Our final group run of the year.

Everyone descended upon Old Spike Roastery, but there was a new look. Most of us didn't have our running gear on as tonight's group run was going to be a group walk since the task was close enough for both options. For one last time in 2023, Sam welcomed in Andrada, Andy, Benjamin, Daryl, David, Gemma, Isaac, James, Katy, Lindy, Maria, Mikhail, Nelly, Paulin, Sadaf and Tim.

Sam did his customary GG intro speech and since most of us were walking, we skipped the warm-up and went straight to tonight's ice-breaker question.

In the lead up to Christmas, Sam's ice-breaker questions for tonight was: What is the most underated item on the Christmas table on Christmas Day?, What is your most memorable Christmas gift from Santa? and finally, What is your favourite Christmas song?

From bread sauce to brussel sprouts and from chestnuts to the all-essential water, we had the unique and standard answers for the most underated Christmas item on the table for Christmas Day. From toy sets and Pokemon cards to plush toys and the first game console, everyone has something special from Santa. Fairytale of New York had the most mentions for favourite Christmas song.

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Secret store rooms within the Salvation Army Nunhead maze

Off Mikhail went with Andrada, Andy, Nelly, and Sadaf for their run to Salvation Army Nunhead via Peckham Rye as Sam led the walking group via a shortcut to the task.

Outside Salvation Army Nunhead, we met Anna, Clare, Emma, Folarin, Olive and Vic who had walked or cycled over to the task. As Polis, let us in, he was overwhelmed with the amount of volunteers and had to split us into 4 sub-teams:

1. First team had to take care of the shop front by replicating a design from a sheet to make it become a reality. Anna led this team as she brought on Andy and Katy to help her out.

2. Emma, Maria, Nelly and Olive stayed behind in the shop too as they helped sweep, hoover and moped the shop floor.

3. There was some organising and sorting of Christmas presents and the general space in the main hall of Salvation Army Nunhead, so Clare along with Andrada, David, Folarin, Sadaf and Vic.

4. Meanwhile, up the stairs and in the secret storage room, Benjamin, Isaac, James, Paulin and Tim moving and clearing out donations that were broken or old as Polis needed to create space in the secret storage room.

Simultaneously, all tasks took their time, but group 1, 2 and 3 finished their tasks early, so they went up to the bookstore to start clearing that room too as there are plans to change the space in the new year. After our group photo, we said our goodbyes to Polis before everyone walked, ran or cycled back to Old Spike and some went over to Voodoo Ray's immediately.

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Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came out tonight! For those who ran either one way or both ways with Mikhail who led from the front and kept the group together. Also, for taking the photos on the night. For those who decided to walk and chat on the way there reflecting on their day and week. Finally, thank you to everyone for getting stuck in with the tasks at hand! We smashed it within 35-40 minutes.

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Thank You to Polis

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 Polis for staying in the shop to let us in and for having all the tasks ready for us!

With the day off, Sam arrived nice and early to open up Old Spike as he welcomed in Andrada, Daryl, Elena, Gemma, Isaac, Katy, Maria, Nathan, Nelly, Olive (who reached her target for the year tonight), Phil and Tim! We even had newbie, Andy join us. Welcome Andy!

As we all gathered at Old Spike, Sam did his longer speech for Andy as he talked about the ways he can get involved with GoodGym further. After a few weeks of skipping the warm-up, Sam decided to do it tonight as the run to the task wasn't far. After the warm-up, everyone gave their answer to tonight's ice-breaker question.

Since it was International Men's Day over the weekend, Sam's ice-breaker question for tonight was: The theme of this year's International Men's Day is "Take action and stay healthy", can you give one practical tip for Men or male identify to stay mentally healthy? Secondly, who has been a big influential person in your life that is male/male-identifying?

For big influences, we had people's other halves, Dads, brothers, friends and even primary/secondary teachers made the list. In terms of tips, we had going out for a walk to clear your headspace, but the common theme was to be encouraged to talk about your feelings.

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Finding salvation in cleaning

As we left Old Spike, Sam lead the way whilst Olive backmarked as we ran towards Peckham Rye Park and looped back at the cafe towards Nunhead. We did meet tens of runners running with Peckham Pacers. Yet, we got to Salvation Army on Nunhead Green just in time to meet Tiziana, Emma and Vic who met us there at the task.

With such a large group, Tiziana had to split us into two. One smaller group consisting of Daryl, Emma, Gemma, Nathan, Nelly and Olive were given the cleaning task. They took brooms, hoovers and cleaning cloths as they cleaned the charity shop/cafe's toilets, hallway, stairs and offices. Phil and Vic joined them in sweeping the charity shop as there were a few dusty corners. The rest of the team were upstairs in the library/bookshop space to sort out books in terms of their categories: Biography, Children's, Fiction and Thriller/Action.

