Last night, 12 Goodgymmers helped out at Galleywall Nature reserve. Lindy, Emma, Nelly, Nathan, Cecilia, Gemma, Alex, Mansur and Katy met me at Old Spike and we ran together. Then we were joined by Daryl and Andrada at Galleywall.

Alan from Galleywall had already prepared a list of tasks for us to do, so we quickly split off and got stuck in. Tasks involved: Digging up bramble roots, attaching other brambles to the fence, taking twigs and sticks out of compost bins, sawing firewood, and adding items to the habitat walls.

With the summer holidays still in full effect, we had some GoodGymers away, but these mighty 8: Alex, Daryl, Isaac, Mikhail, Nelly, Phil, Sam and Vic were up for GoodGyming on a Wednesday night. Everyone bar Phil and Vic arrived at Old Spike Peckham to hear Sam's quick intros before dashing out with no ice-breaker question as tonight's run was going to take the full 30 minutes.

Once at the site, Sam did ask the ice-breaker question to some...since it was National Radio Day (the day before): "Do you still listen to the radio and what programmes do you listen to?"

It's hard to distinguish between podcast and radio now, but Isaac and Phil do listen to the radio - mainly sport for Isaac, but for Phil it more the programmes that debunk myths and stats which is useful for his job.

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A welcomed sight

It been at least three months since we have been back to Galleywall Nature Reserve, but with their monthly Open Days and use by the local schools and scouts, it maintains itself. Yet, there are always tasks for GoodGym to do as Alan and Jane came prepared with a list.

Despite having only 8 of us, we were keen to get as many items on their list done:

• Alex and Daryl took on the first task which was to re-do the foundations of the wash basin on where people stand as it was quite wonky and needed a solid dig and fill with bricks to make it even.
• Isaac was up for cutting down to big cherry trees as Alan and Jane said they weren't producing cherries and cutting it down will encourage it to grow again.
• Vic wanted to untangle and discard the bindweed growing near the bike rack and shed.
• Nelly helped Jane identify self-seeding tree saplings to dig them out now before they grow into trees.
• Mikhail and Phil took a mattock and loppers to take out bramble bushes before they overtook certain areas of the Nature Reserve.
• Finally, Sam helped Isaac trim the cherry tree branches to put in the compost. Although, some larger straight branches were kept for planting.

Knowing that it would be a long run back, we called it at 19:55 to leave 5 minutes to tidy up and take our group photo. Sam informed Alan and Jane for his departure from the role come end of September, but he will help put in the next session in October before leaving.

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Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came out last night! Alan and Jane were pleased to have GoodGym back and can't wait to have us again! Thank you to Mikhail for backmarking the runs and taking the photos.

Last night, 14 Goodgymmers came out to help out at Galleywall Nature Reserve.

First to arrive at our meeting point, Old Spike, was Steve, who had been away recently. Whilst we caught up, newbie Chong arrived - and then nipped back out to check out a bike shop. Similarly, Isaac came dashing in, only to dash back out to do a quick lap of the Rye. Emma, Sarah, Nelly, Fi, Tim and Katy arrived and stayed 😅

Once everyone had arrived, I started welcome speech, and we gave a proper welcome to Chong. Our ice breaker question this week was related to the task... "Imagine we're going on a nature walk together, what do you see?". Tim started us off with a caterpillar, Chong gave some insight into his favourite sports team, and everyone else built a beautiful scene with a river, a waterfall, some salmon swimming in the river, some light filtering through the trees...🥹. It was a great team effort!

After a quick warm-up, we set off on our 4k run to Galleywall. I think it was the warmest day we've had this year, so it was a sweaty one!

When we arrived at Galleywall, James, Richard, Daryl and Andrada were already there. Eddie from Galleywall welcomed us and explained to us the task: we had to move some logs out of a ditch, and then put them back in a less haphazard manner, so that it would be safe for children.

Even though outcome was clear, we were not certain about how to achieve it initially. Steve came up with the idea of taking everything out the ditch, and then putting the big things back first, to give a stable base, so we rolled with that. We got into pairs and started to self-organise, and we completed the task surprisingly quickly.

Eddie came to inspect out work, and during this, he had the idea to dismantle some of the bug hotels so that people at the bus stop would be able to look through the "windows" to see into the nature reserve. After some discussion and experimentation, we opened up two windows.

