Four soggy Goodgymmers helped KTCF set up for their Apple Day celebrations; moving tables and chairs and setting up marquees under the close supervision of goats, donkeys, sheep, and a cow.

Ten Goodgym Runners met at Kentish Town Farm to help move some logs for the preparation of a Woodland School at the site. Most of us gathered at the usual Camden start numbered up and stated our favourite lockdown experiences. This range from goodgym missions to off-road bike rides on bridleways. We warmed up then set off on the 2.9km run to the farm with John leading and Paul back marking. On arrival we were met by Mel who talked us through our task and as a reward we were promised cuddles with the goats! ( have you seen those horns!) We moved to the back of the farm past the amorous gazes of the goats to start moving the logs. It was hard work but we managed to complete the move in good time. Towards the end we discovered a hedgehog nestled in the last of the wood. (The hedgehog stole the limelight from the goats for me) On our way out we feed the goats who insisted on cuddles and selfies! Thanks for running coming and doing some good.

Paul

Ps next week’s run will be at Cecil Sharp House.

On a wet and humid night in Camden it was community mission time.

A few came direct to the task and nine of us met at GG Camden's spiritual home in Somers Town before splitting into two smaller groups so we could run in a socially distant manner all the way to KENTISH TOWN CITY FARM!

Animal Farm

And with the farm comes all the animals! At least one person was licked by a cow, loads of people fed goats, it was far too late in the night for the pigs but we still managed to unearth some spiders, snails and slugs during the task.

How much wood could a good-gym... no this won't work

The task at hand was to help move a massive pile of wood from one spot to another. In comes GoodGym and the human wood moving chain. We all lined up and Caz, Dom and Steve extricated the wood and we passed it on being careful of rogue nails and occasionally encountering some planks that needed two.

Before we knew it we had hit 8pm and so we thought we had better leave but not before far too much time hanging out with the goats!

We again split into group for the run home and with that another successful community mission dispatched

Thanks everyone,
Pritesh

Today, 9 GoodGymmers met up to help Kentish Town City Farm with their annual apple day celebrations.

There was a host of amazing activities on offer, from arts-and-craft stalls, to tombolas, to face painting to animal petting, and we were keen to see what we would be assigned to.

In the end, we were assigned to run two arts-and-crafts-based stalls; namely, making Apple heads and leaf people! (See pictures) Tammy, on her first ever GoodGym good deed, also volunteered to help out with the tombola.

As always, we learnt new things about each other on the task. First off, Niamh's happy place is with a blade in hand. Second, Frances' happy place seems to involve googly eyes. Third, you can't mention a single thing without Chi having worked in a related field (he's also Batman in an alternative universe to gullible children). Finally, everyone from Hackney (Alice and Julia in today's edition) is naturally talented at fruit and/or vegetable carving (it's obviously self-selecting to live there). Any extra stuff you've learnt below, feel free to comment below!

Thanks everyone for turning up: hope you had fun! 😄

Edited to add feedback

"Please pass on our thanks to the other goodgymers and Thansk so much for making it such a successful day. We managed to raise just over £2800, more than £500 from last years festival. Everybody really enjoyed themselves and we sold out of all food."

29 GoodGymers braced the drizzle with GoodGym Camden on Wednesday night's run up to the Kentish Town City Farm.

Turning up at the Living Centre to locked doors and nobody at Reception, we decamped to the main Crick Institute reception for our intro. We had a load of new runners with us tonight, as well as a group of tourists from GoodGym Tower Hamlets. Welcome Andy, May, and Khaliun! You certainly picked a good night to join us, and I hope you enjoyed yourselves.

We'll be running back to the Kentish Town City Farm next week for the marquee takedown by the way - get your name down for some goat petting and manure-bag moving!

After a rapid fire intro and warmup we got going - so the question was asked of the new runners to find out what actuallyis the difference between a community mission and a mission? Do you know? Answers at the bottom of this report please!

Our task

Arriving to the sweet smell of wafting manure, we met Mel from the City Farm who told us all about the task:

• Assembling and erecting the two marquees ahead of their annual Apple Day on Sunday.

We split into two teams and got stuck in, using wheelbarrows, people power and our headtorches - thanks again this week Hanry - we marched up to the field to get them built.

Teams seem to be becoming a regular thing in these reports, and this week was no different; Marquee Team A were pitted against Marquee Team B in the battle of the marquees.

