16 adventurous Goodgymmers got on board the GGHaringey Flight 666 tonight, destination: Haringey Foodbank. Little did they know, there was treachery afoot!

Look who just got an upgrade

Alice and Josh joined us for their first spin, and Kristina and Kirsty clocked up their frequent flyer miles gloriously on their return leg tonight. They all just got upgraded to the First Class Cabin. Champagne and kudos for them all.

Also, big up for the man himself Ivo who joined us tonight and put on a brave face as our flight frankly faced turbulence on many an occasion!

Souper Troopers

We took off from GG Haringey HQ just as a bit of rain threatened to make our run to the Foodbank a wet one. Nevertheless, we pushed on and had a pleasant jog through the Tottenham Cemetery. We managed to fit in some jumping squats and wall sits along the way. All along, the threat of future falling outs slithered slyly in the background.

Upon arrival at the Selby Centre where the Haringey Foodbank is located, we were very pleased to see that they had put on a sit down banquet to welcome us and felt appropriately underdressed. Alas, that turned out to be someone's wedding party but we had no time to mourn as Femi had prepared a few tasks for us.

We divided into two groups and set off to work. Some of us ferried some food from the main bank into a storage space across the Selby Centre car park, whilst the other group started sorting through some sensitive paperwork, taking staples out and preparing it to be adequately disposed of.

Oh, reader, how they ferried. How they took staple outs.

Kristina, Kirsty, Mike, Sarah, Josh, Niamh, Alice, and Kapil loaded heavy crates into two shopping trolleys like it was nothing and ventured back into the cold night towards the storage space.

Meanwhile, Nurjehan, Dave, Natasha, Marusha, Ivo, and Neil dealt with mountains of paperwork deftly whilst Rita just clamoured endlessly for chocolate.

Towards the end of the evening, we all joined in sorting out the papers - having already done a tidy little job on all the donated food - and, reader, staples were flying off like a shot.

All good things come to an end, and we bid Femi goodbye, not before taking the customary group shot. We were all flying high and glided effortlessly back to HQ.

Then things turned sour.

We decided democratically and in no way was anyone forced to play the Guess The Animal game. A modified 20 Questions with burpees as a price for each question quickly descended into chaos as some people (Hi Nurjehan) disagreed on the domesticity of snakes.

Thankfully, Sarah crash-landed us to safety by leading us through a lovely stretching session and then we all headed into the night, some in search of beverages, others stealing chocolate and mithering over misfired fitness sessions. :) You win some, you pretend to win some.

Don't forget the Goodgym Christmas Extravaganza is just around the corner. Come!

And next we are planting SPRING BULBS at HQ. You HAVE to come for that one - there will be a walking and running option.

Peace!

We had a lovely evening visiting the wonderful folk at All People All Places (APAP) and we loved it so much we broke the 20 GoodGymmers mark for the first time in years. Boom!

First Stop: Kudos Central

Everybody make some noise for Kristina, Eve, and Luc who all shined last night during their GGH debut. Amazing!

Next Stop: We Will, We Will Mop You

One by one, our intrepid goodgymers made their way up the very very steep hills that led to our one-off rendezvous at the Muswell Hill Roundabout.

We made our way to the homeless shelter where Conor and Duncan from APAP welcomed us with open arms and a multitude of tasks. Good thing there were plenty of us to go around!

Some of us gave the kitchen a good scrub and left it looking spotless; some of us cleared a couple of rooms, moving some tools and bit and bobs to a different floor; some of us hoovered and mopped the main hall; there was bed airing, shelf-making, we even managed to get ourselves trapped in a stairwell for a while!

We crammed ourselves into the main hall for a quick fitness session, where a misguided attempt at a burpee game was followed by a more appropriate suggestion from Latoya and Louise to play Sally Said Sit Down. Everyone loved it - LOVED IT - and it's sure to become a GGH regular*.

By the time we left, the APAP folk were a bit dizzy at the energy and general get-on-with-it-ness of our Goodgymmers and I was a proud trainer.

We then ran down the hill and through awesome Ally Pally into Wood Green for our social but we got unlucky trying to find anywhere with an open kitchen so some of us got hangry and tried to put me in a bin.

It was an ace night.

Next week we're doing a bit of leafleting and playing for the very first ever GGH Scavenger Hunt Cup. I really think you should join us!

Peace.

*I'm allowing myself some poetic license here, regarding the level of love towards the game or amount of goodwill towards Latoya and Louise in the room afterwards :)