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!

On Tuesday evening, GoodGym Barnet volunteers Beattie,Theo,Ed and Richard headed back to Long Lane Pasture, the site of our group run, for a session filled with teamwork, headtorches, and a whole lot of woodchip.

Richard took the lead as run leader, guiding the group safely along the darker parts of the route. Beattie welcomed everyone with her trademark warmth, while Theodore and Edward kept the group together as back markers, ensuring no one was left behind.

🌱 Meeting Donald & Getting Stuck In We met with Donald, one of the dedicated task owners from the Long Lane Pasture.

Donald had prepared three large sacks of woodchip, ready to be moved up a hill and spread along a 60cm‑wide earth pathway. Armed with shovels, buckets, gloves, and headtorches, the team got straight to work. The group formed a smooth rhythm — scooping, carrying, tipping, and raking — gradually transforming the track into a refreshed path that will benefit visitors and protect the site’s biodiversity.

Huge appreciation to everyone who came out — Beattie, Theodore, Edward and Richard keeping the group safe and together.

Long Lane Pasture looked better already by the time we left, and Donald was delighted with the progress. A brilliant evening of community, graft, and GoodGym spirit.

Five Goodgymmers gathered at the Phoenix for the short run to the Fuel Land Allotments, where Brigid and Les were already at work on the Finchley Charities' community allotment.

But before we got started, it was time for a takeover! Beattie and Rachel brilliantly stepped up to lead our warm up as part of This Girl Can's Move for 10 campaign. Our 10min warm up started with some gentle jogging on the spot, before getting into: * lifting knees and kicking backsides * jump twisting * hip joint warm ups * sprinting on the spot * imaginary stick breaking over the knee * and skipping up the side road then back down

As we did so, they gave us two icebreaker questions for the evening because women have to work twice as hard to succeed! No arguments there! Our questions were: * When was the last time you had a girl boss? * When have you experienced nature 'in tooth and claw' (i.e. the scary side)?

With our brief answers in mind and our muscles warmed up, we set off for the Fuel Lands with Sheela back marking, hearing about all the great bosses we'd had and that time I hit a hornet with a skewer, or the two mice Rachel found nesting in her boot over the weekend (and which Beattie had mysteriously passed to her to put on without disturbing them moments before, but she definitely didn't put them in there herself).

At the gates, Sheela let us in and we made our way to the community plot, where Brigid and Les set us on a number of tasks. First there were some logs to carry. Then we tried and failed - possibly fortunately, for health and safety reasons - to lift the lid on a well cover, to see what was going on. Beattie managed to spy through a corner what was going on - mud, no water, not a lot of excitement - which was sufficient to tell us to delve no deeper.

Sheela and I then helped sow wildflowers as part of the Finchley Pollinators' plans to sow 600 mini-meadows this year. Richard helped Les move some of the paving slabs we'd dug up earlier in the summer, then was joined by the others to help move a large, empty water tank to nearer some beds. Brigid was busy chopping up comfrey leaves to fertilise trenchesa around a bed, and told us the history of the variety - bocking 14, which is a sterile variety developed in the village of Bocking, Essex. It's apparently as nutritious as manure for the soil.

With the daylight fading, we started tidying away tools, but at the shed at the back we still had a pile of sticks they'd dragged from the side by the fence, which needed sorting. So, with 10 minutes left of the session, we decided to snap all the smaller branches off and put them in the wheelbarrows, so the larger branches would be easier to move around.

No promises, but the sticks may end up fuel for a barrow fire in late October, when we go back (with headtorches) for one last session.

(Also! I can't remember any of the puns people were coming up with for the report - something about wells? Post in the comments if you remember!)

This week’s GoodGym Barnet group run was a little different as we started at The Bull Theatre in High Barnet, where we’d previously helped out with some painting.

The Bull is another of Barnet’s little community jewels. The building has a history stretching back centuries and became the Old Bull Arts Centre in 1975. Today it is home to the Susi Earnshaw Theatre School as well as being used by the wider community. The school has helped develop an impressive list of young performers, including Amy Winehouse, Jess Glynne, Daniel Roche from Outnumbered and West End performers Alexia Khadime and Aimie Atkinson. Amy Winehouse and Alexandra Burke are also among those who have performed at the Bull itself. High Barnet Fair was once one of the biggest livestock fairs in England, attracting huge crowds, with horse racing, boxing, drinking and entertainment. The fair became so famous in London that “Barnet Fair” became Cockney rhyming slang for hair .. hence your Barnet.

Then it was time for some GoodGym action. We set about pulling weeds and clearing the outside area, and with plenty of hands we got through the job in quick time ... leaving enough daylight ( but not much ) for a run.

We headed across the High Street and through Old Court House Recreation Ground, enjoying one of those useful traffic-free routes that makes you realise how much there is to discover locally. The park itself was once pasture with stables and a brewery before becoming public open space in the 1920s. From there the route continues down a leafy alley beside the tennis courts, across Mays Lane and eventually through the fields to Dollis Brook.

We caught a lovely glowing sky from the last of the sunset before heading back uphill to the Bull, finishing with a warm-down and stretch inside the theatre.

A good task, a bit of running, some local history and another important community venue supported. We look forward to helping the Bull again later in the year.

The Phoenix Cinema had asked GoodGym Barnet to distribute leaflets for this film in an effort to support a community action screening and Q&A session. We decided to see the film ourselves.

I’ll admit I was initially a little cynical about Super Nature, but having seen it at the weekend,. I think I now understand much better what director Ed Sayers was trying to do.

The whole film is shot on Super 8, the old home-movie format many of us associate with the 1970s and 80s. A cartridge gives you only around two or three minutes of film and there is no recorded sound, so unlike a phone or digital camera you simply can’t keep filming everything. Sayers brought together more than 40 contributors across 25 countries to capture the natural world in this deliberately restricted way.

And perhaps the restriction is the point.

When you only have a tiny amount of film, you have to choose your moment. You spend more time actually looking, waiting and being present in the environment. It reminded me of taking photographs with film: every picture cost something, so you thought about it rather than firing off dozens of shots.

There is also something nostalgic about the grainy Super 8 image. Even the director said at the Q&A that this seems to affect younger people who never actually grew up with the format. It somehow makes what you are watching feel like a memory — and that becomes rather powerful when the subject is a natural world we are in danger of losing.

The film does show some very direct environmental threats: plastic in the oceans, threatened ecosystems and the last northern white rhinos. But I came away thinking there was another, less obvious message as well.

We live in a world where we constantly consume information — photographs, videos, messages, news and data. We record more and more but perhaps sometimes experience less. That endless appetite for more is not completely separate from the wider consumerism which is literally consuming the natural world.

I would have liked more time at the Q&A to explore the community side of this. Perhaps part of reconnecting with nature isn’t travelling across the world to see something spectacular. It is stopping, looking and becoming involved with what is around us — our parks, woods, gardens, birds, insects and local wildlife.

That links very nicely with GoodGym. We can actually do something: look after a local nature reserve, plant and care for trees, clear litter, support community organisations and simply become more aware of the natural world on our doorstep.

Maybe the lesson of Super Nature is quite simple: consume a little less, look a little longer — and get involved.