Despite it being the end of the January Challenge, we still had plenty of GoodGymers keen to run on a Wednesday night and do good in their local area! Sam opened up Old Spike to meet the friendly faces of Daryl, David, Isaac, Lucy, Maria, Nelly, Roberta, Steve and Tim.

Sam went through his usual GG intro speech and tonight, he only had an ice-breaker snap-poll, which was to do with National (deep-pan) Pizza Day (in the US) and Lunar New Year happening on Saturday. He asked which one you would order when having an food app up: deep pan or Chinese?

Winning by a few votes was Chinese!

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Brushing up on our painting skills

After a quick warm-up in the alleyway, Sam led the group out back onto Rye Lane with Lindy backmarking as she was carrying her work items with her (as she wanted to make her way back home after the task). Speedy Sam rushed down Rye Lane, Surrey Canal Walk and into Burgess Park (with a slight diversion) before 500 metres later arriving at St. Mary Newington Close to find James, Paulin and Phil already tucking into a tub of pink paint and applying it onto a wooden bench. Yes, we came over to Southwark Communities to apply another lick of paint on the donated garden furniture as Spring is just around the corner and the residents will be out and about enjoying the garden. At the task, we met Lottie (task owner), Folarin and eventually, after taking the bus over, Louise.

With loads of paint tins and paint brushes, Sam split the team:

• As mentioned, James, Paulin and Phil applied pink paint to a bench and had to quickly sand a mossy chair before quickly putting pink paint on it.
• Daryl, Isaac and Lindy painted two wooden chairs pink.
• Folarin, Lucy and Steve initially had to sand a bench before applying a grey-ish green paint.
• Louise, Maria and Tim concentrated on one wooden bench and painted it blue.
• David, Nelly and Roberta applied blue paint on two wooden chairs.

It was such a therapeutic task and we had plenty of time (40 minutes) to apply a good coat of paint. Once it came to time, we took back the paint and paint brushes to the kitchen to wash up before taking our mandatory group photo.

On the way back, we said goodbye to a couple of runners as they peeled off home, but those who stayed until the end got a lovely stretch!

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Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came out last night! It was a chilly night, but hopefully running faster than usual helped with warming the core. Thank you to Daryl and Lindy for backmarking on the run. We're off to Salvation Army Camberwell Corps next Wednesday for more painting on Valentine's Day!

We came into this last group run of January knowing that we needed 12 more good deeds to reach our our January Challenge! Sam was keeping his fingers crossed for at least 12 Southwark members. With 21 sign ups, it was looking hopeful. Slowly, but surely, people started to stream into Old Spike. By 18:45, he looked up at everyone and gave a silent count. 14 faces, but 11 Southwark members... but just as he was about to start his speech, David entered the door. We did it, 200 good deeds in January! Hit both targets having already hit our distance target of 2,000km.

There was a lot to get through tonight, but we started by welcoming Chalomi and Jack from Central Team as well as David and Roberta who came for their second GoodGym session. Yet, tonight was special as not only we were celebrating hitting our targets and GG Southwark's 8th birthday, but Maria after four months and a half from her first good deed hit her 100th! Claiming her wings (and a cake) in the process. Kudos and well done Maria!

Sam went through his usual GG intro speech and his ice-breaker snap-poll and question tonight was about National Croissant Day and National Hot Chocolate Day, which fell on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively. He asked which one is more preferable: croissant or hot chocolate? He also asked, if anyone wanted to share about their January highlights.

For the snap poll and winning by one vote....croissant! People's January highlights included going on holiday, birthdays, raves and learning new skills.

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"Is Stormzy from Southwark?"

After a quick warm-up in the alleyway, Sam led the group out of Old Spike with Maria backmarked (both ways). The idea was to do a loop around Peckham Rye Park but speedy Sam realised parts of the group were behind, so he decided to change it up last minute and do an "out and back" course. It was a busy night in the park with other runners and Peckham Pacers. Yet, after our just under 4k run, we made it back to Old Spike to take a breather and a sip of Athletic Brewing IPAs.

With litter pickers and black bin bags at the ready, we had to split the group into four teams to cover 4 different areas:

• Team Laura who had Alex, Isaac, Louise and Steve covered East Dulwich.
• Team Katy who had just Daryl covered Nunhead.
• Team Paulin who had Andrada, Folarin, Maria, Nathan covered Peckham.
• Team Emma who had Chalomi, David, Lucy, Jack and Roberta covered Queen's Road Peckham.