At some point Daryl got separately picked to mow the grass.

Just as I started to worry that there may not be enough work for us, Eddie came round with laminated booklets which was a guided nature walk of the nature reserve. We split off into fours and off we went!

We finished at 8pm exactly to run/walk/cycle back to Peckham, perfect timing for our social at Skylarking. 🍻

On International Day of Happiness and French Language Day, Sam welcomed in Elena, Paulin, Isaac, Lindy, Katy, Nelly, Maria and Daryl into Old Spike Peckham for another group run. After his intro speech, his ice-breaker question was to do with one of the social dates...he chose to ask what everyone's favourite French word is:

From "Boh" to "pittoresque" and "bissou" to "oo la la", we had all your stereotypes and intriguing French words.

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What's flyering in french?

With this being one of our longer runs, Sam opted to skip the warm-up and head to Galleywall Nature Reserve as it is a 4k run each way. We started off fast to avoid the people on Rye Lane before feeling the humidity on this warm muggy night. We all made it to the Nature Reserve just after 19:15 to find Eddie welcoming in Phil, but we did not notice until after Eddie gave a list of jobs/tasks that Sander had already arrived and was cracking on with transporting leaf mulch. Yet, we had more people than tasks, but luckily Sam had flyers from Library of Things to distribute to the neighbourhood around Surrey Quays. Staying with Eddie in the Nature Reserve:

• Emma, Elena, Lindy, Maria, Nelly, Phil and Sander stayed behind to collect leaf mulch, saw wood and put in wooden pole signage firmly into the ground.
• Whilst Daryl, Isaac, Katy, Paulin and Sam ran off to deliver the flyers using the 40 minutes to tackle the estates near Surrey Quays Overground.

Upon arriving back at the Nature Reserve close to 20:00, Sam noticed those at the Nature Reserve had already been done with their tasks about five minutes prior, so without further waiting he took a group photo and they said their goodbyes to Eddie, Elena(who lives closeby), Emma, Phil and Sander.

We ran back to Peckham at a slower pace as most of us were tired and the humidity was still in the air. Once we arrived back at Old Spike at 20:30, Sam opted out of a stretch and told everyone left to stretch at home.

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Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came out last night! Eddie always appreciates our time at the Nature Reserve to help fine tune the area and we got a shoutout from Library of Things on Instragram too. Thank you to Maria for backmarking the runs to / from Galleywall Nature Reserve.

With two group runs left until the end of our January Challenge, Sam was keeping his fingers crossed for a high attendance as this group run would not only contribute to the amount of good deeds, but since this was the longest group run distance, it would add a lot of kilometres to the distance target.

13 out of the 14 GoodGymers that came out tonight met at Old Spike Roastery for the start of the group run. We waited slightly longer as Alex was running late. Yet, knowing it was a longer run, Sam skipped the warm up, but delivered his typical GG speech including his ice-breaker question which was two snap polls to determine whether people liked Haggis and crunchy or smooth peanut butter as it was going to be Burns Night and National Peanut Butter Day.

It was pretty much a straight victory for "yay" to Haggis and "crunchy" peanut butter.

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Every day I'm shovellin'

Sam led the group out of Old Spike with Katy backmarked (both ways). We ran down the busy Rye Lane through the dark cycle/walking paths of Surrey Canal Walk before reaching Old Kent Road crossing over to the quiet backstreets of South Bermondsey. After running 3.7k, we arrived at Galleywall Nature Reserve to meet Emma, who lives close by.

Straight to it, Eddie talking through the two main tasks and one smaller task on offer. Sam split the group calling out on who wanted to shovel gravel into wheelbarrows: Isaac and Nathan were keen whilst operating the wheelbarrows: Daryl and Laura put their hands up. On the other end, when Daryl and Laura would tip the gravel onto the pre-determined areas, Alex and Elena would be there to rake it out to a smooth surface. The second major task was to secure three wooden beams into the growing bed, so that visitors and gardeners can walk on these beams rather than on the soil. More shovels were needed to dig out the soil, so Andrada, Emma, Katy, Sander and Steve took on this task. Finally, Tim took on the smaller task of finding bags of leaves and bringing them back to a pile that had already been stacked up for the leaf mulch they want to make. Maria was our resident photographer and videographer as she wants to start a TikTok account for us!

