With Portugal thrashing Switzerland, Joao ensured that his 50th good deed was memorable.

You could say things were popping at POP! Brixton as ordered drinks and food whilst discussing our highlights of the past year with GG Lambeth as well as looking with one eye to the future!

To top off the night, Charlotte conducted the GG Lambeth awards with two awards to present:

The first award for Most Good Deeds went to Katy Hulm who wasn't present, but she had racked up 61 good deeds this year.

The second award went for Furtherest Distance went to Michael who has ran 1,924km this year (so far)! Massive achievement!

Well done to the whole team for coming out tonight even though it was slightly chilly. ❄️

We met at the glorious Town Hall Hotel this evening, sinking rather too easily into comfy sofas we waited for fellow members to arrive.

A short winter workout

At just after 6:45, we headed out to the steps for a short warm-up before making our way to Bethnal Green Gardens. After locating a good meeting spot, we participated in a short fitness session, taking in a couple of small laps of the park, at various different speeds. We then ran through our single leg squat technique before heading off to meet our task owners, Avril and Nathalia.

After a short intro to get us all a little familiar with this new group that has just been created for Bethnal Green Gardens, we headed to the areas of the park where we were planting tonight’s bulbs.

Providing colour and cheer to any green space, some spring bulbs are also a nectar source for pollinators (plants depend on pollination…). And they can be pretty low maintenance too: the lowly daffodil doesn’t need full sunlight, and will return in subsequent years, even in partial shade.

And so to work

And so we assembled into four teams: three digging holes for bulbs, and one digging up – and relocating – rose bushes.

It was tough, chilly work but as usual the team blitzed it.

Rotating swiftly from digging, to scattering bulbs, and covering them over, it was a multi-task-task.

As the final hole was covered over, and the last head torch switched off, we reflected it was an evening well spent.

We posed for one final picture, where our Sree​ took centre stage as we celebrated her 100th good deed at tonight’s task. Well done Sree, and thanks for all you bring to GoodGym Tower Hamlets.

We then headed our separate ways: some to the pub; others back to the hotel, and some straight home. A great night indeed.

Shout-outs

Loads of shout-outs tonight!

• To Rosie, and Sam, who headed up the run to the park.

• A big cheer for Emma, who oversaw the hole-digging; helped get it started, and allocated members to different locations.

• ...And to Sree for tonight’s brilliant pun.

• ...And to Alex, for organising Sree's 100th deed celebrations.

Next week, we return to The Royal London Hospital to join Nancy and the Barts Volunteers for some seasonal activity.

Until then.

Emily, Lindy and Sam met up at Edward Alleynian Club on Burbage Road instead of St. Faith's Community Centre to pack toys for families attending various local schools. Each person was given a list of different families with different ages and genders to try and match the donated toys with the corresponding information and bag it up. The hour and a half zoomed by with chatter, catch ups and pints of Guinness 👀

Four goodgymers met for our weekly session with peckham rye junior parkrun. Alice came along for her first deed in a while, and cheered and marshalled alongside Sam. Anna was keeping time and Louise led the warm up, making sure the kids were all ready and raring to go for their run. Good work all.

Yesterday, many of us experienced our first ‘Living Wake’, a celebration of the life of keen GoodGymer and all-round local hero, Tim Lund, who has cancer.

Tim asked us to be a part of the event, which meant removing pew chairs, setting up tables, welcoming guests, manning the car park and serving refreshments.

The event had a lovely atmosphere, full of Tim’s friends and family as well as many local faces from the organisations he has worked with.

Tim is a real force for good; always connecting people and making things happen in South London, from looking after flowerbeds to setting us up with many of our favourite tasks. So it was great to hear from people who know him and see how much his work has been appreciated by so many.

It was lovely to meet other GoodGymers who’ve done tasks with Tim across South London and even in his native Oxford(!), and great to be asked to participate in the celebration of Tim’s life.

As we head into December, Simon and those in Thorlands wanted to do something festive, so we made wreaths for the hour using ivy from the fence and other items that Simon brought along with him.

Some wreaths were made for Gladwells for decoration and others to take home.

There's more wreath making next Saturday.

A bunch of GGers met at Craft Metropolis in Brixton to catch up on life over drinks 🍻

Not to be mistaken with the Green Bay Packers....

On a cold Wednesday night, six GoodGymers met in the warmth of Old Spike Roastery where Andres (Old Spike manager) was still packing up for the night. Sam caught up with Gemma and Nelly as he hadn't seen them since his time back. We waited until 18:45 before proceeding with the GG speech and a warm up outside.

Sam's ice-breaker question tonight, was to do with the fact it was Black Friday and Cyber Monday and also the start of advent the next day: What did you buy during Black Friday or Cyber Monday OR are you starting any special advent calendar?

Nelly got something for her niece, but we found out that the rest of us didn't get in with the deals and Daryl is against capitalism. Plus, only Sam is doing some different for an advent calendar by adding a running/walking kilometre a day....he did this last year and lasted until day 12....

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Mismatched toys

We arrived at St. Faith's Community Centre on time, but we were missing Daryl and Nelly as we lost them along the way. Oooops!

Once inside the warmth of St. Faith's Community Centre, the volunteers of GROAD were already getting stuck in, so we joined them in the task of getting a school each with a details of the families printed on these pieces of paper. We had to put one toy per child in a bag, so if there were two kids in a family....that bag would have two toys (according to the kids age and gender). This proved harder than expected as we were limited to the toys we had and we had a lot of baby toys, so when it came to those who were 8+, we struggled to find them any decent toys. We made a note of this at the end of the session to give them books.

The session zoomed by as our last task before heading off was to bring the boxes of toys per school to the GROAD van as Andrea will drop them off next week. We did not wait around as it was getting cold, so we rushed off into the night and 3k later we were back at Old Spike!

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Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came out tonight! It was a colder one, so hopefully the constant running kept you warm. It was a uphill and downhill run route and apologies for losing Daryl and Nelly along the way there!

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Thank You Andrea

GoodGym is all about getting fit and doing good! We praise the runners/cyclists/walkers who come to get fit and help out, but we often forget about our task owner. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Andrea for giving us such a meaningful task to pack re-purposed toys for local kids. You do an amazing job for the community around us and deserve this month off! See you in 2023!