6 Green fingered GoodGymers ran 5k to The Oasis GreenGym Community Garden to water and tidy sone very thirsty fruit, vegetables, herbs and flowers.

A last minute change of task this week as the Kin ball challenge match with St Andrews youth Club would have been a bit one sided! So we have rescheduled until next week!! Please come along, it will be a lot of fun!!

Heading out on a round about route to the Oasis Community Garden for our first visit of the year. With 2.5k in the bag we arrived in the Oasis leisure centre and crept out the back to the volunteer run community garden.

The garden looks very well planted this year with so many varieties of fruit, veg and hens to go along with some decorative flowers!

But the beds looked like the desert so needed a camel load of water to keep that growing going!! Focusing on 1 big bed at a time we gave the flowers all the water they could handle so that everything can flourish and the food donations to the local community is plentiful this year!

30 minutes of filling and pouring with a little sweeping up for an added extra did the job!

We set off with a little time for a strong all body circuit, so we found a spot in Bedford Square where we attacked a mountain of full body exercises with running as a recovery. CV, lower body strength, plyometrics and some core moves finished 12 minutes of fitness action!

With the hard work done we jogged back to base, stretched out and headed home with a strong evenings activity complete!

See you next week! Hope that a few people fancy doing the GoodGym Olympics on June 30th!!

Smooth Running

Joel

11 GoodGymers ran 5k to give 200 chocolate treats to Westminsters homeless community in the Sunshine!

The Sun has finally come to London!! As we dusted off our shorts and vests from their prolonged Winter hibernation it was great to have some GoodGym first timers along to show them the ropes.

As always this session in particular is nothing without your super generous donations and huge thank you for bringing along a contribution to the chocolate treats!!

After dividing up the chocolate we got running fully loaded with treats ready to brighten up Westminsters most vulnerable’s evening with an act of kindness.

As we started our regular local Homeless hot spots seemed to be unoccupied and our efforts looked like they may be thwarted as we zipped through the Back streets near Oxford Circus and down to Piccadilly. We started to find a few very grateful recipients of our chocolate treats as we weaved in and out through Leicester Square and lovely to have the time for a quick chat with people that are often just passed by, by many.

Then we found our stride as we located many of the Capitals homeless community in the Charring Cross area and in Trafalgar Square. Great to hear from a few homeless people that they remembered us running around giving away *Hotcross Buns * last month.

With an extended route around Charring Cross we had almost exhausted our resources so decided as a treat to ourselves we would shorten the running route back to base and add in a lower body mini circuit in Green Park. Lunging in all directions, adding in a calf raising recovery got those legs firing with our 8 minute strength workout before we got plyometric to finish with a range of jump lunges and squats to really increase the fitness!!

With our legs nice and worked out we ran back to base giving away the last few chocolate treats. Back to New Balance in perfect time to stretch out and head home with a top session in the bag!

Have a great week and hope to see you next Wednesday same time and place for a trip to St Andrews Youth Club to help them keep up their amazing youth work.

Smooth Running

Joel

This week 13 GoodGym-ers ran 5.7km to help Muswell Hill Food Bank weed, vacuum, mop and wipe.

We started with a few warm up drills along the side of the Phoenix that I learnt from the NBMCR middle- and long- distance coach Steve Vernon at the New Balance HQ last week. Nicola was a pro at these straight off the bat!

With our legs all warm and our numbers all counted, it was time to head off towards Muswell Hill. Hazel kept me company leading the pack, while Chris was our trusty back-marker.

On arrival we were greeted by Aimee and Deborah, who dished out the tasks before everyone got to work. We had an outside team weeding the patio, an inside team vacuuming and mopping the floors, a window team wiping the windows and Sarah was a team all on her own cleaning doors.

While all this was going on, a couple practiced their wedding dance inside. Deborah treated us to some bananas.

Once all the working was out of the way, it was time for a few strength drills. Walking pause lunges to improve balance, core stability and single-leg strength, bear and crab crawls to improve core, quad, glute and shoulder strength, and kicking squats - again to build that single-leg strength. Running is a series of single-leg jumps, so you really ought to make sure both legs are holding their own if you want to avoid injury, run faster or ran further.

We then ran back to base, with Nicola helping me lead the way and Freya our trusty back-marker. With Chris and Shawn hot on our tails we ended up running up the hills faster than we ran down them on the way home, which made no sense but was fantastic for everyone's legs and lungs and general levels of awesomeness - so good job!

This week's Barnet Biscuit: Chocolate fingers, courtesy of Freya

This week's pun, courtesy of Damian.

It's Freya's birthday next week, so there will be cakes and merriment to celebrate on Saturday. You can sign up here

We need a couple more volunteers for gardening at the Westminster Drug Project on Saturday. Sign up here

There's also a mission to help Mrs F on Saturday and a mission to help Grange Big Local set up their community festival on Sunday.

Headtorches were donned and black cats were met as Lambeth carried out two tasks and loads of work at the Portico Gallery and Hillyard extra care home! Plus BREAD WEEK in Bake Off

We had a new task this evening, supporting Hillyard House extra care home. They support older residents who may have mental health or physical difficulties to live out their old age in a fulfilled way. The site has a lovely garden and GoodGym was tasked with creating a SECRET GARDEN towards the back of the site. We had to sneak around behind some shrubs and then clear an area that would be hidden from view by hedges. Residents will be able to explore this new garden and hopefully enjoy the peace and quiet. Armed with saws, secateurs and all manner of other garden implements, we set about this fun task. Soon, huge branches were appearing from the undergrowth and the compost pile became a mountain of old shrubbery. Rebecca Nellis got seriously busy sawing down an old tree and in 40 minutes we had cleared a massive area and swept up for good measure. The task leader Jenny was just delighted, as were some of the residents who came out to watch our work. We ran the 1km back to base and did some strength work before stretches.

The second group took the 8km round trip to the Portico Gallery. John Hunter tells all:

14 of us went up to the Portico where another member of John’s family empire, Sholto, was deputised to instruct us on moving piles of florist’s tables from one bit of the yard to another. After we nailed the table task, it was onto a Portico stalwart - the soggy tarpaulin. We made a human chain to do this. Passing this down the human chain made everyone sad, but then Methusulah the cat came along to visit each person in the chain like at a wedding or funeral, except it was definitely more like a wedding by the end of Methusulah’s visit because everyone was so happy.

Sholto said “I am happy because that would have taken me all afternoon to do that”. And he was happy too.

Sadly John H's camera went into meltdown so the lovely snaps got lost, but here they are described in words:

1: A variety of people looking sad because they got dripped on by the tarpaulin

2: Elise werking the “I’m not currently doing anything” look

3: Elise carrying a bit of fence

4: Sholto standing proudly by his work lamps

The brilliant Jack and Beth also completed a mission with the run time - clearing a garden so an older person can enjoy it. Brill!

On return to base, everyone enjoyed Katie's Bread Week offering after Flo really screwed up her Captain's Treasure Trove last week. OH FLO! We tucked into some delicious cinnamon buns and headed off into the night. TOP WORK.