Five were seen digging this morning...

...nestled behind Kilburn's residential streets, in a St Cuthbert's gorgeous communal green space, five well-meaning souls were seen chatting, laughing, and digging this morning.

Agatha and Will (on their first good-deeds, congrats!!) joined Steve, Pulin, and Alex, and we spent two and a half hours digging a trench for timber, laying timber, and announcing a new enclosed and sunken flower bed, ripe and ready for filling and growing :)

Thank you, all, for your time and work this morning. It was a joy to share the morning with you, and we made a real difference to the space, especially as we step towards the warm and spring!

See you at the next one!!

23 awesome runners ran 3km to help at the Ballast Quay Garden!

A cold and dark evening didn't deter nearly two dozen of you from showing up last night which is AMAZING!! Can we keep that going all winter????

Firstly thanks a mil for the wings and the cakes, it was so sweet and lovely and very much appreciated. It's been a joy running with you all and the best thing for me is seeing how much you've all improved your running since you started... LOVE THAT! And finally just thanks for putting up with me all these years :') anyway you didn't ask for a speech so why am I giving one?? On to the report...!!

We headed off to Ballast Quay, the closest of all our tasks. Diane looks after the garden pretty much single handedly and has done for 60 years!! I think that number changes every time I tell the story but either way it's a lot of years. She has just celebrated her 80th birthday but sadly has had shingles fairly recently which has wiped her out so I told her to go back inside in the warm with Tom the dog whilst we worked on the garden.

The main jobs were clearing leaves, getting rid of the bracken, weeding the paving slabs and also having a go at the overgrown ivy too which just seems to take over everything!

Headtorches at the ready, everyone got stuck in! The most oddly satisfying thing about this task is getting to throw the garden waste into the river.. I don't know why it is, but it just is. It makes me think of in films when there is a girl mad at her boyfriend and she throws all his stuff out of the window....

Anyhow.. we carried on working away until all the bracken was cleared. Most of the leaves were gone and the ivy was looking a lot tidier too! We packed everything back into the greenhouse, locked up and headed back to the uni for some more running as we had barely even run a mile at this point!

5 laps of the quad alternating between a fast and a slow side. Hopefully the hearts were pumping a bit more after that! Then it was time for some lovely vegan cakes <3

Thanks so much again everyone!

Some important info...

Christmas Party Poll!

If you'd like to come along to our Christmas meal this year please vote in this poll by selecting all the days you are available and we will choose the most popular. At the moment it's looking like Friday 13th December, we'll confirm the date early next week!

Monthly Parkrun

This month we are heading to Mile End Parkrun on Saturday 19th October so come and join us for a free timed 5k.. you can run, walk, jog or volunteer!

Finally big good luck to those that are racing this weekend. I know you'll do us SO proud!

That's all from me folks, see you next week at Christchurch School! Have a lovely weekend!

19 awesome runners ran 5km to help at the Mefa Montessori!

It was celebrations twice over yesterday as the amazing Amy and Steve both hit their hundredth good deed!

Amy has been one of our longest standing members, doing good since March 2016! For those of you who don't know, she's also pretty quick.. She ran the London Marathon this year in a lightning fast 2:57! To have a marathon time that starts with a 2 is something that most people only dream about but she made it look effortless! Well done Amy, keep up the good deeding and fast running :):):)

Steve has been coming to GoodGym for 3 years and in that time has seen his running go from strength to strength, completing multiple marathons and earlier this year did 3 in 4 weeks... ouch! So many amazing achievements and never without a gigantic smile on his face! Keep up the great work Steve! Looking forward to your next running challenge :):):)

We did a quick little warm up and then headed off for our run to the Montessori! If you don't know what a Montessori is (I didn't before I started coming here with GoodGym!) it is a type of education method that centres very much around sensory learning and the Mefa Montessori specialises in teaching children and adults with autism. They have recently done up the back garden and turned it into a lovely forest school. On our previous visit we varnished the shed, but this time it was the fence's turn!

We split the group up, 8 people headed off to do the fence. Meanwhile we needed a tall person to help feed the grape vine through a trellis so Linda kindly volunteered hahahaha! Marta who by the way has recently gone through a whopping 200 good deeds(!!!!!),took a broom to sweep away the cobwebs from the windows. The rest of the crew headed out front to do some weeding between the paving slabs and clear the leaves!

After half an hour, we sadly ran out of varnish. That fence was just lapping it up. We just about finished it, with one small patch not quite done but it's where the shed lives anyway so not the end of the world! We gathered all the weeds, gave the place a sweep, put the plants back in their place and tidied the brushes and buckets away and we were done! After a quick photo we headed back to the uni the way we came, had a little stretch and then celebrated with loads of biscuits, pies, brownies and flapjacks! YUM!

Community mission at Charlton House

Here is the link to the Charlton House pop up kitchen event next Thursday. If you can spare an hour or 2 between midday and around 8pm then it would be hugely appreciated!!

Great job last night everyone! Fantastic running and lovely work at the task as well! See you next week where we will be back at St Lukes!

24 awesome runners ran 7km to help at Cherry Orchard Primary School!

Last night we ventured a little further afield for our run. Since our task was at a school, it was only fitting to talk about our favourite lessons from back in the day. The verdict: we are all just a bunch of nerds! But nerds who can RUN!

We quickly dropped our stuff off in the room and headed off, I had promised a 7.30 arrival and knew we had a longer run than usual plus THE hill so time would be tight! So off we went, up Maze Hill, across Vanbrugh Park and we eventually arrived at the side entrance to the school!

