Setting the Record Date

Happy Birthday to us Happy Birthday to us Happy Birthday Dear GoodGym Islington Happy Birthday to us

For GG Islington's first birthday we received the gift of 45 attendees - a new area record. Let's see if we can come up with 45 facts about the evening.

1) We welcomed 7 first-timers. Here's the bit where we accidentally leave somebody off the list and mortally offend them, but a massive welcome and big cheer on your first good deed to the wonderful Lily, Inja, Lucia, Marie, Sinead, Kate and Andrew. The regulars said you were the best newcomers ever. We hope you enjoyed your first outing with us and look forward to seeing you again.

2) Danica did her 100th good deed. Next time you see Danica she might have wings on.

3) We had Fox's Red Velvet Cream biscuits

4) We debated the best debate we've ever had in Islington. The biscuit debate from last year was very popular, as was the one about the best double act. Other notable debates from the last year include cats vs dogs, best way to cook an egg, when it always rains, whether or not cyclists should be allowed to jump red lights, favourite flower, best character from Rocky, best film, best chocolate bar, best music album, what should never be debated, toughest race distance, best runner ever and best running weather.

5) Aidan rocked up wearing his new black t-shirt

6) Xavier and Madalena have been away so long that they were shocked at the length of Simon's hair.

7) Brahma, the new GoodGym trainer for Newham, was about. Learning from the best good deeders, of course. Brahma's in Newham this Wednesday if you fancy popping by and saying hello.

8) We shifted topsoil into raised beds at Barnsbury Community Centre to continue helping with their Green Works project. Some impressive wheelbarrow and shovel action taking place and many hands made light work of the task.

9) We removed some turf from underneath a house-like structure in the garden. A delightfully neat job performed by this mini group.

10) We did some pallet malleting. The naughty weather had blown over a few pallets that had been lovingly placed upright a few months back. The ground was most stubborn and the gang eventually had to take a "everybody jump on top of the bloody thing until it buries itself in the ground" approach. All but one of the pallets was left standing ready for further reinforcements soon.

11) We weeded a patio area leading into the garden and rid the area of some rubbish and managed to fill a whole wheelbarrow!

12) The mystery of the missing leaflets. Paul "PB" Bown and Steve led a group up to collect some leaflets from a secret location that proved to be too secret because we couldn't find them. We found out later that there had been a mix-up over dates.. Not to worry though: we'll deliver the flyers next week and the group joined the rest of us at Barnsbury Community Centre and cleaned the heaters in the main hall. The place smelt lovely and lemony afterwards <")

13) We split into a record number of groups for the run back. An almighty four led by Taskforce heroes Patrick L, Paul, Steve and Caroline

14) We had music courtesy of Patrick L's super-duper light/sound system.

15) We had an amazing Jammy Dodger cake "baked" by Sarah, a de facto Islington member. She can sometimes be spotted in Haringey but always comes back to her true home eventually.

16) Hmm, 30 more things to write about. It's ok, I've got this.

18) We missed out 17

19) Madoc has now done exactly two group runs: the very first in Islington and last night's. See you next year, Madoc

20) During the headcount lots of numbers were called out. For example, the numbers 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33 and 34

35) It seemed like a good idea when I started writing the report and now I feel like too much has been invested into the gimmick to go back and just write a regular run report.

36) There were stats. Last year GG Islington members ran a total of 9511 kilometres. There were 1071 attendances on group runs and 325 of these were unique. Paul Bown attended 29 Islington runs, Patirck Luong managed 36 and Steve Coman a massive 39! And 158 coach visits were logged.

37) Goodgym are running every single day in January. So many opportunities to do good. And we've set ourselves a goal of running 10,000 kilometres and completing 1500 good deeds.

40) Everybody needs to connect their Strava/Runkeeper so Islington can top the January Challenge league tables. Word on the street is that Camden think we can't run for toffee and they're going to win. And Tower Hamlets said biscuits are stupid. Oh, and Lambeth reckon anyone north of the river is weird. Hackney said we're alright. Thanks, Hackney.

41) Some of us had a pizza afterwards and completed the GG Islington quiz. There were questions on tasks, people, biscuits and other stuff. Team "Quizlington" came first and won a box of chocolates. The joint losers won some weird Jelly Belly Beans with delightful flavours such as toothpaste, rotten egg, vomit and baby wipes. Yum. Keep your eyes peeled for more social outings in the future. Everybody's always welcome but with so many of us now we need to know numbers in advance so keep an eye on the Twitter Account and Friday Fitness emails for announcements.

42) A few of us were shocked that it didn't rain.

43) Well done everybody on an amazing job. Barnsbury Community Centre - who we helped tonight - are extremely appreciative of our efforts and in the 25 or so minutes that we spent there we achieved what might take a single person a few days to do.

44) Wut?

45) We're back next week!

Hugs and kisses,

Simon