After a jog down for a lush couple of laps of Kennington Park in the evening sun, we assembled to help set up for the regular food bank at Draper Hall - where in recent times they have increased their frequency to offering foodbanks for the local community twice a week. Chalice from Draper Hall shared some of the history of the centre, where alongside foodbanks, they provide a wide range of activities for the community - ranging from sports groups to knitting circles, providing a space where people come to connect and catch up.

The team got straight into a real flow state, setting up a mighty amount of bananas and all manner of fresh fruits and vegetables, alongside a world of legumes, lovingly sorted, and boxes, lovingly crushed.

Many hands made for pretty quick work and so after an hour we cathartically jettisoned our recycling and headed out - some dispersing into the night, and some of us taking a couple kilometres loop around the quieter streets to end the evening and cool down. Great to have Ben with us for his first GoodGym session - and to have such a lovely gang to show him the ropes!

Thanks all for another great E&C task - we'll definitely be back.

On Wednesday the Elephant & Castle team met at the Castle Centre and jogged (via a quick sneak peak at next week's location) down to the amazing Walworth Living Room - a charming community space offering a warm, welcoming home-from-home for local residents.

We got straight to it - Jorge and James steaming the sofas right into a new lease of life; alongside Dominic, Manuel and Lena between them setting the garden up for the new weekend events hosting a local market; and lovingly cleaning the approximately 2000 toys available for the kids; and finally Charlie and Jessie deep cleaning and "setting up a system" for the kitchen, before heading out to flyer for the weekend events.

We took a lovely quiet running route back to the Castle and all celebrated another great week at the Four Quarters (with some excellent reinforcements thanks to Jorge!)

What a ride!

On Wednesday evening, fourteen humans and one pup headed down to the UK's oldest adventure playground with strict and clear instructions to "have at it"...

We had Chris stoically sweeping basically the whole site, a dedicated squad clearing out the "pit of doom", and our expert gardeners removing a rogue buddleia that was impeding play (after double checking it was the right plant to remove - an occasional risk in the exciting landscape of the adventure playground!). And of course particular props to watering team for embracing their iconic tools of choice - winning the week's style awards in the rubber-ducky-chic category.

Great to have Stephen, Amy, Ashfaq and, with thanks, co-backmarkers Eloise and Anna for their first sessions! And of course our first E&C canine joiner, Max.

We did note with some pride as they ran off that Amy chose to join us at E&C after Chris had been talking up GoodGym for years! Let's go!

Series one, episode two has dropped!

And it was some GoodGymming for the ages. A dozen of us met at the Castle Centre and jogged a lovely route down the quiet roads and across Burgess Park to meet a few more GoodGymmers at the Trinity College Centre, an amazing long-standing community space in the heart of Camberwell. We split up into teams and set to, one taking on clearing up the garden, the largest group deep cleaning the kitchen walls - the kitchen gets a lot of use as they offer free meals in partnership with local charities - and a third sorting through a magical mystery room that needed a bit of a refresh.

With an honourable shout out to Hilary for getting up the ladder to deep clean the extractor fan; the session highlight has to be the team of Lorna Jorge James Sevan Theo and others turning their talents to surgically deep cleaning the insides of two huge ovens - getting in a solid bicep workout and transforming them to look almost new.

Site manager Kevin was delighted and was already asking when we can come back. With a seamless return jog where we stayed perfectly as a group and definitely didn't split into three smaller groups, we capped the evening with a gentle cool down.

A small gang headed to the Four Quarters for some OJ & lemonades (king of drinks!) and to plot our next running events.

See you all for episode 3!

We've launched! It's happened!

On Wednesday 22 Elephant & Castle GoodGymmers headed down to Nursery Row Park to help the Friends of the Park with upkeep of the community space.

We raked leaves galore, giving the grass underneath a much needed chance to grow; a team of the most green-fingered (i.e. the people who had brought gloves) turned over the local primary school's gardening patch, leaving it ready for planting, and an intrepid crew ventured into the orchard to do some advanced litter picking...

We jogged back to our meeting point at the Castle Centre, and after a gentle cool down stretch, a few of us headed to Four Quarters to toast a succesful inaugural GoodGym Elephant & Castle.