26 Goodgymers ran 4-5k to help Barnsbury Square Gardens and Single Homeless Project!

Welcome along to newbies Poppy, Nikul, Rachel, Nicoletta and Sam - great to have you along!

In the news this week:

1. Make sure you get signed up for the GoodGym Olympics (3rd August) by the end of June! Full details here, represent Islington!
2. Join the unofficial GoodGym Facebook group here.

This week GoodGym is partnered with the Great Get Together, a scheme which was started by Jo Cox's family and friends to bring us more together, we have more common than we do apart. Everyone joined in with the wristbands and stickers, and hopefully spoke to someone new over the evening.

Barnsbury Square Gardens Report by Aidan:

A lovely sunny day for a trip to Barnsbury Square Gardens. Lucy was ready, waiting for us and eager to get started! Several tasks for us to take on tonight. The gardens are loved by the local community but sadly that means the grass has to take a pounding and as it is clay based soil the gardens can dry up easily. Helpful then that we had plenty of forks so we can loosen the ground and free up the ground.

Also plenty of leaves to pick up which clears the soil to get much needed rainfall. To finish off, their beautiful flower beds need edging to frame their gloriousness.

Lovely running

Some lovely gardens with plenty of great dogs, worth a visit! Fun fact there are two air raid shelters underneath the centre ground. Graham led us back with eager Steve offering up an extra 1km around the Fields.

Single Homeless Project:

Just as we were collected together Regina called to tell me the woodchip had not arrived for the task. There was still plenty of gardening we could do to help this fantastic charity, which provides hostel accommodation to those in need.

After 2k of running we arrived to help Regina, she got us doing the following tasks:

• Two people litter picked through the back and front garden - lots of cigarette butts!
• Four people weeded and tidied the front garden
• Three people tidied the paths in the back garden, putting any woodchip that had overflowed on top of the carboard.
• Three people took on an extremely spikey bush, cutting it back and then digging out the roots.

Once all the above was done we bagged up more weeds and debris, swept up and then took a group picture.

After running home along Holloway Road we did a fartlek session around the Emirates, stretched and went to the pub for pizza and beer.

Sign up here for next week when we'll be helping Caledonian Park and probably Single Homeless Project.

PB out