4 Epic GoodGymers helped feed 60 people at the Rhythms of Life Soup Kitchen

Great to help Westminster's most in need we some much needed and appreciated hot food and drinks.

awesome to welcome Akshay on his maiden GoodGym session! and along with Victoria we put the Power into Power walking with a 15 minute march to Trafalgar Square to meet the Rhythms of Life team.

Linking up with Jitka who had gone directly to the task and was already making the hot drinks as we arrived!

we served up fruit, bread, pastries, cake to ho with so hot drinks and a hot meal to 75 people.

A really important task to get 2024 going!!

Daryl, Jitka, Lindy, Louise, Maria and Sam met up Simon at Thorlands Gardens. He instantly apologised after an unsuccessful group run to Thorlands on Wednesday night, but we all came to do what we couldn't do then.

It was Jitka's first official GoodGym session after coming for the group run on Wednesday evening. This time she managed to see the gardens in daylight and get stuck in with the task after we collected the tools from the Walled Garden. We made our way into the Forest Garden to start on two edging areas.

Daryl and Lindy worked together to continue on the edging from the bed that we started about three months ago (and left it due to the wasp nest) to work around the wasp nest and headed towards the gate post.

The second duo: Jitka and Maria started on the edging from the tarmac (by the old swings) to the post by the bamboo.

Louise and Sam took it in turns to saw logs as we needed more than what we had prepared last Saturday.

After an hour and 10 minutes, we had finished both tasks. More sawing and putting down mulch would be the tasks for next Saturday, our last session at Thorlands for 2023!

With train strikes on, Sam left work slightly early to ensure he could welcome in everyone. Newbie, Jitka, arrived before anyone else and had a chat about GoodGym with Sam. Steadily, Nathan and Maria arrived as Jitka clocked that we were going to run 3k tonight. Since she's a hiker, it was decided that she would need to leave slightly earlier than us to make it to Thorlands in time. Sam gave her the directions and off she went as Isaac, Daryl and Gemma just came in at 18:45 on the dot!

After Sam's quick speech, they agreed as a team to skip the warm up as a few people had run over and were still "warm".

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Radio silence

Off we went through the backstreets of Peckham as Sam lead the way for the beginning part before we went off the team took lead and Sam dropped back to run with Maria. We ran up Grove Hill and down towards Denmark Hill station and King's. Thorlands Gardens is tucked away at the back on Denmark Road.

Surprisingly, newbie Jitka with a seven to ten minute ahead start made it to Thorlands first and she met Andy, Lindy, Mikhail and Sander there. Unfortunately, there was no Simon. Sam thought he might be late (though, he is usually not as he likes to prepare the tools), so he proceeded to ask the ice-breaker question:

What is the best Christmas market you have been to? or What is your Christmas tipple of choice?

There was two votes for Edinburgh for the Christmas market, but we got mentions from Manchester and Winchester in the UK whereas Brussels, Munich, Prague and Tallinn got a mention in for Europe. For a Christmas tipple, people love bubbly, but also beer, Baileys, (not a) hot toddy and whatever is going/on the table at 10AM...

By the time we made the rounds and Sam calling Simon multiple times plus leaving a few messages, he decided to call it as it was getting cold for those who had run over. Yet, not before the one and only group photo from the night. Job done for Mikhail!

It was a shame not to have the activity as we had prepared everything on Saturday to get stuck in for tonight, but these things happen. Those who met the team at Thorlands filtered off whilst those who ran from Old Spike ran back arriving before 20:00 to hit the pub.

Note: Simon messaged back to say a massive sorry as he had overslept after not feeling great earlier in the day.

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Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came out tonight! It didn't go to plan, but there's always a first for everything and Simon does send his apologies! We still got in a 6k run in and managed to catch up on our week and find out all about our favourite Christmas markets.