With Yianny away, the keys to the castle was given to Sam (GG Southwark Area Activator).

They had planned whilst Yianny was away to attend a joint Lambeth and Southwark community organisation: Thorlands. Based in Camberwell, the community garden finds itself on the border of the two boroughs. Still sharing is caring!

As one by one the GoodGymers arrived at Papa Park, there were a few new faces: Aimee and Lindsay came along to their first ever group run! It was a first ever good deed for Aimee, but Lindsay had already attended two other community missions prior. Welcome to GoodGym!

Due to the lack of space as the kids were still playing in the playground, we went through a quick warm-up before answering our ice-breaker question for tonight which is in line with International Day of Dance, which is this coming Friday and Sam asked: What type of dance do you like or want to learn or can you bust out a dancing move for us?

Charlotte and Sam had some moves meant to scare the kids away from the playground.... 👀 Others bravely answered more conservatively with favorites/wanting to learn the Charleston, Flamengo, Scottish (wedding) dance and Lindy Hop were amongst the ones I remember.

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Girl Power // Chip Happens

Sam set quite a fast pace from Brixton and down Coldharbour Lane to arrive at Thorlands, a 2k run within 12 minutes. Yet, they were still four minutes late. Simon (the task owner) had all the tools ready and we just needed to get the wheelbarrows. The task had changed from what we were expected to do a few hours prior as Simon had a delivery of woodchip mulch and top soil, but unfortunately they delivered it on the other side of the estate.

We were armed with a map, which we didn't take, but Lindy was certain she knew the way and after about a five minute wonder we found the tonne bags stacked upon each other.

The team wasted no time and got stuck in! They shoveled two wheelbarrows of woodchip, which Michael and Nathan brought over. Yet, sensing that there will be a lot of waiting, we decided we could move the tonne bag of woodchip (as it was light) to Thorlands by dragging it. Aimee, Lindy, Lindsay and Tilly did so without any hesitancy. They worked well as a team as Sam just snapped away for the Gram! They made it all the way to Thorlands, but the bag did split around 10-20 metres from the end. Yet, not much came out and the majority made it to its temporary storage space. Charlotte and Kaz came over with the first wheelbarrows of top soil, but realising time was against them; Sam called it and asked Aimee to get the ripped tonne bag to cover the top soil to ensure the foxes wouldn't get to the newly delivered soil over the next few nights.

After a quick photo op in the Walled Garden, the team were off for a quick card based HIIT session in Myatt's Fields, which ended up being focused mainly on squats and push-ups. With everyone getting hungry, the 2k run back was quite fast despite the traffic lights. We arrived back at Papa Park's just after 20:30 for the cooldown stretch!

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Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came and ran tonight! Apologies for ending the session slightly later (20:35), but we managed to get a 4k run in total done, 40 minutes of volunteering and a 10 minute HIIT session! I hope to see you soon, but I'll hand you back to Yianny - until next time, see ya!

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Thank You Simon

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 Simon for organising the tools and the task for us to do! Sorry, we couldn't complete the task, but some of us will be back for some more on Saturday!

Yesterday three Goodgymmers went to Thorlands to help out with some gardening. This week, our mission was to tackle some bindweed that had swallowed a fence, and to also do some raking.

This was Abilio's first mission and he got stuck in and raked up all the leaves - we learnt from Simon from Thorlands, that this means that weeds will be open to frost rather than protected by leaves and so raking up the leaves now means less weeding later, smart! Good job Abilio!

Meanwhile, Rebecca and I pulled off bindweed from a fence. Abilio joined us after he was finished with the raking. This was a fiddly job since the bindweed was so tangled up in the fence! But we got there with patience and perseverance.

We had time to tidy up at the end (bindweed goes in the bin, everything else gets composted) and headed home - just in time since my toes were starting to get cold... Well done everyone!

It was all happening in Thorlands on Saturday!

Probably our biggest turnout since we started to collaborate with Simon and the Thorland gang in the summer. Was it because everyone knows we're all working towards a meaningful project or was it because everyone wanted to get shrooming? Probably both.

Firstly, thanks and shout out to Jessie, Katie and Nathan for convincing Chris at Brockwell Parkrun to come along. We had a couple of newbies too - Laura and Lucie, welcome again to GoodGym and I hope you'd enjoyed the session. Still, technically, a newbie too - Ema came along for her 3rd ever Good Deed and 2nd Thorlands community mission in a row! Yet, I know and understand why we all want to come back and help Simon. We can see the vision and the work that needs to be done to get to the point where there will be a stage for small and intimate performances, an outdoor yoga tent, an arts & craft market stall(s), an actively growing kitchen garden and much more for all to enjoy!

Thorlands Garden Club need our help continuing with the buddleia bashing and crushing the corinthian (I think that's what it was) tree in the forest garden. In 8, we split into two teams, for the sake of this report, let's say "A" team and "B" team....

In the "A" team, we had the "no nonsense" Chris slashing at the buddleia with the loppers and then its stump with the saw, Laura and Ema who were systematic at trimming back and categorizing what Chris had cut - leafy greens in one pile, small woody bits in another, larger woody bits in a third pile and the bind weed in the plastic bag. It's all very scientific.

In the "B" team, we had the determined Nathan with the mattock digging into the soil to take out the roots with Jessie whilst Katie and Lucie sorted out the branches into their categorized sizes and occasionally, taking a good 10-15 minutes to saw any branches that were too big 🙃😜

I went in between each group to help out (at times), chat and take photos....what am I slacking? Nope, that's my job 😜

The hour and a half sped by as we could tell the massive difference in the "before" and "after" shots (although, I forgot to take a "before") in both the area "A" team and "B" team were working on. It was that impressive that Simon kindly invited all of us to stay for the mushroom workshop as Elliot from Urban Farm-It had much room for us 😂

The knowledgeable Elliot woo'd and wowed us with his impressive knowledge of all things mushroom (from the origins of mushrooms to how mushrooms will save/take over the world...they will literally get us out of truffle) 😂 The session really grew on me.... There will be another Shrooming session with Elliot in the Spring, so look out for that.

Thank you all for coming out and I will be adding Simon's photos to this report once I receive them.

Simon (Thorlands task owner) wasn't feeling 100% great tonight and we almost cancelled since it was just me. However, he knew we had the mushroom workshop this weekend and we had to get rid of as many leaves as possible on the woodchip that we put down months ago in preparation for this mushroom workshop. I raked the leaves in a gentle motion to ensure the woodchip stayed in place. Simon helped out by directing me and eventually towards the end of the session, we decided to saw down one tree (that was already dead) and take off the ivy that had engulfed it.

The evening session ended earlier as I had to head off to Mark's last Lambeth group run.

Paulin and Rebecca spent Tuesday night helping out at Thorlands Gardens

We were given the task of cutting down a specific buddleia tree - that was the easy part! The hard part was detangling the branches from bindweed and separating it out, since it can't be composted. However, we managed it and was able to tidy everything up before heading home on time. Great job!

Today, Sam, Sophie and Paulin went to Thorlands Gardens to continue clearing the old playground (now the Forest Garden). Simon from Thorlands welcomed us in as usual, and stayed with us to help generally and also show us how to use the tools.

We focussed on a particularly large buddleia bush. We worked methodically, removing the smaller branches first and getting bigger, until we finally sawed it down to a small stump. Even with our head torches, it was quite dark, and we had extra motivation cut the bush down quickly so that we could access the light from the lamp that was behind the buddleia. Luckily, Sam arrived soon after with more lighting that helped a lot too!