On International Day of Happiness and French Language Day, Sam welcomed in Elena, Paulin, Isaac, Lindy, Katy, Nelly, Maria and Daryl into Old Spike Peckham for another group run. After his intro speech, his ice-breaker question was to do with one of the social dates...he chose to ask what everyone's favourite French word is:

From "Boh" to "pittoresque" and "bissou" to "oo la la", we had all your stereotypes and intriguing French words.

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What's flyering in french?

With this being one of our longer runs, Sam opted to skip the warm-up and head to Galleywall Nature Reserve as it is a 4k run each way. We started off fast to avoid the people on Rye Lane before feeling the humidity on this warm muggy night. We all made it to the Nature Reserve just after 19:15 to find Eddie welcoming in Phil, but we did not notice until after Eddie gave a list of jobs/tasks that Sander had already arrived and was cracking on with transporting leaf mulch. Yet, we had more people than tasks, but luckily Sam had flyers from Library of Things to distribute to the neighbourhood around Surrey Quays. Staying with Eddie in the Nature Reserve:

• Emma, Elena, Lindy, Maria, Nelly, Phil and Sander stayed behind to collect leaf mulch, saw wood and put in wooden pole signage firmly into the ground.
• Whilst Daryl, Isaac, Katy, Paulin and Sam ran off to deliver the flyers using the 40 minutes to tackle the estates near Surrey Quays Overground.

Upon arriving back at the Nature Reserve close to 20:00, Sam noticed those at the Nature Reserve had already been done with their tasks about five minutes prior, so without further waiting he took a group photo and they said their goodbyes to Eddie, Elena(who lives closeby), Emma, Phil and Sander.

We ran back to Peckham at a slower pace as most of us were tired and the humidity was still in the air. Once we arrived back at Old Spike at 20:30, Sam opted out of a stretch and told everyone left to stretch at home.

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Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came out last night! Eddie always appreciates our time at the Nature Reserve to help fine tune the area and we got a shoutout from Library of Things on Instragram too. Thank you to Maria for backmarking the runs to / from Galleywall Nature Reserve.

With two group runs left until the end of our January Challenge, Sam was keeping his fingers crossed for a high attendance as this group run would not only contribute to the amount of good deeds, but since this was the longest group run distance, it would add a lot of kilometres to the distance target.

13 out of the 14 GoodGymers that came out tonight met at Old Spike Roastery for the start of the group run. We waited slightly longer as Alex was running late. Yet, knowing it was a longer run, Sam skipped the warm up, but delivered his typical GG speech including his ice-breaker question which was two snap polls to determine whether people liked Haggis and crunchy or smooth peanut butter as it was going to be Burns Night and National Peanut Butter Day.

It was pretty much a straight victory for "yay" to Haggis and "crunchy" peanut butter.

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Every day I'm shovellin'

Sam led the group out of Old Spike with Katy backmarked (both ways). We ran down the busy Rye Lane through the dark cycle/walking paths of Surrey Canal Walk before reaching Old Kent Road crossing over to the quiet backstreets of South Bermondsey. After running 3.7k, we arrived at Galleywall Nature Reserve to meet Emma, who lives close by.

Straight to it, Eddie talking through the two main tasks and one smaller task on offer. Sam split the group calling out on who wanted to shovel gravel into wheelbarrows: Isaac and Nathan were keen whilst operating the wheelbarrows: Daryl and Laura put their hands up. On the other end, when Daryl and Laura would tip the gravel onto the pre-determined areas, Alex and Elena would be there to rake it out to a smooth surface. The second major task was to secure three wooden beams into the growing bed, so that visitors and gardeners can walk on these beams rather than on the soil. More shovels were needed to dig out the soil, so Andrada, Emma, Katy, Sander and Steve took on this task. Finally, Tim took on the smaller task of finding bags of leaves and bringing them back to a pile that had already been stacked up for the leaf mulch they want to make. Maria was our resident photographer and videographer as she wants to start a TikTok account for us!

After 30 minutes, we had finished the three tonne bags of gravel (they weren't all full), secured the wooden beams and brought over the bags of leaves. Finishing the tasks with 10 minutes to spare!

