It was Monday night again and time for Goodgym Bexley. Tonight we were off the DYC for our 'Odds N Sods' Good deed and run. After a chat about everyones weekend at sign up it was time for business. After a great warm up (Introduced a couple of new dynamic stretches) we started of on our 5K ish (pretty close to) run round to our friends at the Danson Youth Centre. On arrival we were greeted by Ben and two tasks for the Bexley Goodgym Crew to smash!!!! One team headed out the back for a leaf clearing, and rose bush trimming workout. Team 2 stayed round the front to sort out the leaves and trim the rose bushes there which was also a hell of a workout. We shifted 10 black bin loads of leaves, branches and rubbish, leaving the areas looking pretty awesome if i say so myself. Well done team!!..............

We shifted 10 black bin loads of leaves, branches and rubbish, leaving the areas looking pretty awesome if i say so myself

With tools all packed and a bit of sweat on our brows it was time to make the short trip back to Crooklog. Before getting together for our cool down we had to say a sad good bye to Janine who is leaving us for 3 months on a volunteering trip to Sri Lanaka. I hope they appreciate what Goodgym Bexley are letting you guys have, so make sure you look after her. Janine you are gonna be awesome, have a fantastic time. One the other hand because Janine was heading on her adventures Sarah put together some very tasty vegan cakes for the occasion which dampened the blow considerably :-)......... Thanks Sarah. Another great achievement from the weekend has to go to Peter for entering and smashing the South Western 10 miler race in Portsmouth over the weekend. Massive high 5 Peter. Last but not least thanks Neil for this weeks 'Pun'...... Goodgymers, i really hoped you enjoyed this evening and thanks for your company as always. Hope to see you all next week as we head over to Welling for some more out door gardening tasks. We gotta get them in before it gets to cold. Have an awesome week everyone.

12 speed demons came and conquered a pucker paper-chase and terrific track attack!! That's GG Brent all over October! Pow Pow!

It was smiles all round at base camp Queensbury with 10 glorious Gyals and 2 gorge Guys making up the numbers this eve!

Bringing the fire was Girl Power Hour and flexing for the females was: Clairey-Bell, Mouse, Dimple, Liz, Coralie, Eliza, Beth and sister sledge tabs and debs!

Repping for the fellas and back for his second week running was Crossfit Kid Lucas in his newly adorned GG red tee. Which by the way was suitably spray on to flex off his Olympic lift traps! And Looking just as macho in his signature yellow threads was resident king pin, all the guys love him (okay well maybe just Colin) devilishly daring Dinesh!! Woo!

So with all our wonder women at the ready and gumption gushing from the guys, we sped out for the night, for leaflet paper chasing all the way to Willesden Track!

After successfully slamming the high road with all the goodgym vibes, we arrived at destination pain on the lanes, oh no wait I mean fun delightfully good times lanes..... To be fair, it was probably a bit of both depending on who you ask! But actually proof that so much fun was had was that only 3 photos were taken!!!

So once we'd mobilised and warmed up joints with a few drills and spills, it was down to big business and that was some laps!! 200m sprints to begin followed by 400m timed splits!! Now me being nice only asked the team for 2 sets of each, however Clairey-bell reminded me that in goodgym Brent days of old, there was a 12 lap session once upon a time!! I think I'll be bring that back some time soon!!

**Oh yes..... watch this space, get the stop watch ready for some time and punishment at the next sesh!

So after my team wiped the floor with my timer each one achieving feats of absolute glory, we bashed out 5mins of core blimey can you feel your abs yet, before setting off for a cool down jog back to base.

What an awesome night, where we all took flight, to task and good deed and thrash some speed!!

See you next time!!!

DO GOOD. FEEL GOOD. INSPIRE!

A massive thirty three of us gathered for a brand new task this week: a trip to Sunnyside Community garden up in Archway. Sunnyside is a community-led garden that is open to all, but specialises in therapeutic horticulture for people with physical and mental disabilities.

As well as ten newcomers Samah, John, Dami, Mariam, Chris, Toby, Fedja, David, Jade and Emma we had tourists Kevin from Hackney (soon to be Bristol) and John and Jackie from Camden and a few journalists included in the mix as well!

