6 Goodgymmers jumped into action as the Tottenham Community Sports Centre came calling with a massive bag of gravel and a car park that needed some love. Boom!

One Foot (Not) On The Grave

Big up for Ren who joined us for her first ever run and task. She didn't even flinch when Gramps insisted they run to task through a cemetery and she even zombie danced when he also insisted on a cemetery photograph. A natural. Come again <3

Post-Big Half Hanger Issues

Ren, Raj, and Gramps ran the cool 4k to task where they met with Veronika, Ed, Latoya who was still basking in the wonderful post-Big Half glow.

After a bit of confusion when Gramps thought a random punter was our task owner for the night, the rest of the crew understood the assignment and followed the actual task owner to the Centre's car park where they received some clear instructions: please introduce this massive bag of gravel to our car park.

Our crew, led by a Latoya who was definitely feeling pretty post-Big Halfy indeed, understood these clear instructions to mean: FLIP THIS MOTHERFLIPPING BAG OVER. And so it began. It was a sisyphean task of sorts, if instead of rolling a rock up a hill, you have a bunch of rather otherwise intelligent Goodgymmers thinking they could just pick up an 800k bag of gravel and tip it over. But, by Zeus, they tried.

When reality finally caught up with our team, they armed themselves with shovels and fork instead and the task then began in earnest.

Every couple of shovelfuls, Latoya and Ed would try to pick up the bag again while newbie Ren buzzed like a bee wanting nothing to do with the futile bag picking until she was eventually brought over to the dark side. Veronika and Raj took turns at levelling the gravel and shaking their heads laughing.

Eventually, without as much fanfare as we expected, the bag was indeed tipped and we had blasted our way through the task way before 8 - talk about gravelling at the speed of light!

Afterwards, we had time to take some pics in the boxing rink, and Veronika and Gramps ran back to HQ while the rest of the team went off in search of food.

A brilliant night.

Twenty Goodgymmers congregated in the grounds of the wonderful Meadow Orchard in Crouch End for an emotional evening of doing good and getting fit.

Nurj O'Clock

This report is a bit late because frankly I found it a bit hard to write. Or more concretely, I tried a couple of times but failed miserably each time. You see, even in her absence, Nurj had managed to grab centre stage on Wednesday's task like she had done some many times over the last six years and I knew I would have to write a report with her as the protagonist for one last time. The words just didn't come, to be honest.

So, instead, I have decided to share with you the big Nurjehan-shaped hole she leaves on a normal Goodgym evening. She played many roles within our motley crew: self-appointed timekeeper, naughty gossipy aunt, strict school teacher when we needed a telling off, whingepot whenever we attended her least favourite task that shall now forever remain unnamed, indefatigable do gooder, tireless 5k/10k runner, unconditional friend, and perhaps, the one thing we'll miss the most, her enthusiastic cheerleading of everything Goodgym Haringey. She loved Goodgym. And she preached its praises at any given opportunity.

If I'm allowed a personal note, I'll personally miss a role she played too well without any fanfare or noise but that she relished and excelled at. Whenever we had a new runner in our group, it would always be either Nurj or myself reaching out to say hello to them. She would then proceed to tell the newbie all sort of crazy stories about how I am a mad area activator, I would then reply by telling the newbie to watch out for her because 'this one bites' and thus, within the space of thirty seconds, a newbie was eased into the dynamics of our group and was then shadowed by Nurjehan for the next 45 minutes, regaling them with whatever particular drama was happening at her school that week and making sure their evening was as fun as possible. I'll miss my newbie whisperer.

Our dearest Nurjehan Khan passed away on Thursday 18th July 2024, having completed 273 Goodgym tasks and along the way having become the unofficial face of Goodgym (her face is the landing page of the website). Goodgym Haringey will never be the same without her and we'll miss her.

I'll finish this here before she tells me off for going on too much.

<3

It's Our Birthday And We'll Cry If We Want To

In a moment of incredible timing, this evening also happened to be Goodgym Haringey's 9th Birthday. There will be other nights to celebrate and we will have a social to end all socials in due course, but we did mark the occasion with cakes, chocolate, and hell of a lot of tears.

We're very grateful to the folk at the Meadow Orchard for accommodating us at short notice (this was Nurjehan's favourite Haringey task) and they had loads of fun jobs for us. They even let us use axes on the night. Talk about cathartic.

Normal service will resume next week.

For now, just look after each other and I'm here if anyone needs a hug, a natter, or a cry.

Love to my wonderful Goodgym Haringey Fam

Sarah, Veronika, and Euclides met for an old school leafleting session this. It is fair to say that flyering is not GGH's favourite task and numbers backed up the claim!

Undettered, our three Goodgymmers worked as hard a crew of 10 and flyered two of the very, very long avenue in Noel Park N22 ahead of their festival this weekend.

Heroes.

*5 Goodgymmers cut it close as they hustled to complete the evening's task in time to make it home to watch the Three Lions semi-final tonight. *

It's Coming Home

Busy summer days mean smaller, ninja teams for GGHaringey but we didn't let that stop us from tackling a big task tonight. We were lending a hand to Haringey Council as they get on with their annual basal growth removal programme.

We concentrated on trees in the Noel Park Estate and our Goodgymmers were fantastic. Efficiently and methodical the moved through the road swiftly, as people who were in a rush to get to the pub for the footy.

We had to take a couple of breaks as the suckers on the trees we were removing were covered in dust, causing a bit of grief to a couple of hay feverish Goodgymmers. Nevertheless, we persisted and before you knew, we had completed one of the very long avenues in the Noel Park Estate. WE didn't finish as early as Euclides had promised, our Goodgymmers punished him by adding him to one of the big piles of detritus we collected. Standard.

Fun times!