Beth was ready for us with lots of tools and gloves at the ready. She explained the task at hand and showed us the quite pretty but sadly rather itchy plant that needed to be removed. Half of the group went about finding said plants, whilst the rest tackled the wall of ivy, which was so overgrown that it covered the main path... So lots to be getting on with!

All the greenery was to be put in the 3 wheelie bins and compacted down as much as possible to fit as much in as possible! JC and Andy gave it a helping hand, or a helping foot more like, by getting in the bins and stomping the green matter down. And no this was not in my risk assessment!

After half an hour, the place had truly been transformed. We even had time to move the wooden planters to their new homes too. Really amazing stuff everyone!

We headed back through Greenwich Park and the heavens opened and we got COMPLETELY drenched. At least it happened during our run back and not at the task, or that would have been a very miserable 30 minutes! We quickly took cover and called it a night!

Great work last night everyone! You got SO much done, the change was unbelievable! The teachers are going to be dead chuffed and the kids a lot less itchy now that those weeds are out! Fantastic effort all round!

Parkrun

A kind reminder to anyone who fancied the chance of a fast and free 5k on Saturday. A group of us are heading down to Victoria Dock Parkrun on Saturday morning, 9am. You can even ride the cable car for some extra fun! The more the merrier!

Cleaning gym mats, sanding down windowsills, and painting classroom doors!

After another day of rain, the evening didn’t look promising! But, despite the bad weather, 10 good deeders came out to help with some tasks at the Grinling Gibbons school.

We met under cover and, in light of the recent return of Love Island, tonight’s question was on the topic of guilty pleasures. Our guilty indulgences ranged from ice cream (whole tubs!!) to bingeworthy TV and radio - but nobody admitted to a Love Island addiction!

We dropped off our bags and then it was time to warm up, something that was much needed. Is it really June?? A game of tag was played…but with a twist. Every time somebody was tagged they linked hands until there was one giant chain chasing the remaining runners. Tactics were needed to make sure everyone was running in the right direction! The only one who didn’t get caught was Rachel. It was also Rachel’s first run, so welcome to Goodgym Greenwich! Give Rachel a cheer here.

We ran along the river as a group and soon arrived at the school where Natalie works! We were here a few weeks ago painting the fence outside. That was the original plan for this evening, but luckily there were some indoor jobs for us to do instead! We split into groups to carry out the different tasks. Ben, Claire, Natalie and Pieter were in charge of cleaning. They scrubbed all the gym mats in the school hall and they were sparkling clean in no time. The hall has never smelt so good! Other tasks included sanding down windowsills and radiators ready for a fresh lick of paint and painting a classroom door. Everyone got to work very quickly and we managed to get everything finished on time – well done all!

We made our way back through the park just in time for a quick team (ab) building exercise! In groups of three our core muscles were put to the test with some twisting, planking and crunching! A quick stretch and it was time to head home.

Next week we are heading to a new task at Cherry Orchard Primary School, sign up here.

There are also lots of community missions coming up if you want to get involved. There is the chance to help out at the Surplus Feast on Saturday June 29th. This is a great event involving lots of cooking and food preparation. There’s also a colour run that you can help out with the following day, on Sunday 30th.

Hope to see you next week!

23 awesome runners ran 5km to help clean and paint at Made In Greenwich!

We had lots of new runners in Greenwich with us last night which is A-MAZING. Big welcome to Micaela and Jack who were running their first ever GoodGym run and also to GG tourists Dharmesh from Redbridge and Martin all the way over from Stockport! WELCOME ONE AND ALL!

Since our run was a stones throw away, we skipped the warm up and headed straight there. I wasn't sure quite how long the task would take so thought we'd get that done first and have more time for some ad-libbing after!

We were greeted by the wonderful Mary Jane who was hoping to film us all running towards the shop as we arrived but because we are SO fast, she just missed it so we cut and moved onto take 2!

The shop is going to be used for local craftspeople to showcase their creative talents so will be filled with food, art, crafts.. all sorts of lovely Greenwich items made right here.

Our job was to prep the walls for their paint job next week which involved washing the walls with a sugar/soap solution. Everyone grabbed a sponge and a bucket of soapy suds and got washing!

We also had a bathroom door and wall to paint which Pulin and Micaela got to work on.

After a mere 20 minutes, the whole shop had been washed, top to bottom! We waited for the painters to complete their final strokes and then we took off! We went through the backstreets of Greenwich, via our beloved Royal Hill Garden and onto the first of what would eventually be three hilltops!

Point Hill is one of Greenwich's hidden gems and has one of the best views in the whole of London! Unfortunately you need to get up there first, and it's always a lot further and steeper than I remember.. to the postbox.... plus double the distance... sorry about that hahahaha! Never been great at managing expectations ;)

We all got to the top, enjoyed the views then cracked on with the run to Greenwich Park where we would then stop at the Observatory for viewpoint number two of the run! Then we took off for the final time and made it up One Tree Hill for the third and final stop, probably my favourite of the three. One LAST group photo from Andy and then we headed back to the uni for a lovely stretch!

Upcoming Community Missions

Any help on the following events will be hugely appreciated by the organisers! Sign up by Friday if you're interested in any of them!

Plumstead Make Merry this weekend.

Surplus Feast in Woolwich on Saturday 28th June.

Bexley Colour run marshalling on Sunday 29th June.

Other Events

GoodGym Olympics is coming! We want the biggest ever turnout for Greenwich so sign up via our Facebook group or if you aren't on Facebook then you can fill out this form!

June Parkrun will be taking place on 22nd June.. location TBC but feel free to submit a request!

Excellent running last night everyone!! I know you were promised a shorter run but well done for pushing through and taking on those hills with a smile! Join us next week for some more fence painting!