What a session we had tonight! Lots of energy, banter and productivity! Whilst we had a couple of no-shows, we had some unexpected 'shows' so we ended up having a good group workout and had a very productive session at St Peter in the Forest churchyard!

//WELCOME AND WELCOME BACK//

It was great to welcome Michael to his first GoodGym session and what a start he had indeed, think this is our most productive goodgymmer!!!!

A warm welcome to Julius at his first Waltham Forest session (after having one session in Norwich before the you-know-what-happened). This was an epic first session with some serious strength display!

It was fantastic to see Charlie back after one year - looking forward to more sessions in 2022!

//OFF LIKE A ROCKET//

Well we were all very excited after our warm up, so we took off energetically and on reflection a little bit too fast, which we realized very soon and slowed down. Ray has joined us for the run to the church and led a walk&jog group of Rachel and Rosalind through his secret shortcut (the fact of which became clear once I ran back and didn't find them, but I knew Ray will get them there safely and on time:)).

Howling at the moon or howling with pain? What can we say - the almost full Woolf Moon has provided a fantastic guide for our run to the task so myself, Charlie and Ruby decided to howl at the moon (must be those good endorphines from running...). This, however, backfired as everyone ahead of us stopped and waited thinking we were shouting for them to stop or screaming out in pain face palm :)

//GETTING STUFF DONE AT ST PETER'S//

• A little bit about St Peter's in the Forest: St Peter's is a Church of England church but it's so much more than just that - it's a vital part of the Waltham Forest community providing space for forest school sessions, local history, biodiversity, heritage education and outdoor activities for families and people of all ages. The church and the community centre received National Lottery Heritage Fund and over 2020 underwent major restoration work which is why the church looks so great, however there's always a need to help in the churchyard!

• Mean lean shoveling machine Michael! One of our major tasks was to re-descover an overgrown path amongst the graves, weed it, clean it and cover it with a weed suppressant and gravel. Step forward Michael - the man is clearly very talented with a shovel so in no time, there was a cleared path with borders discovered under all that growth and wet leaves!!! I promised that next gardening task Michael can take it easy and be a photographer - it's definitely deserved!:) Once we all admired Michael's work and oohed and aahed, Rachel and Charlie got the brushes out and gave those borders a good scrub and masterfully put down a weed suppressant - thankfully we had just enough to cover most of the path!. In the meantime Saj and Michael covered the path with the gravel. Look at this beauty:

• The remembrance garden is finally DONE!!! Before Ray disappeared to work, he showed where the gravel bags are and Julius and Charlie grabbed the wheelbarrows and had a nice arm workout by bringing the rest of the bags from the opposite side of the churchyard and covering the rest of the path in the garden as well as for the new path.

• Julius's is a real Caesar! Once the gravel bags were all transported we were talking about bringing the pallet back to the shed so a group of us went to carry it only to see this one-man band who just went and did it! Well done Julius!

• Discovering a fallen down gravestone and clearing a lot of graves! Rosalind, Saj, Rachel, Rebecca and Ruby performed miracles with their trowels, spades and forks by clearing out the corner and ancient graves by the main path (and below our new one!) whilst wheelbarrowing weeds into one neat pile, which we hope we didn't leave in the wrong place! All the borders, outside and on top of graves were cleared, weeded and we discovered a nice border there as well. Epic effort this!

• Frightening Father Alex! Usually there’s no one at the church at this time so it must’ve been quite a shock to suddenly hear and see lots of people coming into the churchyard, grabbing forks and spades and hectically working around graves!!! We can only apologise to Father Alex, who came out to say hello and was very curious and nice about it all! We reassured him that we were not digging up anything we shouldn't do:) What can we say, it was an eventful night:)

//THAT'S A WRAP//

Once we ensured that all the tools were collected and safely put away into the shed and everything was tided up, we took a group photo (ok we took a few but only 2 turned out good:)) and made our way back in a leisurely fashion with a mix of jogging and walking. A few goodgymers were dropping off to make it back home so four of us made it to the base where we did a nice little stretch down to finish an energetic and productive session! Great to see everyone - well done for your energy and effort tonight!

Welcome to 2020 one and all.

As if to mark the occasion GoodGym Waltham Forest moved home over the Christmas break, and today we set off from our fabulous new base, Greenleaf Road Baptist Church. These luxuriant surroundings come with comfy sofas, a chill-out room with table tennis, decent changing rooms and the melodic sounds of a local choir group down the hall. Tonight we were treated to Downtown, originally a Petula Clarke hit back in the day.

With a new home and a new year, I was hoping for a new runner and my wish was granted when Charlie joined our group tonight. Great to see you, Charlie, I hope you are going to help us kill this January Challenge by joining us for a spot of painting next week!

I did shed a tear for the demise of our former home. The marvellous Mirth, Marvel and Mauad shut down at the weekend, but I gather it will reopen after some renovations at some indeterminate date.

Anyhoo, with all these opulent new surroundings, it was hard to prise ourselves away from the warmth and comfort of GLRBT but prise we did as we burst forth into the night and headed for another holy location, St Mary's Church up in Walthamstow Village. Actually, our task was at the Welcome Centre next door and who doesn't like a spot of gardening on a cold damp January night?

Attack of the plants

We let me tell you this was no ordinary gardening task. As we walked through the gate and with just the eerie light of a few head torches for company, we entered a domain where plants had well and truly taken over. Man (and woman) sized weeds loomed large from cracks in the paving. In the shadows, claw-like branches seemed poised ready to entangle unsuspecting humans who dared to draw too near.

Undeterred by the little shop of horrors, our plucky crew set to work. It was touch and go for a while, but eventually, GoodGym prevailed, and the plants were vanquished. It was a sight to behold as probably half a ton of organic matter was eventually piled up on the compost heap.

To round off the evening we did slow, medium and fast reps of the churchyard nearby before heading back to our lovely new home for a chill-out and a chat.

January Challenge

Don't forget to sign-up for next week's run - a lovely warm indoor task. We are going to crush the January Challenge.

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