28 excellent runners met at Papa's Park and braved the rain to support two brilliant community organisations - what better way to spend BONFIRE NIGHT?!

We welcomed Andy and Tony to their first run with us and then heard about all the fun things coming up in the GoodGym universe:

• GoodGym London Social - Friday 8th November, from 6:30pm at Bar Topolski.
• Cross-country - Saturday 9th November, 1pm in Stanborough Park, Welwyn Garden City.
• Lots of community missions.

Onto tonight - George led a warm-up in the basketball court before splitting into groups to complete our task.

David and Charlotte led a brisker group up the hill to Cressingham Gardens Estate. Victoria and Tim led a more relaxed group in the same directions. Both groups were delivering flyers for the brilliant Advocacy Academy who have made a film with people from Cressingham Gardens and are inviting residents to attend the screenings. The film is called We the people and is about past, present and future of activism in Brixton, which sounds cool.

Meanwhile, Jim, Sam and I led another group of flyer-ers to Herne Hill where we were telling people about Repowering. This great organisation are installing solar panels in two local primary schools and encouraging local people to invest in shares to tackle climate change and benefit the community - DOUBLE WINNER!

Each group swiftly delivered their flyers so we headed back to base for some quick fitness (aka circuits) before enjoying some DELICIOUS BISCUITS baked by Tessa and Charlotte. YUM.

Join us next week for a new task (exciting stuff) and more baking.

27 absolute champs met up this evening for some fine running, efficient tasking and a whole lot of cake.

We first welcomed Jessica and William to the crew 👏 and heard about all the fun things going on in and around GoodGym Lambeth.

And then we split; half taking the 9k run option to the Portico Gallery and half opting for a more chilled 3k run to a couple of tasks near Loughborough Junction.

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Beth and Samantha took the lead on the shorter run and had this to say:

As we approached Loughborough Junction farm we spotted Karen heading round the corner with a wheelbarrow to Styles Gardens so headed there to meet her and three stayed there to do some digging. The bulk of the work though was at Loughborough farm so the majority of the group were based there and tasked with moving soil from a couple of large bags to a couple of other large bags. It sounds simple enough but add in limited light and wheelbarrows with some tricky turns to negotiate and it all became quite the challenge. After half an hour we’d made a decent dent in the original bags and headed back to Papa’s wondering how much cake we could get through before the portico group got back.

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The rest of us headed off to the weird and wonderful Portico Gallery in West Norwood. They've long been at the core of the WN Feast which happens on the first Sunday of the month, storing all the gear used for the stalls.

John gave us a run down of our task, with some company from a much slimmer looking (in a good way) Methuselah the cat, and we got to work.

The Lighthouse Family

With some expert light shining from Alice and John, we split the gazebo weights into categories based on whether their straps had velcro, clips or needed attention. Once sorted, we neatly put the clipped bags back on the pallets so that John's team could sort fix up the rest.

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On our return we were all treated to an UNBELIEVABLE array of bakes;

🍰 Matt invented a lovely moist Mojito Cake (& it was vegan 🤩)

🍰 GoodGym Olympics star baker Issy cooked a delicious Dorset Apple Cake 🍏

🍰 On a 1920's theme Beth brought a yummy banana cake with rum-soaked cherries in 🍒

🍰 And not convinced there was going to be enough cake (lol), Sarah brought a sumptious coffee cake AND some Mars chocolate crispy cake 😋

And Valcie from Papa's Park left us some sweets for our community mission work at the weekend!

Same again next week please everyone! 👅

45 GG runners turned up tonight for a couple of mega gardening tasks.

At the start, we welcomed new runners Phoebe and Matt and congratulated Carol for reaching 50 good deeds, Elise for reaching 200 and Frances for reaching 250.

ABSOLUTELY SMASHING

Steve also awarded Tom Benson his own personalised bottle of beer for his utterly incredible organisation of the GoodGym Olympics!!

A team of 5 walkers (mostly whacked from some incredible racing at the Bath Two Tunnels) headed off whilst Tom gave the rest of us a good warm up.

We then split in two: 💥Most of us ran 2k to Brixton Windmill to do a load of weeding in the play area. 💥A smaller group took a 3k route to Agnes Riley Gardens to help fill up some planters.

