23 GoodGym'ers ran 3km to help Springvale Residents Hall with a treat of a task - weeding, sweeping & window cleaning!

Everyone is loving the lighter and warmer evenings it seems as a massive 22 GoodGym'ers joined me in H&F to run and do good! Amongst all my wonderful regulars tonight, it was lovely to welcome along Katie and Suzie for their first H&F group run and many second and third timers back for more!

There was lots of running to celebrate from the weekend...Eloise got a parkrun PB at Gunnersbury, Johnny & Sarah ran the Morden (almost!) 10km, Catriona ("this is the last hill") led her first GoodGym long run up and down the rather undulating Wimbledon Common, AND the good deed machine of January aka Helen ran the London Marathon in a superb time and with a big smile on her face despite injury...stairs and walking sound like they have been a struggle since and Helen had a well deserved evening off tonight! Well done to you all!

Other news...

1. London Marathon Ballot 2020 - Feeling inspired to run a marathon? Well....the London Marathon ballot for 2020 is OPEN until Friday 3rd May, I'll just leave the link to enter here - there are also many other options such as Manchester, Brighton & nohtaraM ehT!
2. Fulham Palace parkrun GoodGym takeover - Saturday 29th June! - Our friends at Fulham Palace parkrun will celebrate their 300th parkrun event...and the best news is that GoodGym will be helping out with a BIG takeover event! - Sign up here please fill out the spreadsheet on the sign up page with your preferred volunteer role or pacing time.
3. Next Socials - save the dates! The next GoodGym 'all areas' social is on Thursday 9th May in Peckham & the next GoodGym H&F social is on Tuesday 14th May. Locations TBC, check the WhatsApp group for updates.

Having sailed through the hardest part of the evening, the name and number count, we completed a quick warm-up and set off on our short run to Springvale Residents Hall. Upon arrival we were greeted by the ever-smiley and enthusiastic Berni, chair of the Springvale Tenants' and Residents' Association and the Hall's gardener, Tom. Berni explained that the hall was going to be used for the upcoming elections at the end of May but needed a big spruce up as there were quite a number of weeds that had sprung up again, tougher and thicker than before!

Weed, sweep, clean, repeat

With the odd peeping resident from the adjacent flats (thankfully admiring all the GoodGym work that Berni had told them about, not gearing up to throw rotten tomaotes or eggs!) the group spread themselves around the hall and tackled the following jobs:

• Weeding of the overgrown garden at the rear
• Weeding and sweeping of the patio
• Weeding and sweeping down the side of the hall
• Cleaning the outside of the windows
• Removal of all the cobwebs on the outside of the hall

Heavy nettle

As always, the group got quickly stuck in to the jobs at hand and began pulling up all the weeds and nettles from the garden area and down the side of the hall at a rate of knots. As the weeders were forming piles of unwanted weeds, the window cleaners, with the assistance of the ladder, were thoroughly cleaning and wiping all the windows back to the former shiny glory.

Taking the biscuit 🍪...

Berni had very kindly left some biscuits and sweets for the group as a thank you, and to keep everyone fuelled throughout the task. Not one to miss a biscuit or food based snack, Johnny went in seek of them having, in his words "done some work to earn them first" and began serving up a 'sugar rush' with his refreshments partner, 'I've only had five biscuits' Alice to everyone in the group. The sugar hit break was very welcomed by all and everyone got stuck into their biscuit or sweet of choice with not one crumb left behind - though if there had been, the sweepers would have ensured a clean sweep of the area.

Transformation at the weed of light

Forty minutes flew by and the transformation was striking! As they say, pictures say a thousand words so...

Just a small snipped from the evening. Impressive work!

Papa-paparazzi

With Berni and I furiously snapping away with our phones, and the surprise late arrival of Chi armed with his professional camera, there was very little of the evening that wasn’t captured on film! 📸. About a thousand snaps and four group photos later, with no staging whatsoever, everyone’s best angles were captured. All that was left before we headed over to Brook Green for tonight's short fitness session was for us to say our thankyous and goodbyes to both Berni and Tom.

Totally ab hoc

Tonight's fitness centred very much on the core. First up was the closesly contested plank tennis ball relay 🎾, Team 1 came out on top, just!

And since we had Mr 'Abs on Tour' in our presence, everyone was also treated to a five minute abs blast which included bicycles, leg raises and heel taps, all while being papped by Chi of course. This was to the delight of Jonathan who was after that magic new Tinder profile picture, which I believe Chi managed to snap, and for which Lucy gave him the winning bio quote, team work in action.

