Some top teamwork tonight as we took on two tasks at St John’s The Evangelist (many other St John churches are available).

We met at the Bridge House as usual, chatted over our favourite forms of light, from the horizon’s blade of sunlight at dawn to candles that smell of lychee, it was a warming selection.

We jogged over to the church where they have a beautiful community garden, some wild patches and a hell of a lot of leaves. We met Sara who had prepared many rakes, shears and a couple of big bags so we could...

🍂 Rake up all the leaves

✂️ Trim down the weeds in the wild area

🪵 Add the sticks to the bonfire pile

💰 Bagging up everything so it can rot down into 'brown gold' (I watched a film about soil the other day 🧐)

40 minutes later and we were all done - a good deed for the book and some nice chat and exercise too.

Nice one team 🏆

This week's group run was in honour of This Girl Can's "Let's Lift the Curfew" campaign 🏃‍♀️, highlighting the inequality that women face as the long nights set in 🌃 when it comes to exercising and travelling in public places. It was great to see lots of women at the session and a couple of new and recent faces such as Annie!

We met at the Bridge House, introducing ourselves and answering this week's icebreaker question - what's your favourite journey in the dark? We had some great answers - Cat blew us away with her story and photos of flying through the Northern Lights - amazing! 😮

It was a long 3km run to the Dorset Road Allotments so we set off along the main road before busting the curfew by heading through Penge Recreation Ground, then across Penge towards Elmers End and the allotments.

This was Part 5 of our ongoing project to help break down an old chicken coop that's long been condemned, with the space planned to be added to the allotments so the local community can benefit. There were huge brambles to be cut, wire netting to be removed and weeds galore. With a large number of tools on hand there was something for everyone to do 😀

Clare and I helped removed the green waste in wheelbarrows while the rest of the team worked through to the back of the coop, scything away at the bramble jungle. With many hands we made a lot of progress in just 30 minutes 🏆

Our time up, it was back on the 3km jog to Bridge House. Huge well done to everyone who joined - it was so nice to hear comments like "I didn't know I could run this far!" and just goes to show the motivational power of social running 👊

Keep lifting the curfew by banding together to make the world safer at night 🙏

P.S. Men, GoodGym offer a short, online training slideshow to help you do your bit - find it here.

We started the evening at the Bridge House, welcoming Ella to the group, who's been back running for about a year now and was looking for a way to help out and get more involved locally when Goodgym mention popped up for inspiration. We got onto the serious business of favourite ice cream flavours, inspired by a local small business who make proper posh ice cream from oat milk. Lots of fancy choices followed, from miso caramel to blood orange to pistachio, what a varied and cultured bunch :) A short chatty run to Cator Park, just stopping for a little active stretchy warm-up in Penge. Then onto the task - redoing the butterfly scrape started last year but that needed a bit more help to really get it going for next summer. So we all set at it with forks and rakes and hoes (and a bit of giggling). Me, I can't help thinking of the Thundercats when someone says 'hoe'. Hmmm, should probably have kept that to myself! Under Millie's cheery expert instruction we dug and turned the pebbly ground, then some of us sprinkled on wildflower seeds and covered over with a bit more earth - as we could feel the birdies beady eyes from somewhere in the darkness just waiting to swoop in for the tasty seeds. Back to the Bridge House in smaller groups after, bit of a cool down stretch while hearing the fun of Drag Bingo going on inside. Can't wait to see what this butterfly job at the park looks like next summer!

Last night we had a variation on a longstanding task - instead of weeding at the Water Tower, we were to bag up rubble that we'd been separating for months from the green waste. The good news - it's to be reused! ♻️

We met at the Bridge House, and this week's question was - "What craft or fix have you done recently?". From DIY to computers, we've got a resourceful bunch at GoodGym!

We set off and climbed towards the top of Crystal Palace Park around the longer, north side, arriving at the Water Tower to meet David, our host for the evening.

The hardcore is to go to the Croydon Sailing Club to help build the foundations for their new clubhouse; cementing a new history for Brunel's historic Water Tower 📖

Bags provided, team GG attacked the rock piles and stacked up the loot to be moved this week. David was very grateful for our efficiency - many hands make light work and nowhere is it more true than GoodGym 🎉

We headed along the south side if the park and back to Bridge House to complete a loop of the park, a total of 4km and much uphill over the course of the evening.

Fab work, everyone! 😁

We had our first properly dark task of the season tonight as we helped Millie and the Friends of Cator Park neaten up foliage ahead of the annual Paws in the Park competition on Sunday. Work lights set up, Millie taught us how to scallop the bramble edge so that more of the path was accessible but we still left enough greenery for the birds and insects.

It was Elna's first task and she got stuck in with the shears straight away. We were also joined mid-way through the task by Millie's schnauzers who did a great job of supervising.

Nice job all!