The 40 minute session zoomed by and we managed to finish the cleaning, but there were still plenty of books to sort out. We will be back in three weeks' time to finish this task off and give the space another spruce up.

After our group photo, we said our goodbyes and ran literally 600 metres to get back to Old Spike for a lovely stretch before a few of us decided to go to the Old Nag's Head for a Guinness or two.

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Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came out tonight! Firstly, we welcomed Alex for his first GoodGym session. It was a nice short dry run both ways. The task was manageable given the size of volunteers we had. Thanks to Olive for backmarking and ensuring no-one gets left behind. We will be back in 3 weeks!

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Thank You to Tiziana

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 Tiziana for preparing all the equipment and tasks for us to do in advance! We're back in three weeks' time to finish what we started with the books!

It was amazing to see not only Andrada coming back for her second good deed, but to have 21 sign ups! In the end, 20 came, but still this was incredible for GoodGym and reminiscent of the days before the pandemic hit!

We all gathered in the warmth of Old Spike as Sam delivered his GG intro speech and acknowledging that Maria hit and has exceeded her yearly target of 25 good deeds within 3 weeks of joining! There will be a gift at Xmas social.

They proceed to do their warm-up on the Green as this week, Sam had to be filmed by Paulin, so that he could complete his Run Leader training. A two minute clip showing a decent warm-up.

After the warm-up on the Green, Sam's ice-breaker for tonight was a two-parter: Tomorrow, is International Teacher Day, so who is your favourite teacher and what did they teach you? or the second question was: On Friday is World Smile Day, so what made you smile today?

With 15 people present on the Green, it's hard to remember and put all their answers on here, but we acknowledged, smiled and thanked Clare and Mikhail as they are teachers / teaching assistants.

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Fire fighting

We split our ways on the Green, with those going to Elmington Gardens followed Sam leading the 3k run whilst Mikhail was backmarking. Lindy and Maria took Andrada, Clare, David, John and Nelly on a shorter 1.5k run to Salvation Army in Nunhead.

An incline run from Peckham up Grove Vale to the other side of Camberwell took the team just over 15 minutes as they arrived at Elmington Community Garden to meet Zulieka and her girls as well as Tam and Jessie, who cycled and ran over to the task, respectively. The task was to weed the herbs bed, but we also had a team consisting of Clare, Isaac and Paulin moving mulch from the Wildlife Triangle to the site where the rest were weeding. Mikhail was our photographer for the night as he captured the moments.

Meanwhile at the Salvation Army Nunhead, after running 1.5k with Lindy leading the way and Maria backmarking to ensure no one is left behind, they met Anna, Emma and Steve outside the shop entrance. Polis and Tiziana kindly let them in and they were shown into the new storage room. The task at hand was to move boxes from upstairs in the old storage downstairs. To achieve maximum efficiency, the team created a people chain and they each had their own little section. They moved mostly household items, shoes and children's toys. After this, they had the time to roam the library/book store section to get a book or two as a token of helping out.

The teams in their respective locations called it at 20:00 to head back to Old Spike as it was the first Wednesday of the month, so the team had a social to attend.

Those who stayed for the social went to Market Place in Peckham to check out the establishment. However, only one food stall was still open at 20:30. We all had a drink from the bar and a few of us nibbled on Mexican food!

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Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came out tonight! Firstly, a massive thank you to my taskforce team for helping out with a variety of tasks from co-leading the second task to backmarking and from taking photos to being walk leaders too. Thank you to the rest of you for coming along for what is our biggest group run to date since I took over as AA in September 2021 - thank you!

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Thank You to Polis, Tiziana and Zuleika

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 Polis and Tiziana for bringing their task a week earlier, so we could accommodate for the large group. We will be back at the Salvation Army in Nunhead on the 22nd of November and again, on the 13th of December. As for Zuleika, thank you for having us and showing what we needed to do as we moved almost all the mulch over and weeded the communal garden. We are always up for doing sessions on the weekends to help out with any weeding but for Wednesday evenings, we're full until the new year, so we'll be back in 2024!

Embrace Equity

International Women's Day fell on the same day as our group run, so in the spirit of the day...we celebrated our women at GoodGym. Sam had brought some merch from his work (as there were spares) to dish out, so we could show our support.

Sam was the first one at Old Spike, but not for long as newbie, David mustered the strength to leave his home in the cold, rainy and windy weather to show up for his first good deed! Kudos to you, David! The rest started to pop through the door and into the warmth of this coffee house between the times of 18:30-18:45.