The rules were simple. Tick off as many items on the litter bingo card in 30 minutes and cover as much distance as the winning team would be determined by items x by distance (in kilometres) = points.

After 30 minutes, each team came back with two bags worth of litter and ticked off their items (out of 25). The results were as following:

• 4th place: Team Peckham = 22 items x 1.75km (38.5 points)
• 3rd place: Team Nunhead = 21 items x 2.75km (57.75 points)
• 2nd place: Team East Dulwich = 23 items x 2.95k (67.85 points)
• 1st place: Team Queen's Road Peckham = 23 items x 3km (69 points)

The winning team took home small body gels from Body Shop. There were awards for those in Southwark that did more than 5 good deeds and covered more than 25 kilometres plus we had cake to celebrate GG Southwark's 8th birthday and Maria's 100th good deed milestone before most of us headed to The Old Nun's Head for a few drinks and pizza!

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Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came out last night! I did go off on a faster pace than usual as I was conscious of time. It was a long run, but we managed to squeeze in the 4k run and a litter pick after my longer than usual speech and ice-breaker. Thank you to Maria for backmarking, Paulin, Emma, Katy and Laura for being sub-team leaders for the litter pick bingo. Finally, thank you to all for coming to these group runs in January, we managed to reach our targets!

After two weeks off, we were back with a bang! Quite literally as 25 runners showed up for GG Southwark's first group run of 2024. With last year's average being 12 runners, it was amazing to see such high numbers and 4 newbies! A warm welcome to David, Jenny, Josie and Roberta. We also had new GoodGymers to this area including Laura and Lucy.

Gathering in the intimate space that is Old Spike Roastery, everyone listened in on Sam as he delivered his typical GG speech including his ice-breaker question which was all about the darts due to the World Darts Championship final. After introducing themselves, each runner had to answer:

Underrated or Overrated: Darts as a sport?

It was a close-call, but underrated won the snap poll.

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Live and let live

With the rain starting to chuck it down, we skipped the warm-up in the alleyway as Sam led from the front and Maria backmarked to ensure no one got lost or left behind. During the 2.5k run over to Telegraph Hill, we met up with Mikhail who ran from home to the task and at the task, Jessie found us.

Having reached what felt like the top of Everest... we split the group into teams of five with a taskforce member as their team leader. We had Team Daryl, Team Emma, Team Katy, Team Maria and Team Mikhail. With a healthy competitive competition going on with the five teams heading out in different directions as they had 30 minutes to find as many Christmas trees to bring back to the drop-off point and covering as many kilometres and metres as possible.

After 30 minutes, the results stood as such (trees x kilometres covered = final weighted points):

• In 5th place, Team Mikhail collected 2 x 🎄 and covered 2.2km 🏃‍ = 4.4 points
• In 4th place, Team Maria collected 3 x 🎄 and covered 2.71km 🏃‍♀️ = 8.13 points
• In 3rd place, Team Katy collected 2 x 🎄 and covered 4.1km 🏃‍♀️ = 8.2 points
• In 2nd place, Team Daryl collected 3 x 🎄 and covered 3.63km 🏃‍♂️ = 10.69 points
• In 1st place, Team Emma collected 4 x 🎄 and covered 3.12km 🏃‍♀️ = 12.48 points

This meant Team Emma won and collected a Quality Street and Winegum boxes for her team, which she kindly shared with everyone! It's still the Christmas spirit!

After our group photo, we said our goodbyes to Mikhail who ran home from Telegraph Hill whilst the rest of us ran back 2.5k to Old Spike via the front of Nunhead Cemetery. We finished off with a much needed stretch before heading over to Angel Oak for our January social and to watch the World Darts Championship final. 180!

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Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came out last night! Firstly, welcome to all the newbies and thank you to everyone who came out last night in the pouring rain. I appreciate the commitment and I am sure the Lewisham Council and neighbours of Telegraph Hill thank you too! The competitive fun task was done in an efficient manner, so thank you to my taskforce members for getting your teams coordinated and top marks on your time management too! Finally, thank you to Maria for backmarking the run. See you all soon!