A special run, this one - a magical mystery tour of the locations that made up the first ever group run and the first ever coach run - from over 16 years ago (💾 📼 📟)!

Why? Well, to bid farewell to a special guy. He's tall, he's pale, he's handsome, he has an OBE. It's goodgym's founder Ivo Gormley. Many words were said about this man at the leaving party after the run, at the beautiful Calthorpe Community Garden, so we are not going to attempt to do him justice here. But the fact that a group of otherwise strangers, all wearing their red and black uniforms with pride, were gathered on the steps of York Hall (can you use their toilet? NO) a full sixteen years after the first group of otherwise strangers gathered on the steps of York Hall, to run around and help some people, has to mean something about how powerful and enduring Ivo's idea has been.

Warm up? LEG SWINGS UP THE WAZOO 🦵🏿💨 💨💨 - led masterfully and mindfully by Ade - along with some other limbs and muscles essential for running.

Bags loaded up in the Mechanical Cycling Machine™️ (it's Fast Boi Shaun Dixon on a cargo bike 🚚), we are led off by Euclides Montes who, by his own admission, doesn't actually know the area at all. But who cares?! It's the running that counts! More being lost equals more running! For the relatively small Venn diagram of people who were both a) on a goodgym run and b) knowledgeable about football, Darren performed the role of Roving Reporter (bluetooth speaker) with the GOALS! GOALS! GOALS! from England's match against DR Congo. There were indeed three goals but it wasn't a pretty picture for the 68 minutes between goal 1 and goal 2. We ran past some awfully concerned looking pub goers! But it had a happy ending WAHEEEYYYYY ⚽️.

First stop (probably, can't remember the order because the goals were so compelling) was St Hilda's East Community Centre - the site of the VERY FIRST GOODGYM GROUP TASK. In 2009, Ivo and 13 others emptied a cupboard. And how! St Hilda's is awesome - long-term friend of gg Tower Hamlets, the Centre (led by Lucy) provides bilingual advisory services around employment 🧑🏾‍⚖️, offers activity clubs to combat loneliness 🎯, exercise classes for the elderly 🪑 - it's the kind of place that communities across the country utterly depend upon.

Question, is it possible to belong to goodgym for 12 years and still not know the name of common little yellow flowers 🌼 that come in pots? Answer: Yes! But we planted them on the roof. Those who were particularly confident at differentiating between plants (alive) and plants (dead) also performed a valuable weeding service (let's hear it for weeds 🌱!), leaving things very spruce and cheery up on the terrace for users of the Centre to enjoy.

Next stop, just round the corner off Arnold Circus, where one Ian Drysdale (runs a long way, never looks sad 👨🏻‍🦱) gave us the next bit of the history tour. DID YOU KNOW that Ivo and Ian worked together in a social-enterprise-cum-think-tank in Shoreditch, before goodgym even existed? If you didn't, you could guess. Ian showed us the EXACT SPOT where Ivo first turned to him and said, "Ian I have an idea about a club where people run around and do helpful things instead of just be in the gym" and Ian was like, "WHAT? No Way!" and Ivo was like, "Yes absolutely WAY and I'm doing it, and you're DOING IT WITH ME because you know about computers 🤓 and I only know about films and being kindly." I am fairly confident this is what was said. And so goodgym became a thing with a name and a team.

One! More! Stop! It was only TERRY'S HOUSE wasn't it! "Who's Terry?" - have you been living under a rock? Terry was the clay-pipe-collecting (no, still no idea), amateur-boxing, newspaper-reading, Ivo-appreciating elderly man who became the defacto first-ever goodgym coach. Ivo used to run to his house and there they did have a chat, and that really was it and that was kind of the point. Another goodgym man John Hunter (👋🏻) has also been a long-time coach visit-doer and so said some words about this. Those words were like: "Having been running to my coach Florence 👵🏿 for 6 years, and then Richard 👴🏻 for nearly 2 years now, I have learned a couple of things about what it means to make these visits. It is a friendship, not a service, and it has the potential to be profound for both of you." They were very serious words and I'm not crying, you're crying.

With that, the history had been retold, and it was time to jog on 🏃🏻‍♂️🏃🏻‍♂️- to Calthorpe, and a garden full of over..ooh, a hundred? people with love and admiration in their hearts for the phenomenon that is goodgym. Ivo is a very humble man, but let's be honest, it wouldn't exist without him, would it?

The Shindig 2026 Sunday walk had something for everyone, combining history and nature along 5km of trails around YHA National Forest. With nods to the area's industrial past in a beautiful countryside setting, 25 GoodGymers joined for a very mindful morning.

We walked through Conkers, along the Ashby Canal, past Moira Furnace and around Donisthorpe Woodland Park, before heading along part of the Ashby Woulds Heritage Trail (a disused railway) back to base.

The highlight was stumbling across a Living History Camp as part of an event at Moira Furnace Museum. As well as a history lesson, we got a snapshot of the more simple parts of wartime life. Not something you see every day!

Good movement, good time in nature, and good connection, what better way to round up another beautiful GoodGym Shindig weekend 💛