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Brixton Windmill is London's last working Windmill don'tcha know! And it provides flour for Brixton Prison's bakery as well as The Old Post Office bakery in near Papa's Park (do check it out!). They provide regular tours of the Windmill to locals and are in the process of building a visitor centre to host school groups and more community events (they already host the Bread and Beer Festival in May 👅)

Our job this time was on the outside of the Windmill, pulling and scraping all the weeds out from around the play area equipment. We promptly got to work with 7 large hoe/scraper devices, a few small forks and a whole load of gardening gloves.

There were big weeds, small weeds, shallow weeds and far too many stubborn weeds. Commitment to the cause was strong however with some relentless deep root excavation. We filled up a MASSIVE bag of weeds and even brushed away the debris.

Bang tidy.

We then headed back down the hill (with obligatory stops for press ups, jump lunges and squats) and took on our Home Stretch Strava segment (well done Dharmesh - 12 seconds!).

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Here's the lowdown from Tom and the Agnes Riley Gang:

So a merry band of 15 of us took up the mission and headed to Agnes Riley Gardens to meet Adrian. The mission as far as we were aware involved planters, nothing more. So off we jogged lead up by George we all made it there safe and sound. Adrian greeted us with a plethora of tools, including forks, spades, hoes, wheelbarrow…..spades, it was a right box of tricks, Christmas had come early for team Lambeth. So the main operation was to move some planters onto a new patch of soil. However before we moved the planters we had to level the soil, as the patch was on a slope. So banded with our lovely tool set we got down to shovelling soil from the high point, loading up barrows taking it 5 meters to the low point empty it, and giving it a rake. We repeated this motion more times than I could count but the end effect was we had a level playing pitch it was quite a sight!

Whilst this was going on a band of three Lambeth members got going on tidying up the surrounding allotments, making them weed free - the place looked cracking.

Once the ground was level, it was operation move the planters into place. Now these bad boys looked quite heavy however thankfully they came apart in two sections, the legs and the body. This made life loads easier, and before we knew it we all 4 of them in place. Adrian was happy we all patted ourselves on the back for a job well done and then ran back to HQ.

Nice work Lambeth - also while I’m here just want to say a massive thanks for my present last night, loved it and will save it for a special occasion, its currently chilling as I type. Really made my day, you are a wonderful bunch and thanks for so many of you coming along and getting involved, it was mega. Nice one team.

Tom

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And off to the pub we went, for many beers & the bake-off draw!

Cheers GG Lambeth! 🍻

See how they run.

33 absolute heroes including 5 first-GG-run heroes (nice one Jessica, Ileena, Camilla, Hannah and Rob) scurried off in two directions; some in search of the Portico gallery in West Norwood and others ran to the Ruskin Park Community Garden near Loughborough Junction.

A LITTLE BACKGROUND INFORMATION: The Portico is a hub of activity with art exhibitions, yoga classes and crafts workshops on offer, as well as being a storage facility for the amazing West Norwood Feast. RPCG is a space for locals to grow their own produce and learn how to do so.

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George and Nicky lead the run to the Portico and had this to say:

We ran through Brockwell park and up to the Portico Gallery, where John, the West Norwood Feast gang, Methuselah the cat, and an Ibizan Hound (new addition) were waiting to greet us.

We quickly got to work and separated tables that were fine, from those that needed various repairs, so that they could then be made ready for next month’s Feast. Half an hour later, with all tables sorted and neatly stacked, and with the Feast volunteers delighted with our work, we ran back down the hill to Brixton for a stretch.

POW💥

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The rest of us were at Ruskin Park for a serious amount of weeding - some rooting out the little weeds in the fruit cage and others finding zen in the upheaval of massive amounts of our familiar foe, bindweed.

After a cool 25 minutes we’d blitzed the place and headed off to find some grass for a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors (abs workout version). Tim liked it but said it needed a GoodGym theme (that’s your homework, Tim).

We ran back, fitting in some long wall-sits and squats (with bonus calf-raises 🐮)at some stubborn traffic lights and finished off sprinting our Home Stretch Strava Segment. Congrats Pippa and John - you won! 🎉 (Join our GG Strava club if you haven’t already.)

Nice one everyone - smashed it. 👊

Hope to see y’all next week for a trip to Brixton Windmill/Agnes Riley Gardens (and the pub). Sign up here.