Sam's GG intro was a slightly longer version for David as he is new. There was a quick warm-up outside in the alleyway before Sam informed everyone of tonight's ice-breaker question, which was to do with the fact it is "International Women's Day", so he asked: Who's the most influential woman in your life (not including family members)?

We had various women of influential in science, sports, literature and history, but Alice found a loop-hole to the question and stated her veterinarian friend and Steve highlighted his first boss.

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Alice in Runderland

Tonight was special, not only because it was International Women's Day, but our very own Alice had reached 100 good deeds and claimed her wings! From being a Lambeth regular in the past to recently coming to more Southwark sessions, it's been a pleasure to have Alice come back to GoodGym and finally reach this milestone!

Our run to Salvation Army Nunhead was short and sweet as we ran just over 2k to reach our destination with five minutes to spare. We ran a little bit faster to keep warm and we wanted to get out of the run as soon as possible.

We met Magda who cycled to the task as Tiziana let us in and showed us to what needed to be done tonight.

Our 40 minute session flew by as we organised ourselves into a chain of carrying items from the "room to be sorted" to another room on the other side of the building and up two flights of stairs. There were some quite heavy / bulky / awkward items to carry, but in twos and threes, we managed to take all the items across.

The last few minutes were spent looking at books as Tiziana gifted us the opportunity to take a few books, board games, DVDs and even soft drinks.

It was such a quick run back as we covered less than 800 metres to get back to base.

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Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came out tonight! Firstly, it was great to see David come for his first GoodGym session! It is always lovely to newbies. Thank you to the rest who braved the awful weather to come for this short run and task. I hope you got a workout and the pleasures of a small gift or two.

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Thank You Tiziana

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 Tiziana for holding the Salvation Army Nunhead "fort" whilst Maria and Polis are away. It has been a pleasure to come back every month to help out with various sorting donations tasks. We are taking a break as Spring and Summer brings opportunity to be outside and help community gardens grow, but we'll be in touch as we get closer to October!

Yet, if you are in need of us, please do not hesitate to contact us.

It's Wednesday night, which means it's a GoodGym Southwark group run night. Yet, there's something a bit different about tonight...

The first to arrive at Old Spike was none other than newbie, Tamsin, who came a few weeks ago for a docs check, but this was the first time she was doing a GoodGym session. It just happened it was on a social night as well as a special occasion. The small coffee shop started to fill with keen GoodGymers as there was a high turnout for tonight's indoor task at Salvation Army Nunhead.

As we approached 18:45, Sam began with his speech and ensure to include the special mentions:

• Lindy had earnt her wings after reaching 100th good deeds! Six months or so after hitting 50, very impressive!

• Sam in just under four years became the 4th person in GoodGym history to hit the coveted 1,000 good deeds milestone! 😲

After all the pleasantries, Sam informed everyone of tonight's ice-breaker question, which was meant to be last week's for Chinese New Year....but he had a second question too: What is your favourite Chinese food? and/or What is your favourite GoodGym task?

With thirteen people, I will try to remember a few answers: fortune cookie, mapo tofu, anything with "crispy", anything with "soya sauce", egg tarts, duck pancakes, dumplings and wonton soup were the answers for the first question. The second one was a variety with a few moments of regular tasks like Thorlands Community Garden, Old Alleynian Rugby Club, Surrey Docks Farm and Galleywall Nature Reserve as well as newer tasks like Kingswood Arts and tasks from outside the borough in Bristol, Hackney and Lewisham.

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A thousand reasons why

With Sam leading from the front and Daryl backmarking, we ran from Old Spike to the middle of Peckham Rye and looped back to Nunhead. The 2k run took us over 15 minutes with traffic lights etc.

Waiting for us at Salvation Army Nunhead was Anna and our contact, Hilary. They gave us a warm welcome as we entered through the charity shop entrance.

The task tonight was to clear out the room we had cleared out a few months ago of books, but it had before a dumping ground. Hilary wanted us to sort the books out and take the other items down to the charity shop. The room would become a sorting room. That was one task, the other was to shift what we create in December away from the cozy corner to the middle part as Hilary wanted the corner space to be used as a delivery space for the massive amounts of donations they have been getting.

Sam split the team and made Anna sub-team captain, yet by the end of it...everyone was helping everyone out.

With Sam's playlist booming out of his speakers, everyone got in the groove and swing of things as we started to sort out the donations. We were so efficient, Hilary asked us to slow down. After 20 minutes or so, we were clutching at straws on what we could do for the last 10-15 minutes, so Sam told the team to browse and get 1 or 2 books as a treat.