Eddie was very pleased that he took videos and photos to share with the Galleywall Nature Reserve committee. We will be back at the tailend of February to get the reserve ready for Spring! We all ran back apart from Elena and Emma as they live closeby and Andrada peeled off towards the end to go home. The rest that stayed on made it back to Old Spike and were treated to Lindy's belated 200th good deed cake. We ate it for her as unfortunately, she dropped out from tonight's task last minute.

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Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came out last night! It was a long run than our usual distances, but we managed to blitz through the task in 30 minutes in our alloted 40 minutes. Thank you to Katy for backmarking and thank you to all for consistently coming to these group runs - it means a lot for me. Next week: it's the last one for our January Challenge and we're cleaning the local streets up with a "litter pick bingo".

It rained all day and then stopped a couple of hours before our group run, so our numbers stayed at around 15 sign ups. As Sam arrived at Old Spike, he prepared a small cake and candles as tonight they were celebrating Nathan's 200th good deeds with GoodGym! Congrats! 🎉

Our run tonight would take us over 20 minutes as we would have to run just under 4k to get to Galleywall Nature Reserve, so Sam opted to skip the warm-up and take it slow to run there. Yet, first the intros and ice-breaker question.

Since it was STEM Day, Sam's ice-breaker question for tonight was about this day celebrating Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths: Tell me any fun or interesting facts about STEM Day?

Everyone had weird and wonderful facts, but I can remember Mikhail's clearing as he said if you ever find yourself in a car that is sinking in water and you are trapped...take the headrest out of the driver or passenger seat and head to the back of the car. You need to smash the rear window with the two pointy metal things to get out. The pressure from the two points will break the glass.

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Shift work with 3.5 wheelbarrows

Straight out of the blocks as Sam lead the way whilst Mikhail backmarked as we ran through the busy Rye Lane before going into the quiet and dodgy (at night) Surrey Canal path, over Old Kent Road and onto the cycle path that would take us to Galleywall Nature Reserve. On the way over, we met Tim on his bike, so he followed us before seeing Benjamin and Folarin at the task. We made our way into the dark Galleywall Nature Reserve to find Alan and Eddie.

The task tonight was a two-fold. Five GoodGymers were needed with Alan to move sand from a tonne bag to the polytunnel so he could start laying tiles on the floor. Daryl, Katy and Tim were up for moving sand in wheelbarrows whilst Clare and Gemma helped Alan lay the brick tiles down. Putting it in place and ensuring it's level. The other task required all hands, but having only one wheelbarrow and a half, we started off slow.

Firstly, Benjamin and Emma had to finish off burying a wooden plank to mark the edge of the path whilst Lindy, Isaac, Nathan and Sam all took it in turns to shovel wet and heavy gravel from tonne bags onto a wheelbarrow to transport it and dump it onto the path. Here Folarin and Maria proceeded to rake the gravel so that it was even.

Noticing that the time was edging closer to 20:00, we opted to retire one wheelbarrow for the sand moving to help with the gravel moving before all three wheelbarrows were on gravel. There was a fourth wheelbarrow, but it put in a shift before retiring altogether.

Mikhail was our residence photographer for the night and ensuring he captured all activities. Whilst we had the "All Out 00s" playing in the background.

40 minutes after we had arrived, we had to call it. Half of the polytunnel was done and a first layer of gravel was put down. It was tough work tonight and with a 4k run each way, everyone felt it by the time to arrived back at Old Spike. Some of us just had to get in a Guinness or two at the Gowlett's Arms...

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Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came out tonight! It's our longest run in GG Southwark, so thank you for keeping up with the pace to get to and from the task. It was also a harder task as shovelling and transporting wet gravel and sand is heavy, so extra kudos to those who did this. It was all worth it in the end as we got Alan and Eddie prepped to finish off the task this weekend!

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Thank You to Alan and Eddie

GoodGym is all about getting fit and doing good! We praise the runners/cyclists/walkers who come to get fit and help out, but we often forget about our task owner. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Alan and Eddie for preparing all the tools for us in advance and giving us a hard, but rewarding task! We will be back in January for more!

