39 GoodGymers and their friends (two and four legged) came together for the first GoodGym London North vs South of the river rounders tournament.

Teams were split into roughly those from GoodGym boroughs North and South, but there were a few more Southerners, who in the end represented the winning team...but more on that later.

We had No Runs Northerners versus Southern Softies in the first semi, where Ed smashed all his shots for a rounder and posted a 13 1/2 score. Unfortunately, No Runs Northerners could only score 7 1/2 rounders before being caught all out.

The next semi final saw Ninety Nine Problems, but a Northerner ain't one play Southern Spitballers and this wasn't a close affair as the Northerners put 14 rounders on the scoreboard leaving the Southerners with a difficult task to beat them. They managed 5 rounders before the whole team were caught or were run out.

We came to the 3rd/4th place and Southern Spitballers batted first, but could only manage 2 rounders as the rules changed to five outs and then we swap over. No Runs Northerners had a bit of a scare as they were 1 1/2 rounders from victory, but the Southerns had to get two more out. With grit and determination, the No Runs Northerners pushed and ran their half rounders to eventually score 2 and 1/2 rounders to win 3rd place!

By the time, it came to the final, misty rain swept in to make the surfaces slippery as a few players found out... Ninety Nine Problems, but a Northerner ain't one smashed 7 & 1/2 rounders. Which ended up being enough to secure the tournament as Southern Softies, even with big hitting Ed could only manage 5 rounders before five team members were caught out.

The team celebrated their victory with a "Champagne shower". Well done to Paul, Claire, Laura, Anna, Sam Smillie, Aaron, Maia and Jake (all Sam's friends) for winning with Ninety Nine Problems, but a Northerner ain't one!

We're on for the next rounders social in Victoria Park on the 16th of July! Sign up if you can make it. Watch out Northerners...the southerners will be practicing ⚾👀

We had a bumper group of runners back this week for the longer run over to Jubilee Primary School to help out with their gardening tasks. 🧤

Warm up, introductions and categories all done in short order (amazing how many Estate Agents there are and that we could keep naming them at Michael who was no. 14)!

Georgie had let me know that she intended to walk to the session which was great and stopped by to introduce herself then set off early to try to beat us there - sadly using City Mapper she came a cropper and was being sent the wrong way until the group ran past to call out directions to her. The front runners, chilled joggers and our one walker all arrived at pretty much the same time due to traffic light hold ups which was nice twist. 🚶🏃

Once up at the playground we saw that Juan had laid out all the tools (pint sized mostly) for us and we were ready to divide into 3 groups: 1. Dumpers were to head over to the bins and start dumping the green waste that had been collected. 2. Topiary group was set the challenge to trim the hedges of the outside garden into various animals (or just neat rectangles). 3. Trimmers were to cut back the twigs that were protruding through the fence into the netball/football/hopscotch court so no children might run into them.

There was however one slight glitch and it wasn't the size of the tools.... We had only one pair of shears (which gave up the ghost by the end), one secateurs and one hand secateur.... and 14 people itching to get chopping things back! We decided to keep rotating the person with the tools and have everyone else sweeping, clearing and pulling weeds by hand. This also led to about half the group finishing the dumping task quite quickly and not having a great deal to do so there was nothing else for it but to have a game of netball! 🏀

Half the group would play a friendly game while the rest worked and then they would swap so in the end it became a fitness session / gardening task and it looked like everyone was having a great time (see photos).

40 minutes later and we filled three huge builder's sacks with cuttings to drag over to the bins and Juan was very grateful and keen for us to come back soon when they will have more tools for us. ⏱

Big thanks to everyone for a really fun evening #DreamTeam 🤩