Which poles went where proved to be a challenge for both teams, but with the best GoodGym minds at work both marquees were up in 15 minutes flat, with Team B being the far and away winners. With both marquees up, it was time to gather the manure bags to tie to the bottom of the poles to make sure they didn't fly away in a gust of wind.

With our task completed - and 24 bags of poo tied (pendulously some might add) - we assembled for a team photo and after an extra 5 minutes petting the goats and checking on the piggies we said goodbye to Mel and sprinted back to the Living Centre for a cool down and - for some of us - a trip to the pub.

Next time

COMMUNITY MISSIONS GALORE: As mentioned on the run, there's not one but TWO community missions to get stuck in with this week. Thursday (24th) will be another trip to Story Garden. Turn up from 5pm and help do some good with Abi. For those of you who can't do weekdays, Mel and the team would love to see you up at the Kentish Town City Farm on the Apple Day itself this coming Sunday from 11am-4pm. Liz is organising this one - head here to sign up. Don't worry if you can't do the whole time, just comment on the signup page which hours you can do.

NEXT WEEK: So next time, we'll be running back up to the Kentish Town City Farm for Apple Day Part 2 (The Takedown!) to take down the marquees we put up last night. It's yet another opportunity to pet the goats and see the oinking pigs, so there really is no excuse good enough not to attend.

Happy Running!

Ben

57 GoodGymers ran 6km to help Kentish Town City Farm, broke the Camden Attendance Record and I said farewell to you wonderful people!

On my first Wednesday living in London back in May 2014 I enjoyed GoodGym Camden, I found a welcoming community of runners who were like minded people. I was honoured to become your trainer in January 2016, something that's always been more than a job to me. It's a passion; to bring people together, learn about our bodies, help the communities we live/work in and then go to the pub afterwards. You guys are the best!

Thank you so much for last night, the amazing group of you that came in the rain to say goodbye (and hug the goats) and for such wonderful presents.

Okay back to the normal report... welcome along to the newbies Lisa and Xanthy - lovely to have you along!

In the news this week:

1. A huge well done to GG sisters Kat Kelly and Liz Pang for hitting 100 good deeds, I am privileged to call them my friends and proud of what they've achieved at GoodGym Camden over the last 3+ years.
2. Go along to CREOS Community Mission in Islington this Sunday - it's a great one that ends with a free picnic!
3. So I have two races planned that I'd love for you to be apart of - Rother Valley Running Festival (near Sheffield) on 16th November. Also we'll be going to Kiev in May 2020 for the next #GGxEuro Trip! More details about both coming soon.

Corrr blimey there was so many of you! Such a big group, in fact such a big group that we broke the Camden Group Run Attendance Record and were just a few people short of breaking the GG World Record. Next time.

For the run up there we formed two groups of 25-30 people, with brilliant Run Leaders and Taskforce Peeps leading, middlemarking (cheers Steve) and backmarking each one - thanks to Abi, Kat, Chris, Aidan, Patrick, Steve C, Frances, Rosie and James for all there help leading groups through the wet streets of Camden. Meanwhile Mr Lee and I formed good-cycle again and helped direct at various points along the 3k route.

Ciao now Bown cow

Upon our arrival at Kentish Town City Farm Mel told us the brilliant news about the mean old trustee board had been removed, new guys had come in place and £100,000 being donated by a very kind donor. The farm has been saved, a hollywood ending! Then she set us to work with four tasks:

• Three people collected up debris in the goat area
• Twenty-Five people removed old decking from around the pond, and then chain ganged it all the way down to the bin at the bottom of the farm.
• Fifteen people shovelled muck, bagging it up and re-piled it
• Finally thirteen people racked and evened out the ground up at the Arena

The farm was full of activity for 30 minutes, we got so much done and Mel was really pleased! Thanks for working so hard in the rain, muck and more. Next it was GOAT TIME - we hugged them, said hey to little Rosie and fed them - all the fun! After a special group photo we headed back to base for stretches and then onto to pizza + beer! Thanks for Kat, Rosie etc for organising that!

Bown-ding into the future

What a special evening to end a special time for me personally at GoodGym ( both Camden and Islington). As I said last night I started without a beard and not really knowing what was up, the community that is GoodGym has enabled me to grow into who I am today. Thank you so much for the fantastic presents, the messages, the individual farewells and for just being you. You guys are my family, I love you and I'm going to miss you so much!

See you at a GoodGym Event sometime soon!

PB over and out for the final time.