As we said our goodbyes to Hilary, we headed out to celebrate Sam and Lindy's major milestones as well as our anniversary at the Old Nun's Head (next door). Some had to go back to Old Spike to get their belongings, but joined the gang later and just in time for Drag Karaoke Bingo! Some had the vegan food of offer, everyone had drinks and almost everyone had a slice of the lovely beetroot cake Paulin had baked. Thank you Paulin! We made sure we got our customary "milestone birthday" photos for Lindy's 100th and Sam's 1,000th before we celebrated GoodGym Southwark's 7th birthday....they grew up too fast 😢 We did join the Drag Karaoke Bingo (thanks Anna for putting us all in), but we didn't win any prizes....Steve was close....a line away or was he... 👀

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Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came out tonight! A special thanks to Daryl for backmarking the run, Paulin for taking the photos (at the task and after) and Anna for being sub-task captain. Another thanks goes to Tamsin for showing up for her first group run! Hooray! And a massive thank you to everyone for celebrating this major milestone with me.

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Thank You Hilary

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 Hilary as it would have normally been Tiziana or even Polis, who would like us in. However, Hilary was kind enough to not only let us in, but gave us tasks that lasted the whole session...granted we did have to slow down as we were quick.

It has been a wet and windy week, but that didn't stop 10 GoodGymers from showing up on Wednesday night in the warmth and comforts of Old Spike.

Sam arrived early to talk with Andres (manager of Old Spike) as they hadn't seen each other since the last group run of 2022. Joao was there as he had cycled from work in quick fashion and slowly, but surely the usual suspects arrived until one not so usual arrived too. Rachel had heard from a friend all the good things about GoodGym and wanted to give it a try as she is based in Clapham, but will be moving to Camberwell soon. It was great to have another newbie come along after two came last week. We were fortunate enough to get a second task 24 hours before, so not everyone would go flyering. Half the group would go to Salvation Army Nunhead to sort out the donated books that were given over the festive period.

As we were waiting for Paulin, who was to lead the second group to Salvation Army Nunhead, Sam went through the motions of his GG speech as we had a newbie and after a warm-up in the alleyway his ice-breaker question tonight, which was to do with the fact it's was his birthday on Monday, but he had two other questions in mind..: What is your birthday tradition? What is your go-to winter warmer (food)? What do you do on a rainy day?

Let's see if I remember a few answers: sharing a birthday with your sister, celebrating your birthday over a whole month, having brunch and going for a swim and paying for your birthday dinner to your friends and family. There were a load of comforting dessert type foods for the winter warmer and a cheese toastie with hot chocolate. On a rainy day, Clare likes to just get out there, embrace the weather and go for a run/walk.

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Seeking Dulwich Dads for Lindy

Although, Paulin was running late, the group that were going to Salvation Army Nuhead: Clare, Emma, Joao and Rachel were happy to be left at Old Spike until Paulin came as the rest had to rush off to collect the flyers and then flyer around Dulwich.

Sam lead Clare, Daryl, Lindy and Steve through East Dulwich and parts of North Dulwich to get to St. Faith's Community Centre (2.5k at this point) to find the hidden flyers that Andrea had stored away earlier in the day. Once found, we ran a further 250 metres to the starting point, which was Burbage Road. Splitting the flyers and the team by pairing up Clare and Steve to cover one side of the road and Daryl and Lindy to cover the other side. Sam waited at several checkpoints to see how everyone was getting along and within 30 minutes, the team had flyered the whole of Burbage Road and half of Turney Road (by this point, it was 5k). We all took in the massive houses in Dulwich and wished we could be in them. Lindy is on the hunt for Dulwich Dads, so if you know any...please send them her way 😂 Our 2.5k run back meant that we did 7.5k within an hour in total!

The Salvation Army Nunhead group were met by Magdalena who cycled from home to meet the team there and Tiziana, who was covering for Polis whilst he is on break in Argentina (to learn to dance). The charity had received loads of books over the festive period, so like always, the team sorted them out in categories: hard backs, soft backs, travel, cooking, children etc.

By the time, the two teams met again it was 20:10 and Sam ensured everyone did a good stretch despite the Salvation Army group running less than 2k. They were also met by Tamsin who came to do her documents check in order to do missions for the elderly/isolated.

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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 great to have a core group coming every week and great to see new faces too - thanks Rachel for coming and we hope to see you again soon!

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Thank You Andrea & Tiziana

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 Tiziana for the last minute task to Salvation Army Nunhead to help them with their stock of books and to Andrea for leaving us flyers at St. Faith's to flyer around Dulwich!