A change of scenery this week as we headed to the historic Bull Theatre in High Barnet, rather than our usual Phoenix Cinema starting point. Always good to spread our wings a little!

We started with a chat from Carly about the upcoming High Barnet Christmas Fair, a great local tradition which GoodGym has been invited to support. If you’d like to get involved, you can sign up on the GoodGym website. https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/help-the-bull-theatre-at-barnet-christmas-fayre?legacy=true

Unfortunately, our usual contact Susi was unwell, which meant some of our planned tasks had to wait. But there was still plenty to do, with the team getting stuck into weeding the garden areas and pathways, accompanied by the usual GoodGym chatter.

With the gardening done, George led the runners out onto Hadley Common while I stayed behind for a chat with the theatre team. Apparently, there was a slight navigational hiccup, but Victoria R spotted the error and soon had everyone back on track!

A few special mentions this week. Subham who had already run over 8km just to get to the start. Fantastic effort! Patricia , out for her fifth GoodGym session, and Beattie, who has now clocked up an impressive 150 good deeds! Awesome stuff!

And a big thank you to Victoria, who has kindly offered to help promote our activities on Instagram using the GoodGym handle. Every bit of publicity helps spread the word!

After the usual stretches and a final chat, we headed off in our various directions, some running, some cycling and others taking the Tube.

Another enjoyable evening of exercise, community support and good company. Well done, everyone!

On short notice, we found out the Phoenix had no leaflets for us, but a quick message to the Artsdepot and our evening's activities were sorted. I trekked over with 450 of their Autumn programmes in my backpack - which slowed me down a bit! - but lucky for me a whopping seven other Goodgymmers were out for the session, including our favourite four-legged jogger, Gus. Great also to see Lucy taking a break from too much work and join us, and Patricia sticking with us for her fourth session in a month!

We warmed up as usual, taking it turns to pick exercises to our heart rates up. Beattie and Rachel had tonight's question: what item of furniture do you wish you had? A couple of sofas, a standing desk, Richard's wish for a sun lounger, and Paul wanting a tempur mattress (not a tempuRA mattress, which would need a very large deep frier).

Paul and Gus took up backmarking to keep out of the way, while the rest of us got started, splitting into teams to cover each side of the road. We leapfrogged our way through the back streets, occasionally tagging back to Paul to collect more. And we were done with 450 leaflets in about 25min.

Wanting a little more fitness, we jogged across the High Road to Market Place Gardens - a parklet and playground Goodgym Barnet helped prepare the ground for several years ago - for a little bit of circuit training. Push ups, reverse push ups, step ups with cardio inbetween - star jumps, burpies and variations, and squat kicks to finish. It only took another 15min tops and while Subham was keen for the game of tag Paul suggested, it was just a bit too dark and trip-hazardous, so we jogged back to the Phoenix for a decent stretch down and a quick snack and drink.

Well done to Beattie for clocking up a whopping 150 good deeds - a mini-milestone, but not far off 200. Plenty more to keep fit with!

George kicked off the run with a question about gigs, inspiring Rachel and Beattie, two stalwart GoodGymers, to give this report a slightly musical theme.

Beattie took a walk on the wild side with Patricia, while the others set off running, with Victoria as back marker. Richard went past like a flash—ah-ah!—and George once again wondered whether Richard had ambitions for leadership.

All the leaves were brown and the sky had a greyish tinge as the GoodGymers set to work for a while on an autumn day.

We raked the leaves with abandon and bagged them up, then tucked the bulbs into the soil, leaving them “dreaming Spring”. We pictured a host of golden daffodils to come, taking a moment to look up at the stars.

We made these memories for ourselves, with Theodore capturing our usual photos.

Finally, we laid down our tools and returned to the cinema, where we celebrated Richard’s 400th outing with pizza and popcorn.

Another Tuesday evening saw us gathering in the foyer of the Phoenix Cinema for our regular GoodGym Barnet session this time with a milestone to celebrate.

George had reached his 200th GoodGym good deed, so before we set off he was presented with his badge and his very own GoodGym Barnet cap – England-style! He duly knelt to receive it and wore it proudly for the rest of the evening.

Welcome to Patricia & Victoria both on their first group run!

After our warm-up, our icebreaker was to share a time we’d rescued an animal. Appropriately, George had rescued a fox from some netting that very day, although most of the other stories seemed to involve pigeons and other birds!

We then headed the kilometre or so to Martin Primary School, taking the back streets and stopping for a few exercises along the way to keep everyone together.

At the school we met John and, with limited tools available, split into two groups – one working out while the other shifted a large pile of woodchip across the path into the Forest School area. Twenty minutes later we were meant to swap, but there was still plenty to move, so everyone piled in. With a shiny new wheelbarrow, plenty of hands and even a few saucepans pressed into service as scoops, we got the job done.

Then it was back to the Phoenix for a celebratory drink or two, supporting our wonderful local cinema while raising a glass to George and his 200 good deeds.

Well done George – here’s to the next 200!