As we said our thankyous and goodbyes to Chi, there was just time for part II of the new weekly feature by popular demand... the nostalgic and amusing 'Tom's CV' series told by the man himself. This evening's short anecdote was from his time working at Burger King, stay tuned for part III next week!

Plank you very much, that's ball folks!

All that was now left was a short run back to base and a quick stretch off. Great work tonight team!

Next week we’re heading back to Flora Gardens Primary to finish off the last of the painting in ‘The White House’. Sign up for next week’s run here. Have a fab week and long weekend!

On another beautifully sunny and warm Tuesday evening in H&F, 21 GoodGym-ers joined me to run and do good! It was lovely to have Ooonagh, Joyce, Sophie, Zoe and Martynas along for their second H&F group run, to have Lena back after a bit of a hiatus and to again have Karen from GG Wandsworth doing some GoodGym tourism!

To mix things up this week, because as they say 'variety is the spice of life', we headed outside this week the round-up of the weekly news…

1. Bonus H&F Group Run & Community Mission - Next Tuesday (28th August) there is a bonus lunchtime group run to help Chelsea FC Foundation, sign up here - the run is limited to 8 runners due to space constrictions. On Saturday 1st September there will be a community mission to help out at the amazing White City Adventure Playground, sign up here - Wormwood Scrubs parkrun followed by breakfast will be organised pre-mission! Please come along and lend a hand if you can.
2. Donations Wanted! - Catriona is going to Calais in October to volunteer for a couple of weeks with an amazing charity called Help Refugees, who among other things, give support to people who were displaced from the Jungle when it was torn down by the French police. Do you have any of the items listed here that you can donate? If YES, please let Catriona know!
3. Bank Holiday Racing/Running - Good luck to all those going down to Dorset for the East Farm - White Star Races. Enjoy! For those that aren't there is the monthly GoodGym Long Run for August on 25th August which will be led by Dom, a 21km route from Hampton Court to Battersea Arts Centre – sign up here.

Finally, a special shoutout to Polly who did a mega sub-20 minute parkrun at the weekend! Amazing stuff!

After a quick warm-up (this week with some shooing of the chickens), a name and number head count and poll of 'Black or White?' - apologies all for the very poor question which ultimately had no clear winner....a very grey answer! - we all headed north on the short 1.2km run to tonight's task at Springvale Estate Residents Hall. When we arrived we were greeted by Tom, the gardener who tends to the garden space at the Residents Hall. He gave a quick introduction about what the hall and garden space is used for and provided all the necessary tools and equipment to get on with the 5 tasks that were requested by Berni when I met her here last week:

1. Weeding the overgrown garden at the rear
2. Weeding and sweeping of the patio
3. Weeding and sweeping down the side of the hall
4. Cleaning the windows and mopping the hall floor
   
5. Removal of all the cobwebs on the outside of the hall

...an overarching theme of lots of weeding and sweeping!

The team efficiently split off into different groups, arming themselves with the necessary tools in order to begin tackling the above tasks.

Gym Class Windows

Karen, Oonagh, Jesse, Jason and Will headed in to the hall and began the cleaning of the windows and the mirrors, and the tricky spot behind the exercise bike. It wasn't long before they had the inside of the hall looking far fresher and cleaner so the trio of Jesse, Karen and Oonagh headed outside to tackle to weeds down the side of the hall while Will and Jason remained inside to sweep and mop the hall floors. Not being ones to sweep it under the carpet/rug, the boys did an incredibly thorough job, one any perfectionist would approve of; and they had the added bonus of now smelling and wearing eau d'cif!

Broom for Improvement

Fiona set about sweeping the patio with her lovely new broom and she was going great guns until she exclaimed "What a great broom this is", cue the brush and handle very much becoming detached from one another! Upon closer inspection it was apparent that this incident had occurred due to a missing screw, somewhat key in the holding together of the broom. With no screws to be found, Sarah kindly offered to run home and fetch the all-important screw.

Have I Got Screws For You

Screw acquired, the broom was quickly fixed and Fiona was able to set about again sweeping the weeds and leaves on the patio. Sarah posed for another non-rubbish but instead fabulous bin bag shot while 'super poser' Sophie worked numerous poses with the rather deadly but effective point/brush weeding tool as she cleared the patio and path of weeds before passing it on to Tom so that he too could get involved in the fun! Lena also proved a dab hand in sweeping as she swept the patio and Miteki tackled the plants and tidied the leaves down the side of the garden while the rest of the group got well and truly stuck into the overgrowth at the end of the garden.

