A group of runners who combine regular exercise with helping communities with practical tasks, from gardening to simply changing a light bulb.
GoodGym arose out of a frustration with normal gyms being a waste of energy and human potential. After a year or so of thinking, testing and developing ideas the project was submitted to Social Innovation Camp in December 2008.
The project was rapidly developed by a wonderful team of people and won first prize. Following this, GoodGym grew a steering group and put together a pilot project to prove the concept and its potential impact in Tower Hamlets.
In September 2009 we formed as a Company Limited by Guarantee (a not-for-profit company) and in Autumn 2010 GoodGym was part of the first iteration of Bethnal Green Ventures. We’ve been sort of following the lean startup methodology, continually working on improvements to what we do. From January 2012, we worked with the London Legacy Development Company to expand the project to the boroughs surrounding the Olympic Park, and from mid-2012 we worked with Nesta to develop our platform, to improve the experience of our members and to expand to new areas.
2013 saw us expand to Camden and Bristol and we started working with professional trainers and running coaches. Over 2013 and 2014 we’ve increasingly started to rely on donations from our runners to cover our costs and our work, preventing loneliness and isolation, and promoting fitness, we began to be commissioned by local authorities and the NHS. In 2014 we started operating in Lambeth, Westminster and Newham, and in January 2015 we launched in Islington and Brent.
We think that gyms are a waste of energy. There are many neglected tasks and people in our communities that need that energy. We want to bring these things together.
Something we’ve been working on a lot is loneliness and isolation amongst older people: over 1 million people aged 65 and over admit to always or often feeling lonely, and 17% of those living alone see family and friends less than once a week.
As one person describes it: “With ageing you lose a lot of friends. It’s really sad, and it does affect your quality of life. Loneliness is difficult to cope with.” – Joan Boulter, 87
GoodGym makes a contribution to improving quality of life for older people. You can read stories about our runners and coaches here.
We’re creating a brand new Typescript/React app that will sit in front of the Rails app and interact with it through a GraphQL endpoint. So no technical debt, and the opportunity to define and adhere to best practices from the start . We’re looking for people who are great at Javascript (or even better, Typescript). Experience with GraphQL is a plus. We want to make the GoodGym website as beautiful, user friendly, and effective as possible. If you have a strong product, UX, and/or design mindset, that would be a bonus. We will support the successful applicant if there are particular skills they'd like to develop.