After a round of applause for Graham for completing 50 good deeds and another for Patrick for completing 150, we travelled up in three separate groups. Simon and Graham led the speedsters, with Patrick and Aidan taking a medium-paced group and John and Ama looking after the philosophers.

Up at the centre we were greeted by Yvonne and Alan, who were delighted to see so many keen faces and tooled us up ready for the evening's work.

We got stuck in for a good half hour. One group tackled shrubbery around the side of the centre with choppers, loppers, secateurs, scissors and all manner of cutting tools with a couple of the team being led back and forth with wheelbarrows by the enthusiastic Alan.

Round the corner muscle-bound volunteers were ripping rotten logs out the ground with their bare hands (and a mattock) while a third group tackled some very stubborn roots.

All this while Mariam & Dami and Chris carried out their interviews. We’ll post links when the video and article are out. Looks like they got some great material from us all.

The really amazing thing was we managed all this without stopping for a biscuit. This is unheard of in Islington (Simon is obviously a bit rusty after being away for a while and had left them back at the pool). Oh well, a good reason to run back quickly.

And it was FOUR groups for the run back. The original fast, medium and philosophers, plus a special “press” group led by Graham after we realised that having people carry back lots of recording equipment with the fast group might be a bit of a struggle.

The fast group worked extra hard with secret surges, the “lunge, skip, run” game (what could that involve?), stair running, hill running and a little obstacle running. Chris was desperate for some core work to offset the aerobic insaneness. Next week, Chris (and everybody will now know who to moan at when our abs are shot to shreds).

Back at the pool just a little bit later than planned we multi-tasked by holding stretches while receiving biscuits: a true test of balance, agility, coordination and greed.

Finally a vote on the evening’s hot topic of debate. Mice: vermin or cute adorable little critters. Definitely a few votes for vermin and a few stories of cats bringing them in in various states of mutilation, but the majority thought they were delightful creatures and just wanted to give them a mouse-sized cuddle. Next week: Are cats complete psychopaths?

A great first task at Sunnyside. We’re heading back there in a few weeks, but in the meantime we have another brand new task next week. We’re visiting West London Mission for some more gardening joy.

Great to be back. See you next week,

Simon

P.S. Should have a few more photos later on.

24 GoodGymers ran between 3-7km to help Thornhill Community Garden and Caxton House:

Report written by Caroline and Aidan.

Caroline - Operation Twig:

11 Goodgymers went to Thornhill Square and helped out Anna to remove massive ELDER (weed) trees. We managed to remove quite a lot in a short amount of time, release a good amount of stress and got to use some quite cool tools. Doing it in the dark adds to the challenge! After the task we did some gradual intervals around the square before heading back to base.

Tonight's debate was if you had a two course dinner what would you prefer out of starter, main and dessert? All combinations were mentioned depending on whether people prefer savoury or sweet. Also having a cheese board option could be a deciding factor as well.

Paul forgot the biscuits again. However, Aiden and Caroline brought the same type of biscuits for both of the groups without having spoken to each other first about first. It's like they can read each other minds... or simply get the same thing on offer from the co-op. They were caramel chocolate digestives. They didn't go down as well as the double chocolate digestives.

Aidan - Operation Speed Gardening:

13 of us set off to Caxton House led by Patrick with his musical lantern blasting the tunes.

Enjoying the music and the slightly up-hill run we made it there in great time but sadly the lovely people at Caxton weren't expecting us this week. Luckily after a few phone calls Rose, who lives close by, was able to come and meet us with tools in hand and got us set on task.

Two tasks were set, one group tackled one of the mighty bushes with secateurs whilst another worked at de-weeding the flowerbeds.

The time flew by and after a clean up we celebrated with a biscuit and a group photo. Everyone enjoyed the run back a bit more as it was all downhill. Lucky us!

Meeting up with the other group we stretched out and called it a day. The thoughtful Caroline had spare biscuits for us (little did she know we had already had some) and by sheer coincidence she had bought the exact same delicious caramel digestives...spooky.