*A lovely bunch joined for a few laps of Brockwell Park to raise a bit of cash for Lambeth & Southwark-based South London Cares. *

We donned our Santa hats, chatted about distances and paces and then set off as one big group. In the end, most of us did a solid 10k (basically 4 laps!) of a Brockwell's pretty hilly parkrun course. We got a few "Merry Christmases" from the public and nearly tripped over several dogs.

Lorna who's volunteered with SLC before, said it was lovely that we were doing the run in Brockwell as just a few years ago, one of the older people acheived his first 5k in Brockwell - so great 👍

We set up a little Justgiving page and at the time of writing have acheived 103% of our goal! £310 for South London Cares awesome work, connecting generations through social gatherings and friendships. Thanks so much everyone who's donated and well done to all runners :)

Top stuff guys!

First up, big up totally fresh to GG; Josie, Andrew and Erica - thanks for coming along :)

Tonight GG Lambeth ran to Jubilee Primary School to smash through a massive task.

We had a couple of run options - Direct 2k with me or a little 5k loop with the burgundy boys (Alfie & Steve).

Then we arrived at Jubilee Primary ready to crack on:

1️⃣ Pulling out weeds - not the bulbs, the fake parsley or the tulips 💐 - just the weeds 🌱

2️⃣ Moving the big bags of soil and emptying them into the planter. 👜

3️⃣ Planting some lovely shrubs into the planter 🌳

Things we learnt:

1️⃣ There's a children's book called "Dogger"

2️⃣ Heads, ELBOWS, Knees and Toes is a great song to remind us how to run up hills (and it rhymes better than the original).

3️⃣I need to get another set of keys cut.

All tasks and knowledge learning was done extra efficiently, and what would have taken Juan hours on his own was done in 30 minutes by team Lambeth. ✊

GoodGym Lambeth, I love your work.

Hopefully see you next week for moving out a load of furniture from Brixton Road Youth Centre!

Twas a bit of a chilly one as our brave runners set out to complete 2 tasks.

First up, we had a small group, lead by Victoria, heading down the road to empty, move and refill a planter. GP Food Co op turn local surgery’s gardens into little allotment spaces where patients can grow and eat fruit and veg!

Words by Victoria:

Jonathan has been at the surgery for 20 years, and since the setup of the GP food Co-op, he’s pleased to see it’s having the desired effect. Fewer patients needing quite so many appointments, perhaps because of the healing power of nature and the great outdoors! The garden was in great shape and many residents and local green-fingered garden users walked by to say hello! We moved a planter to a sunnier spot in the garden ready for summer. It took some coordinated 1,2,3 lift (shuffle). We have it a spruce up with a litter pick too. Then were back to base to warm up.💥

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The rest of us split into 3 groups, spreading some leaflets about an event happening for Lambeth residents looking to gain EU settlement status. 👌

Lambeth-regular Paul said we saved him a day’s work at the council offices by delivering them to community centres, GP surgeries and leisure centres between Brixton and Streatham. With runs from 6k to 12k, we blitzed the running, and figured out where some of the mysterious venues were from a slightly cryptic map!

Nice one everyone and MASSIVE congrats to Pippa for her SPOTM 💩! 80 deeds, a 25 month mission streak 🔥 and a new 10k PB as of this weekend 🏁 A well deserved winner of various cosmetics samples, a chocolate brussel sprout, a piggy bank and a limited edition Star Wars pin badge! 🚀

And big up new runners Diane, Victor and Jessie for joining us!

See y'all next week for a little trip to Jubilee Primary School! Sign up here.

The Portico Gallery is an absolute gem of South London, hosting art exhibitions, tea parties, ceilidhs, yoga classes, an outdoor gym, craft workshops and even the occasional GoodGym wedding!

Tonight a killer team of GoodGym runners slogged it up the hill to help out with yet another interesting task;

SORTING GAZEBOS

We welcomed some fantastic new runners - Fenella, Tarig, Charlie and Eva and then split into 3 pace groups: speedy, medium and gentle, to take on the 4.5k run up to the Portico.

When we arrived, John told us about the West Norwood Feast - an awesome community gathering with food and crafts stalls which happens on the first Sunday of the month. John keeps some of the gazebos they use in the Portico and some live in the nearby leisure centre/swimming pool.

Our job was to sort the clean sides from the dirty sides. We got straight to it, with half the group heading to the leisure centre/swimming pool to do the same thing.

In no time at all, all gazebos were sorted and we hit the road, back to Papa's.

They were brilliant - John (via email)

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NEXT WEEK we've got a NEW TASK - half the group will stick at Papa's for some gardening jobs and fitness drills whilst the other half will be heading to the YELLOW QUBE, a super cool community space on the way to Tulse Hill.

Be there or be cubed. Sign up here.