It was a trip back to Galleywall Nature Reserve again, that's twice in a row as Alan, Eddie and Jane needed our help to clear the site as they make headway on the re-development project. Yet, before all that, all the GoodGym runners met at Old Spike and this time, we had a newbie: Elena who came early to meet Sam and discuss all things GoodGym. As the minutes passed by, Steve, Nathan, Nelly, Lindy and then Louise entered the cafe as Sam started his GG intro speech ensuring he did the full speech due to a newbie joining the ranks.

After Sam delivered his intro speech, they made their way onto the Green for their warm-up, but Sam prepared them in advance for tonight's ice-breaker question, which was: This week is National Afternoon Tea week, what is your go-to tea? Also, today is National Day of Singapore, do you have a favourite thing about the country?

Louise, Nelly and Sam were the only ones that have visited Singapore and they all said the same things - the food, architecture and cleanliness - makes Singapore. As for the tea question, people said chamomile, English breakfast tea (with oat milk), green tea, mint tea and berry tea.

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80s tunes whilst demolishing

Running a slightly more direct route compared to last week, we ran through Rye Lane into the Surrey Canal Walk and across Old Kent Road to get to Galleywall Nature Reserve. This week, we arrived on time and met Magda at the site as Vic arrived with us. Later, David and Tim came by walking and cycling in, respectively.

At the site, we had one main priority - to demolish the old shed. Alan needed two people with him, so Steve and Tim took on these roles as they used crowbars and mallets to knock down the old wooden planks off the beams they were attached as Elena, Lindy and Nelly transported these wooden planks to David, Louise and Nathan's team who were taking the nails off the planks to make them safe and worthy of the makeshift skip we were creating.

In the meantime, Magda and Vic were digging up soil for the new shed's first step.

Powering through the tasks, the minutes went by with the assistance of some powerful 80s ballads, but as the time hit 19:55, we had to call it a day as the run back would take at least 20 minutes.

We took our group photo and said our goodbyes to Alan, Eddie and Jane as well as any departing GoodGymers including newbie, Elena!

It was a struggle to run on the way back as most of us were tired from the tasks at Galleywall Nature Reserve, but we pushed all the way until the end! Well done team!

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Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came out tonight! Another long run to and from Peckham with some heavy duty work knocking down the old shed, taking apart the shed and lifting / shifting the wooden planks. It is a bit of a hefty job, but we're always up for it!

Also, a thank you to Lindy and Louise for backmarking the runs.

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Thank You to Alan, Eddie and Jane

GoodGym is all about getting fit and doing good! We praise the runners/cyclists/walkers who come to get fit and help out, but we often forget about our task owner. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Alan, Eddie and Jane for hosting us a second week in a row as we come closer to the end of this re-development project. That is us until the end of September, when we'll be back.

After the day threatened to be a wash-out, thankfully, as the GoodGymers met up at Old Spike, it started to clear as Katy, Tim, Emma, Louise, Gemma, Daryl and Claire chatted away as they met up. As Sam gave his GG update, he did not forget that it was Gemma's 50th good deed tonight as he draped her with the GG cloak and gave her a green balloon (Green for Gemma)!

After Sam delivered his intro speech, they made their way to the alleyway as it was closer to go out that way after their warm-up. Sam prepared them in advance for tonight's ice-breaker question, which was: Yesterday was World Wide Web Day (this is not to be confused with the Internet), so what is your favourite most visited website (make it harder for yourself...choose a website that doesn't have an app and is just on the World Wide Web...)?

A couple of us chose GoodGym.org, there were classics like Google, Google Maps, Facebook, Tumblr, Reddit and more obscure ones like receiptify.herokuapp.com...

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Still searching...

As we judged our selections for websites, we ran through the backstreets of Peckham through the Surrey Canal Walk and across Old Kent Road to get to Galleywall Nature Reserve. Arriving slightly late, we found Frances already getting stuck in with breaking down the shed with Alan, Folarin and Jessie had just arrived and as Jane was giving out the tasks, Emma came in with her bike.