Biscuits Casual

Berni had very kindly left some biscuits for the group as a thank you and to keep them fuelled through the task. Not one to miss a biscuit or food based snack, Johnny quickly went in seek of them out and began serving up a 'sugar rush' to everyone in the group. With the strong dream team of Joyce, Zoe, Alice, Bex, Missie, Catriona, Andrew, Arba, Martynas tackling the weeds, plants and attempting to avoid all the stinging nettles it wasn't long before there were many bin bags full of weeds and cuttings.

Step Up 2: The Weedy Good Sweep

As ever, the time at the task flew by and it was soon time to down tool and tidy-up. Joe, was incredibly pleased and impressed with what had been achieved and described what he had witnessed to be like "waving a magic wand". Plants and some steps were now visible in the garden area and there was now space in which some bulbs could be planted in the coming months. With the step ladder providing much needed height and leverage to me, the group posed for a post-task photo around the markedly improved garden and entertained my selfie with the group photo attempt!

The Speed for Speed

Task complete we set off on the very short run to Brook Green to complete a quick 1km time trial around the outer perimeter of the Green. Jesse kindly offered to be on stopwatch duty, definitely not because he wanted to skip the time trial but because he wanted the group to all partake and have a time to beat next time.... The group set off in staggered starts so as not to overwhelm other pedestrians and it wasn't long before the first runners to set off were back at the start having completed the lap of the Green in super quick time. There was some excellent 'pockets to sockets' running technique executed and significantly redder and sweatier faces proved what a big effort was put in by all. Ace running all! Please try and remember your times so that when we do this time trial again you have a time to beat!

The Hunger Games

Before we headed back to base there was time for one quick game of 'Hungry Hippos'. Four teams, one bag of Maoam's in the centre with an exercise that corresponded to each flavour, of course, Apple worked the core...10 x crunches. The winning team was the one that got the most Maoam's and the result was a 6-6 draw between Team 1 & 3, and the bonus knowledge that there are 22 Maoam stripes in a bag! Rubbish collected and binned in true GoodGym fashion we then set off on the 1km run back to base for a cool down and stretch before saying our goodbyes.

What a great night! In a H&F first (possibly second) with me leading, the task and run that went completely as I briefed, definitely not down to the L word of...luck! Fab weeding, sweeping, moping, and running all - hope you enjoyed it! Berni and Tom will be delighted with the transformation you all achieved. Thank you very much to Jason for back-marking and to Jesse for being timekeeper on the 1km time trial. Have a lovely bank holiday weekend and hopefully see you on one of the runs or at the community mission next week!

Next week’s evening task is at the Maystate Estate where we will be helping out on numerous tasks in their community centre, older resident's gardens and the community garden – sign-up here.

Another record breaking group run number with 21 runners, which smashed last week’s total of 18 runners. This extra large gang couldn’t of come on a better night as our task need lots of pairs of hands. We had been asked along to Age UK’s activity centre to help tackle their overflowing storage rooms.

The night started off with the usual welcome chat, task briefing and news update. Including details about the Olympics and wishing Sarah, Catriona and Tom good luck on their half marathons this weekend.

After all that lovely stuff we headed outside for a dynamic warmup. After which we headed off on the short 1.5km run to the task. Aileen, Volunteer Coordinator and her manager were there to meet us when we arrived. They gave the runners a quick intro into the activities at the Service Centre and thanked us for our help in advance.

There were two small rooms piled high with boxes, furniture and juke that needed sorting out as they were becoming a tad dangerous for the staff to go into. Our volunteers a formed a human chain, clearing both rooms in no time. Next, half the team repacked and sorted the boxes and general bric-à-brac into more of an order. Whilst the other half started refilling the store rooms with the big items of furniture and fabric rolls.

You can see from the photos the unbelievable end result!

After their handy work was done, we headed outside to take a group photo in-front of the Age UK sign for Aileen. Then we said our goodbyes and headed over to Lillie Road park to do some arm technique work and relay sprints.

3 things to remember

The runners had to consider 3 things whilst doing their leg of the relay. Not crossing their arms in front of their chest, driving their elbows backwards (not forwards) and keeping a nice right angle shape. We did this continuous relays for 5 minutes. Enough time for most people to give it a go over 100meters a couple of times. Then most of the group tried out their luck on the Lille road Strava segment, whilst a couple stayed behind to do some strength work with me.

After everyone was back there was just enough time to jog back to base and do some cool down stretches.

Lovely stuff. Well done everybody. Specially new runners Patrick , Luis, Marta and Linn. Give them a cheer!