. Sweeping featured in both tasks and earned the session it's name - a clean sweep indeed and lots of time left for chatting and hahem hill runs, aka a short run up the hill to the pub!

We were publicising This Girl Can's 'Let's Lift the Curfew Campaign' to raise awareness of night safety exercising concerns for women now that we've got dark evenings back for a while. Last year GoodGym launched some night safety training for men to support with making people feel safe when out exercising at night. You can read about it and complete the training here: https://www.goodgym.org/v3/stories/women-night-safety - and thanks to Aman for doing the training 😊

Good work everyone! On Saturday we have a group run to Mycenae Gardens: https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/maintenance-at-mycenae-gardens

Next Wednesday we're litter picking by the river: https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/woolwich-river-litter-pick-57deb427-7033-49e5-85fc-c8010e88f8ef

Until next time!

Rachel

Last night, 12 of us gathered at Charlton House before running or walking our way to Charlton Manor Primary School for an evening of community spirit, paintbrushes and several spiders.

After a short run, some of the runners met up with our walking crew at the school, who were already armed with paintbrushes and getting stuck into freshening up the walls of the Mary Seacole classroom. No hanging about here!

Meanwhile, another small but mighty team tackled the lost property cupboard. We made some decent headway, sorting the mountain of mystery belongings into different crates and uncovering what felt like a thriving spider community along the way.

As they say, many hands make light work, and with everyone mucking in, we got plenty done.

Thank you everyone - we'll be back later in the year to give the outdoor equipment a fresh lick of paint, so watch this space!

Coming up

🌳 This weekend: Alongside our usual parkruns, we've got two lovely community missions:

🌱 Spreading woodchip on the woodland walk at Horn Park: https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/spreading-woodchip-on-the-woodland-walk-at-horn-park

🐾 Helping clean up at the Old Blue Cross Pet Cemetery: https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/clean-up-at-the-old-blue-cross-pet-cemetery-4b4c6df7-1980-40e8-ab7b-12ef394e39b9

🏫 Next Wednesday: We're heading to Woolwich for a run to help out at Glyndon Community Centre: https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/helping-at-glyndon-community-centre-fe52fe5b-49c1-4ed6-a817-a3de5d46ff9a

🌿 Next Saturday: Join us for a group run to Mycenae Gardens for some garden maintenance: https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/maintenance-at-mycenae-gardens

Until next time, wonderful people! 👋

Rachel

Well what a night, and what a pun! All credit to Ivar of course, who struck GOLD with that one and set off a tirade of puns in the whatsapp group.

Some walked and some ran to the task - with two simultaneous ice breakers, the best of which being "what's one thing you hated as a child that you now love?"

On arrival we split into teams - an indoor and an outdoor group. The innies were putting back up some gilded ceiling panels, the golden evidence of which is still on Mark's face apparently - what a great way to evidence who did the real work in that group 🤓

Meanwhile the outies pottered around the community garden, watering the beds, weeding and chatting. And Rubaina gallantly rescued me from a spider - especially glad you came back Rubaina and you can be paired with me for all future bug related tasks, thanks very much 🙋‍♀️

But last night was more tour that task and hey what a great way to spend a Wednesday evening than looking through the stores at the Prince Philip Maritime Museum. We checked out lots of paintings of shipwrecks and battles and portraits of lots of middle aged white men, and one woman who looked a bit taken aback to still be there. It was cool to get a peak inside and hear about some of the paintings - it's been a while since we've been in and we've had lots of new friends join us since then!

Time came to head off and then Aidyn caused some drama almost getting himself locked in (we almost did but we wouldn't have actually forgotten you, Aidyn.)

Great to see you all as always!

Coming up

There's loads going on this weekend in addition to the parkruns so come and join a session if you have some time!

Saturday:

• https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/spring-bulb-planting-and-mulching

• https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/gardening-at-hervey-road-community-garden-1ed22d2f-d7a0-489e-8a74-da9f3d7430db

• https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/remove-fence-in-sutcliffe-park

Sunday:

• https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/helping-at-the-cabahs-plant-sale-e89cf473-6588-423d-85cf-691658b18405

• https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/clean-up-charlton-10ce0687-9b2d-408e-b009-96e6222da227

Next Wednesday we've got a Charlton House start and a run to Charlton Manor Primary School: https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/gardening-at-charlton-manor-primary-school-e46f1ec7-a47c-4ac6-bf6f-fb36414e9c9c

Until next time!

Rachel