Having gorged ourselves on pizza and beer last weekend for our Christmas social, this week we thought we'd get out to do a little more good before gorging ourselves on more food over the Christmas period. We were raising money for the Bexley and Greenwich Community Hospice who gave us some santa suits for the occassion. We've all scurried these away in our cupboards ready for the next time they're needed - you never know when a Santa emergency might occur.

After a stressful moment getting the suits on and our beards blowing across the university campus, we did a warm up of duck duck goose, which efficiently tore a hole right through the crotch of most of our suits. Never mind, it just made us more relatable.

Our task for the evening was a photo scavenger hunt and so we split into two teams and spent a while running about Greenwich, spreading some joy and being asked for photos with the lovely public, and asking for pictures in return

These featured the following:

• Santas pose in pairs their best passionate tango moves frozen in time
• Santas blending in with their surroundings
• Take a scenic picture which santa is photo bombing
• Santa delivering presents
• Santas striking a yoga pose
• Santas doing a mandem handshake

Both teams did a cracking job and the worthy winners voted on in our group whatsapp. No hard feelings guys.

And as if it wasn't enough to be in the winning team, special congratulations to Geraldine on 50 good deeds!

Money raised for a great cause, thank you all. Merry Christmas and see you in January :)

On a cold November Sunday three of us congregated in hornfair park for a lovely 4k run taking in the sites of Charlton park, Maryon Wilson park with it's guinnea pigs, rabbits and a single beautiful stag. By the way, what do you call a stag with a new hair style? A stag do? Deer oh deer.

Dad jokes aside, we met Lynne and Becky at the common along with more volunteers from the Friends of group and teamed up to tackle our chosen areas of the common land. Soon we were laden with bags full of all sorts of junk, including a washing up bowl and lots of balloons.

It's always a nice start to a Sunday morning, chatting with friends who want to protect our green spaces.

Great work team, until next time!

On a mild night late in the year of AD2023, three and ten Splendid Athletic Club-goers... (hmm, maybe getting Chat GTP to write this isn't the best idea..? 😉)

Ok, so on Wednesday 22nd November 23, 13 Good-Gymmers met at Charlton House (slightly spooky at this time of year - maybe a good location for future horror films?)

A warm up involving tag, sheep-shoeing and the merits of stand-up comedians meant we were ready for anything as we headed towards Kidbrooke and the excellent Prince Philip Maritime Collections Centre, home to hidden treasures in the form of historical works of art going through the process of conservation and restoration.

It's also home to a Community Garden, in which our task tonight was based. First up was restoring a recently damaged Bug Hotel (well we all deserve a holiday...!). Four post beds made, minibars restocked and spa ready for treatments, it was time to really rock the boat. Well, actually, just move the boat. Then it was all hands on deck to dig out a more stable base for this feature, re-position the boat and build up a stony sea.

Crew pose struck for a photo op, we headed off, full steam ahead back to Charlton.

Thanks all and see you for next week's adventures!

NB: This report features a description of two short films which doesn't do them justice. If you'd like to watch the films you can refer to the GGG whatsapp group but I will warn you: they are harrowing.

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It started like any ordinary Wednesday evening, meeting this week in Woolwich and swapping stories about how genuinely boring our Halloween's were. Sarah definitely won, having put the effort into carving a pumpkin and handing out sweets to the trick or treaters. Is that worthy of a good deed, GoodGym? I think after the night Sarah had, it should be (see short film 1 "Psycho" for full context).

After a short run up to Glyndon we were joined by Pieter and Kit and set to work on our first task of the evening, clearing a cupboard, taking out a nailed in shelving unit and sliding a new fridge in there.

While waiting for Andy to get the necessary tools, the gang gathered round to hear our second task, inspired by the excellent show, Taskmaster. The task was in two groups to create a scary short film using contents from the cupboard. Each group had 10minutes to plan their film and they got bonus points for featuring Andy in said film.

> "Your time starts now"

Just as this is announced, Andy walks in with a saw held out in a murderous rage as he turns towards the cupboard to meet his foe, the shelving unit. Pieter valiantly blocked his path to the cupboard screaming to take him instead; both teams thought they had their short films in the bag at this point. Disappointingly, he merely hacks at Pieter's finger; a warning saw. Then he proceeds to tear the unit limb from limb, dragging it unceremoniously from its dusty home to be used as a prop in a later film. It was brutal and I was getting increasingly concerned we hadn't foreseen the health and safety risk in this task.

After the fridge was in situ, and after a therapy session both teams felt ready to take on task two; the short film.

Film one featured a rendition of Psycho with a shower curtain and shower head from the cupboard, complete with the Psycho sound effect. Poor Sarah didn't see Julian or his knife coming until it was too late. Andy starred as a voice of Sarah's partner at the beginning "I'll be in in a minute darlin'". Hmmm...you could say he orchestrated the whole thing in fact. One to mull on.

Film two featured a stable marriage of two equal psychopaths. Pieter took up Andy's saw and (in a chilling display of chauvinism) came home expecting a change from his usual dinner from his wife, Marta. Marta described the meal as being "very fresh and jumping around in the market not that long ago". Butler Andy was called to reveal the meal which was Kit, definitely supposed to be dead with a knife protruding from her, but who instead dissolved into laughter trying to get her sound effect to work. At least Tom was genuinely surprised to see her - we've paid for an additional therapy session for him.

Some behind the scenes quotes from the making of the films:

Maybe can we get some more blood

If you wanna be dead body number one?

*It's a shame this paper cutter has a safety on it *

Hopefully no one needs the loo

I'm a bit scared of Andy

Well done to both teams, sporting efforts all round. Team two narrowly won the contest but all were awarded sweets, including Andy.

If you're concerned about Pieter's wellbeing, I can report that after spending the night in A&E and what he called a 'blood transfusion' he's looking much more like himself. Although he did have an awful lot of tomato ketchup around his mouth. I think it was ketchup....I'm sure it was.

Remember the Fireworks at Glyndon tomorrow!

Lots going on this weekend and next week we're at Clothes for Causes for our run starting at the Naval College. Until next time!