With the sun on our faces and joy in our hearts, 27 runners covered 5km of running, helped at Crofton Books and took on a fitness session in the park.

What an epic weekend of goodness! We had volunteers at Bellingham Children's Centre, we had a whole posse of helpers at the Hilly Fields Fayre and we had a determined two, clearing away the Chelwood Nursery summer festival. All that goodness (and all that fun, the Hilly Fields helpers also enjoyed the Midsummer Fayre into the bargain!). A special mention this week for our four-legged mascot, Molly, who won herself a rosette at the dog show on Hilly Fields, she looks so proud of herself! Well done Mol!

All our Lewisham Love this week goes to Ben and Ruth, who joined us for their first ever GoodGym group run, what a fabulous evening to make your debut!

Opportunity to get involved!

• We have a community mission this Saturday, helping at Beecroft Garden Primary School. You can go along from 10am, but there will be someone there for a few hours, so you can go later if you have to go to the cafe after parkrun...:)

Knees and toes! Knees and toes!

We always have a bit of fun warming up before we leave, so a quick game of knee-tag and some heads, shoulders, knees and toes (and elbows and hands) got us working together before we had even arrived at our task. A big thank you this evening to Emma, for very kindly leading the way and to Clare for back-marking and keeping us together.

We were greeted in the front garden of the library by Jason, who quickly ran through all the jobs to be tackled this evening. If you take a look at the photos, you will see the sheer variety of jobs being done around the library and bookshop. We had:

• strimming, lopping, pulling and cajoling of weeds and HUGE thistles in the side area
• pruning the beautiful tree
• weeding between the tiles in the front area (this became an intense activity, with a butter knife being employed to remove moss)
• raking and clearing under the front hedge
• organising books in the bookshop
• bringing out recent donations and sorting, then pricing them

The figure(s), the better

It's always interesting when we visit Crofton Books, where certain character traits become apparent. We soon know who alphabetises their books at home and who has a niche interest. This time it was Emma's turn, as she took on a whole section of books, categorising them as 'Reading By Numbers' and, instead of filing them by name, they were put in number order. Really, how wonderfully nerdy?!

File like you mean it!

Time ticked away and books were put away, the gardening tools were silenced and gathered up and it was time for our group photo. You might have noticed the lovely new murals in Crofton Park, painted by local artist Lionel Stanhope (he is responsible for a few in the area). We couldn't resist using this as our group photo back-drop, with Jason risking life and limb to get the perfect shot!

Sow good to be outside

This week we didn't repeat the hills of Hilly Fields, with just one run up to the top. The GoodGym Olympics are coming up very soon (August 3rd) and we need to get more of our group signed up and REPRESENTING! In previous years we have had a strong Lewisham presence, so let's make sure we show those other areas what we're made of in SE13! To get us in the mood, we played a few (silly) games, including a bit of egg-and-spoon. It was interesting watching people who normally run very fast suddenly having to go very slowly! If you want to join in the GG Olympics, sign up here and get your heads together to think about which events you would like to enter (the deadline is this week!).

Next week Kim is leading the run (thank you Kim!), taking the group to a brand new task at Dalmain Primary School. There will be a few jobs to do, including gardening and painting - if you have your own gardening gloves, please bring them with you (there will be some spares). The run is longer than this week, totalling around 7-8km, so be prepared to push yourself a little bit harder!

Thank you Oli, for once again gracing our run report with his awesome punning skills!

Have fun!