About

The story so far:

The Good Gym 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.  Then The Good Gym has grown an advisory board and put together a pilot project to prove the concept and its potential impact in Tower Hamlets.  In Septemper 2009 we formed as a Company limited by guarantee.   We’re sort of following the lean startup methodology, we’re continually working on improvements to the service.  For the last year we’ve been operating in Tower Hamlets and working on a model that can be used more widely.  From January 2012, we are working with the Olympic Park Legacy Company to expand the project to the boroughs surrounding the Olympic Park.

Why are we doing it?

Gyms purposefully waste energy.  There are many neglected tasks, and people in our communities that need that energy.

Something we’ve been working on a lot is loneliness and isolation amongst older people:   13% of people over 65 in the UK say that they always or often feel lonely,   and 17% of those living alone see family and friends less than once a week .

As one person describes it: “With aging 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

The Good Gym aims to make a contribution to improving quality of life for older people.

Making it easy to do good:

Research by UK volunteering organisation TimeBank has shown the difficulty of recruiting volunteers, and highlights the importance of developing volunteer-centric roles for volunteering. The Good Gym is a “fine grain” approach to volunteering, where participation is based on frequent low impact activities that are integrated usefully into the participant’s life.

The Good Gym aims to develop a new model of voluntary action by focusing on the positive experience of the volunteer. It is hoped that this approach will result in a higher number and quality of volunteers. The model aims to make it as easy as possible for people to integrate voluntary participation into their lives.

The service that is provided per episode may only have a small impact on the user but the ability to mobilise more volunteers should give the project a large impact overall.

In gyms all over the country people all over Britain work away furiously; peddling, pushing, lifting, running and achieving no external benefits. The Good Gym aims to harness this energy by making it easier for people to channel this energy towards social good.

What’s the plan?

The Good Gym is now open to everyone in East London, we have a diverse group of runners and older people. We are looking for national partners and the right team to take the project to the next stage.  We want to rival the success of gyms,  getting people all over the world off treadmills and into their communities. If you want to get in touch about where the project is going next,  please email Mark Herbert: mark[@]thegoodgym.org