A group of red t-shirt’s gathered in the foyer of Glassmill can only mean 1 thing, it was time for some running and doing good! This week we were off to GRACE which always means lots of sorting and organising.

A quick recap of this weeks news:

• Well done to Bradley who came second at the Chiswick Half Marathon at the weekend and to Liv who ran her first marathon in Amsterdam, amazing running from both of you.
• A huge good luck to Stephen who is running Venice Marathon this weekend, I hope it’s not the same conditions as it was last year when I ran it!!
• On 2nd November we have a GoodGym takeover of Hilly Fields Parkrun, if you would like to volunteer, drop Adele an email with what role you fancy doing.

We began the evening with a quick headcount in a rather oddly shaped circle, that wasn’t really a circle, but I went with it, it worked. And then straight into a game of “I shout a body part and a number and those who are leftover have to do squats”, I’m sure the game has a proper name really! Then we set off as a group through the centre of Lewisham, detouring for some roadworks and up the busy main road to GRACE, it’s not the most picturesque of routes.

We arrived promptly, picking up people on the way and great work by those that met us at the task, getting stuck in before we arrived!

The tasks for this evening were pretty straightforward, sorting through cages of clothes and organising them into men, women and children piles and then removing the items that couldn’t be of use and saving the items that could be sold in the shop.

And the other task was sorting boxes of baby clothes into size order and packed neatly to condense the amount of boxes.

The first difficult task was getting the plastic gloves out of the box! Everyone got to work and there was quite a lot of concentration on organising the clothes until we found some very questionable pieces of clothing, see pictures!

It was time to be wrapping up but there was still half a cage of clothes to sort and put in bags so it was all hands on deck to get everything sorted, I couldn’t write labels for the bags quick enough!

Group photo done and we made our back back to Glassmill to stretch and try to remember what next weeks task is..it’ll be a good one.

It was the wettest group in Lewisham since the time we visited GRACE and ran back in a thunderstorm, I’d checked throughout the day and a lot of people had signed up for the celebratory evening but then I stood in Glassmill wondering if it would just be me running to Beecroft.

I should have had more faith, of course people began to arrive and not just from Lewisham, but from Sheffield and Stockport (lovely to have some more fellow Northerners visit) and everyone braving the rain to do good!!

After a quick run through of the news from the past week: GoodGym Croydon Parkrun takeover at Bethlem Parkrun, Community Missions and Bradley winning a 10 mile race, it was time to head out into the rain and warm up. I was so excited about having enough people to use tennis balls in the warm up that my description of the warm up was so confusing but after some rearranging of people and re-explaining what on Earth we were doing, we got there and warmed up we set off on the uphill (slight incline if you’re from Sheffield) and arrived at Beecroft before we knew it and slightly more soggier than when we left Glassmill.

Before we could get stuck into the amazing cakes that a parent at the school had made for us (thank you so much!!), a couple of tasks needed completing:

• moving bags of sand to the front of the playground to an area that is going to be made into a Peace Garden
• creating a water maze using pipes that will be attached to the side of the shed (photo's included for those who don't know what one of them is - I didn't at first!)
• hanging bells in order, in the Sensory Garden area so the children can learn to play some songs (mainly Christmas Carols)

*Garden forks earn popping corks! *

Once the tasks had been completed it was time to celebrate all the hard work that has been done since July 2018. Whilst we tucked into cupcakes and Prosecco, we watched a presentation that showed the transformation of the area and the various stages and all the people involved - there were a couple of speeches as well.

Everything tidied away and we began our run back to Glassmill, I switched up the route on the way bag to run past Hilly Fields but at the last moment decided against hill repeats as everyone was pretty drenched by now and time wasn’t on our side. Instead we continued back to Glassmill with a sprint finish for those who wanted to and inside to the warmth to kind of dry off a bit and stretch (thanks Amber!).

Thanks to Oli for backmarking and providing the excellent puns!

A big thank you to everyone for their efforts with various tasks (digging, wheelbarrowing, painting, more wheelbarrowing, shovelling and missing out on the heavy duty tools!!) over the past 18 months, it’s amazing to see what we’ve helped achieve, from groups runs to missions that have taken place at Beecroft. A huge thank you to Gemma for all her efforts in getting the project off the ground and being there on Monday evenings organising and encouraging us in all weathers!

Next week, we are off to Crofton Books which is a lovely indoor task!

Pat yourselves on the back for being part of such a big group of happy runners this evening - it was fantastic to see so many smiling faces turn up in spite of this evening's questionable weather! And a massive welcome to our veritable troop of first time runners - go and give them all a cheer - Luke, Claire, Polly, Raya and Katie (who gets an extra special mention for being dragged along for an evening of being told what to do by her big sister - which sounds a lot like most of our childhood!).

When we finally arrived at Chelwood Nursery (after only a mild diversion - thanks for backmarking this evening and keeping us all together Chloe), we achieved a huge amount this evening, even in the playground's gloomy conditions...

What's long, brown and sticky?

An entire hazelnut tree was felled (before the nuts have chance to grow, avoiding unwanted allergic reactions in the playground), chopped up into bits, stripped of leaves, and the resulting sticks were sorted into varying size categories ready to be used for... den-making! Just think of the hours of fun you've all contributed to in preparing den-making equipment (and the hours of fun you probably had making dens back when you were younger)!

They call it Nutbush city limits

Another hardy group ventured round the back of Chelwood's swanky new building to clear up some of the remaining building materials. It was tough work moving lots of heavy planks and shovelling rubble in the dark (it did look a bit like prison camp back there), but totally worth it to discover the nursery's long-lost story-telling penguin - on top of the den-making and the teeny tiny rakes, this evening's cute levels were off the scale.

Can you twig it?!

That's not even the end of it! An extensive weeding campaign was carried out, with Chloe, Martin and Sarah (who did her 50th good deed this evening, hoorah - more cheers needed please!) delicately foraging for weeds in between the strawberry and pumpkin plants (check the size of that pumpkin!). Tom did a sterling job watering the bamboo plants (yes, even in the rain), whilst Laura and Polly hunted down escaped smooth pebbles using only their sense of touch (like dolphins apparently, which are known for their highly developed sense of touch due to the nerve endings in their skin - who knew!).

"We're like dolphins!" - Polly

Fuelled by bananas, we set off back to Glass Mill taking the "scenic" route via a sprint up Hilly Fields (it would be rude not to!). Thanks to keeping us together. Don't forget to check out this Saturday's community mission planting bulbs at St Mary's Primary School in Lewisham, and get yourself signed up for next week's fizz and cake bonanza to celebrate adding the finishing touches to the Sensory Garden at Beecroft Garden Primary School.

Happy running!

P.S. Please excuse the really dark photos! 😬 P.P.S Thanks for the puns Oli!