What a turn out this evening!

8 GGers took part in our ongoing visit to the Tiny Forest with today's focus being removing weeds and recording wildlife.

Ruslan, Rachel, Kirsten, Niki and Cloud run 3km there. We were greeted by Jyo, Wendy and Simone who met us there.

Big shout outs of the evening go to (drum roll, please!!!) : - Simone who brought water for the thirsty runners! - Ruslan who attended his first ever session and hopefully the first of plenty! Did you know you get an amazing black t-shirt when you complete 50 good deeds? you've got this Ruslan, 49 to go! - Wendy for venturing to "south" Barnet and coming fully equipped with gloves, garden kneeler and weeding tools! she has definitely done some gardening before! - Kirsten for resuming her Tuesday's with us! we've missed you! - Niki for completing 89 good deeds! She means business! how nice would it be to finish your week with 90 ? We can help you with that, there's a mission at the Food Bank Aid this friday and this Sunday! - Jyo for doing two volunteering sessions today! you're a trooper! she has volunteer at the Food Bank Aid this morning and still had energy to do some weeding! - Rachel for doubling up as back marker and Dog leader (Kirsten's dog!)! Great running and strength effort!

Are you still wondering about the underwear? Well, it's a good story that Jyo told us! There's a school involved with the Tiny project that wanted to show students how things decay over time. So yes, apparently students are super interested to know how a pair of (clean or dirty, who knows!) underwear decays and dug one in the middle of the tiny forest (look for the "underwear" sign on the pictures)

Great work everyone today!

Keep it up and see you on Friday, Sunday and/ or next Tuesday.- plenty of options to increase your deed count!

A few GoodGym members came together to help the Finchley pollinator project. (https://instagram.com/finchleypollinatorproject?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= ) We were meeting Shiri , the organiser of the project, in North Finchley just outside the Samui spar massage parlour. They have four young trees outside in the street that had been selected to host some pollinating plants grown by Shiri and her team. As usual, we warmed up and had a chat at the Phoenix Cinema about 3 km away. Before the run, I distributed postcards from Raleigh bikes. This included a 10% discount at the Raleigh bike shops and two rather lovely chocolates. There was a fight over the two vegan chocolates which Louise won! Thank you, Raleigh bikes! We headed off along the High Street in our red T-shirts and soon got to the massage parlour. ( well, it was a good headline for the report hopefully it got your attention!)
Shiri met us and handed out tools. We set to work clearing and preparing the soil for the planting. It’s amazing how satisfying it was to put them in place. A grateful pedestrian on hearing what we were doing, presented us with a pack of fairy cakes. We finished off by watering them - thanks to a local flower shop who gave us a watering can.

It’s great to see the community come together with just a small project that makes the local environment that little bit better!

Thank you, John and Louise for coming along to support Barnet. We hope to see you more often.

Kirsten, who was reunited with an old doll set in a charity shop in North Finchley. 😊

And the green fingered and nearly qualified group run, leader - Moya

Thanks again for coming, running and doing some good!

This was the message from the organiser of the Finchley pollinator project.

Hi Paul thank you so much for the brilliant work done by you and your fellow goodgymmers! Everyone were so lovely and hardworking, there was so much to do but thanks to you we managed it in just under an hour. Well done, Deena Alison and myself truly appreciate it!!

Shiri

This initiative is such a good fit for GoodGym, who look to help local organisations and encourage sustainable activities.

In turn I’d like to thank them for all the hard work .. such a great initiative!

Parkrun Hampstead made a last-minute request for more volunteers suggesting that the regular Saturday morning run wouldn’t happen without further volunteers coming forward. I shared the request and three of us volunteered to help out. Thanks to Kirsten and Antonio for offering. Kirsten, ended up doing her first Parkrun instead, because they had enough people. I did barcode scanning with my phone as the runners came back. Relatively easy and good fun to chat with the runners. Beautiful day to help out.

A few GoodGym members came together for a second time in a week to help the East Finchley playground project with its, small vegetable patch. Last week we cleared weeds and roots. This week we turned over the soil for planting. Most of us gathered at the Phoenix Cinema to warm up and chat. Introducing ourselves and our favourite colour . Green seemed dominant. Appropriate for a night of gardening. We did a small run, including some power skipping before reaching the green space. We set to work turning over the soil with folks and spades.

When complete, all of us ran back for a warm down, and some refreshments.

Thanks for coming running and doing some good.

A magnificent, seven GoodGym members gathered to help a new green space in East Finchley connected with the development of a nearby playground. Some of us gathered at the Phoenix Cinema and we met Jyothsna or Joe on her first GoodGym run. Very bravely she had not been running much, but was happy to try and get involved. On the way to the venue, we did some fartlek training. Using the variable speed technique we ran in a local close. We also did some power, skipping and squats. fantastic effort! After about 10 minutes, we ran on to meet with Shirley our host and the rest of the team already working. Using Mattocks, shovels and rakes, we did a fantastic job clearing the site of weeds. The plan is to cultivate some edible plants for the community and particularly the children. We hope to continue to be involved in developing the site as these things do mattock to us.

Thanks for coming running and doing so good!

also..

Best wishes to Theodore who is now off for a month volunteering in Portugal. We hope to see you in May.

We are looking forward to an accordion recital from Rachel who just purchased the instrument that day. see photo.

Have a great holiday Moya & Antonio

We also wish Kirsten a speedy recovery from her knee injury.