There were a variety of jobs, but due to a GG corporate volunteer group cancelling for a session on Thursday, our main priority was to dismantle/prepare the area around the old shed. Joining Frances in the shed we had Katy and Tim. Emma, Claire and eventually Jessie (who started off pinning wooden stakes into the ground to support a tree and clearing items around the shed) helped with digging and burying a hose pipe. Folarin partnered up with a Galleywall Nature Reserve volunteer as they cleared a path near the polytunnel of weeds. Louise and Emma first joined Jessie in pinning up the tree before moving to clearing items. This was the task Gemma and Daryl started with. Finally, Sam did some litter picking.

All these little tasks added up so much value in the 40 minutes we were at Galleywall Nature Reserve. Well done team!

A few of us departed from Galleywall whilst others like Jessie joined us on the run back as we had our monthly social. This time, we decided to visit CLF Art Lounge by Peckham Rye station as it will be moved soon due to the expansion of Peckham Rye station. Joining us for the social we had Nelly and Louise's partner come along.

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Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came out tonight! What an unforgettable evening as not only did we do amazing work at Galleywall Nature Reserve (to be continued), but we celebrated Gemma's 50th good deed in style....yes, the monthly social was planned for the first Wednesday of the month, but it was still fitting.

Thanks to Daryl and Emma for backmarking either way.

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Thank You to Alan, Eddie and Jane

GoodGym is all about getting fit and doing good! We praise the runners/cyclists/walkers who come to get fit and help out, but we often forget about our task owner. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Alan, Eddie and Jane for their continued support for this massive re-development project at Galleywall Nature Reserve. We were pleased you had plenty of tasks to split the 12 of us in 4 teams. There will be more next week!

With Andres needing the time and space to clean up and close Old Spike, the team met on the green. Luckily, it was a dry and warm Wednesday evening as Katy, John, Nathan, Isaac, Lindy, Claire, Daryl and Emma were all up for the 3.5k run to Galleywall Nature Reserve. After Sam delivered his intro speech and a few people dropped off their bags and bikes in Old Spike, Sam led the warm-up before asking his ice-breaker question for the week: Since it's Bastille in two days' time, what's your favourite thing about France?

We had all sorts of answers from your classics: croissant, cider, pastries, cheeses, snails, frog legs and wines to relatives and colleagues being from the French nation.

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Saturday night, I feel the air is getting hot...like you baby

Leading from the front, Sam ensured the group barged through Rye Lane before joining and watching out for cyclists on the Grand Surrey Canal Walk! After running across Old Kent Road, we just had a kilometre to go as this is one of our longer group runs, but we arrived at Galleywall Nature Reserve on time. Thanks to Daryl for backmarking.

At the site, Paulin, Vic, Magda and Folarin were already on site as they were taking directions from Alan, Eddie and Jane. Yet, we re-grouped as we arrived to properly give out the tasks.

Firstly, Daryl and Magda were given bin liners and litter pickers to give up litter from the site. Jane needed three people to empty out the old shed and put these items into the new one. Katy, Emma and Claire were up for this whilst Lindy and Paulin were advised by Alan to remove nails off two wooden boards using a drill. Finally, the remaining group of John, Isaac, Folarin, Nathan and Vic teamed up with Eddie as he had a massive task of digging out the foundations, moving soil and preparing the foundations of a new shed. Emma did arrive slightly later, but Jane still had new tasks for us. She asked Emma to search the site to pick up and collect any loose nails. Unfortunately, during this re-design project lots of fasteners (nails, screws and bolts) have been left behind after the scaffolding to the building next door had been taken down.

After 40 minutes, listening to tunes and working on each of our own task, we had to call it a night. Yet, Eddie wanted to make sure we finished off the foundation task, so each person took a slab to put down on the (un)even soil and sand base. With a quick group photo on the foundation, we said our goodbyes and the same group apart from John ran back to Old Spike. Some called it a night whilst others were up for one drink at The Angel Oak.

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Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came out tonight! Thank you for keeping up with the long run either way! Alan, Eddie and Jane appreciated that we had a large group to do various tasks around the Nature Reserve. We were able to complete a few tasks and left with the foundations of the shed set and in place. Next time, we might build the new shed!

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Thank You to myself

GoodGym is all about getting fit and doing good! We praise the runners/cyclists/walkers who come to get fit and help out, but we often forget about our task owner. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Alan, Eddie and Jane for preparing the tasks for us to do and getting us in order. We will be back on the 2nd of August!