After 30 minutes, we had finished the three tonne bags of gravel (they weren't all full), secured the wooden beams and brought over the bags of leaves. Finishing the tasks with 10 minutes to spare!

Eddie was very pleased that he took videos and photos to share with the Galleywall Nature Reserve committee. We will be back at the tailend of February to get the reserve ready for Spring! We all ran back apart from Elena and Emma as they live closeby and Andrada peeled off towards the end to go home. The rest that stayed on made it back to Old Spike and were treated to Lindy's belated 200th good deed cake. We ate it for her as unfortunately, she dropped out from tonight's task last minute.

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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 long run than our usual distances, but we managed to blitz through the task in 30 minutes in our alloted 40 minutes. Thank you to Katy for backmarking and thank you to all for consistently coming to these group runs - it means a lot for me. Next week: it's the last one for our January Challenge and we're cleaning the local streets up with a "litter pick bingo".

It rained all day and then stopped a couple of hours before our group run, so our numbers stayed at around 15 sign ups. As Sam arrived at Old Spike, he prepared a small cake and candles as tonight they were celebrating Nathan's 200th good deeds with GoodGym! Congrats! 🎉

Our run tonight would take us over 20 minutes as we would have to run just under 4k to get to Galleywall Nature Reserve, so Sam opted to skip the warm-up and take it slow to run there. Yet, first the intros and ice-breaker question.

Since it was STEM Day, Sam's ice-breaker question for tonight was about this day celebrating Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths: Tell me any fun or interesting facts about STEM Day?

Everyone had weird and wonderful facts, but I can remember Mikhail's clearing as he said if you ever find yourself in a car that is sinking in water and you are trapped...take the headrest out of the driver or passenger seat and head to the back of the car. You need to smash the rear window with the two pointy metal things to get out. The pressure from the two points will break the glass.

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Shift work with 3.5 wheelbarrows

Straight out of the blocks as Sam lead the way whilst Mikhail backmarked as we ran through the busy Rye Lane before going into the quiet and dodgy (at night) Surrey Canal path, over Old Kent Road and onto the cycle path that would take us to Galleywall Nature Reserve. On the way over, we met Tim on his bike, so he followed us before seeing Benjamin and Folarin at the task. We made our way into the dark Galleywall Nature Reserve to find Alan and Eddie.

The task tonight was a two-fold. Five GoodGymers were needed with Alan to move sand from a tonne bag to the polytunnel so he could start laying tiles on the floor. Daryl, Katy and Tim were up for moving sand in wheelbarrows whilst Clare and Gemma helped Alan lay the brick tiles down. Putting it in place and ensuring it's level. The other task required all hands, but having only one wheelbarrow and a half, we started off slow.

Firstly, Benjamin and Emma had to finish off burying a wooden plank to mark the edge of the path whilst Lindy, Isaac, Nathan and Sam all took it in turns to shovel wet and heavy gravel from tonne bags onto a wheelbarrow to transport it and dump it onto the path. Here Folarin and Maria proceeded to rake the gravel so that it was even.

Noticing that the time was edging closer to 20:00, we opted to retire one wheelbarrow for the sand moving to help with the gravel moving before all three wheelbarrows were on gravel. There was a fourth wheelbarrow, but it put in a shift before retiring altogether.

Mikhail was our residence photographer for the night and ensuring he captured all activities. Whilst we had the "All Out 00s" playing in the background.

40 minutes after we had arrived, we had to call it. Half of the polytunnel was done and a first layer of gravel was put down. It was tough work tonight and with a 4k run each way, everyone felt it by the time to arrived back at Old Spike. Some of us just had to get in a Guinness or two at the Gowlett's Arms...

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Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came out tonight! It's our longest run in GG Southwark, so thank you for keeping up with the pace to get to and from the task. It was also a harder task as shovelling and transporting wet gravel and sand is heavy, so extra kudos to those who did this. It was all worth it in the end as we got Alan and Eddie prepped to finish off the task this weekend!

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Thank You to Alan and Eddie

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 Alan and Eddie for preparing all the tools for us in advance and giving us a hard, but rewarding task! We will be back in January for more!