I've never heard so many tree puns in one night. Which is kind of ironic because we didn't find many trees...

But it was still a good night for a run/stroll and we did find a few trees!!

We split into a few groups:

Charlie, Paul and I had a bit of luck finding two trees (one massive, one little) and one branch on the way to the tree drop-off point.

Catherine, Cat and JC (visiting from GG Greenwich 🥳) did a long route but alas only found a nice statue and a plastic tree :(

James, Clare and James took the hilly route to Sydenham Wells Park. No trees but 6k in the bag 💪

Better luck next year?!

Well done anyway for your combined energy and jogging. See you next week!

It was a chilly morning, but a nice one with blue skies and sunshine!

Helen (brand new to GoodGym 🥳) and I met at the Bridge House for a jog down to Alexandra Rec, where we met Linda, Kelly and Merrin for some hyacinth, tulip and crocus(?) bulb planting.

When we finally found our way to the bulb's true destination, we got cracking to stave off the cold.

Helen, Merrin and I focussed on the sensory beds whilst Kelly and Linda planted along the railings.

30 minutes later and we were done. It will be nice to see some new flowers there in the Spring!

Top stuff, everyone! 👍👍

We started tonight by welcoming some of our new members at the Bridge House (even more met us at the task!) and talked about running habits and new year celebrations. James and Jamie had both been for a chilly swim in Eastbourne in the past week :) Then our icebreaker question today was what would you like to do more of this year, with a lovely range of answers from doing more community charity things, to doing more self care and less 'stuff' overall. Which reminds me, I said I'd found out there are seven types of rest and needed a nudge to remember what they all are - so here they are, see which of these you might need to pay a bit of self-care attention to every now and again: Physical rest, social rest, spiritual rest, creative rest, mental rest, sensory rest, and emotional rest. So covering things you might forget you need, like seeing friends, going for a forest walk, playing Lego, whatever works for you :) And back to tonight's task - we then headed the short (but hilly) way to the Water Tower to meet John and our other taskers. Once there we each grabbed a tool and set about the weeding, sorting of rocks and stones, sieving soil through the tried and tested shopping trolley, and digging down til we met concrete. So you could say some of us were movers and some of us were shakers! In fact we did so well that John had to go fetch more bags to pile our hard work in! Then we set off back down the hill, some of us had a little stretch back near our meeting spot, and were happily joined by a passerby who promised to sign up for a future task.

An unusual run report - Just For You! Greener and Cleaner were on a Search for the Hero to do some furniture moves, and two Bromley GoodGymers were Proud to answer the call. Hannah and I arrived at The Glades on Tuesday evening to meet Maureen. I think we were a Sight For Sore Eyes as she was glad for the help.

The sofas had previously been moved out of the unit into the large storage facility downstairs in the shopping centre to help create space for an event, but it was time for them to come back. Armed with hi-vis jackets and a wheeled trolley to put the sofas on, we headed down in the goods lift and picked up the seats from storage.

Don't Look Any Further for cushions - we picked them up too! It took a couple of trips but got the seats set up again inside the Greener & Cleaner hub.

A fun indoor mission in December - I'm Excited for more of these Someday! If you like the sound of small but important tasks like these, can you Open Your Heart to join us in GoodGym Bromley? (which is undergoing a Renaissance as it prepares to split from Crystal Palace in January).

Merry Christmas!

P.S. Can you spot all the puns?

Once again, many hands make light work. 4 good gymmers helped make up a team of 20 or so volunteers all packing and repacking Christmas food bags for the Livingwell community of Penge.

Once we’d been given the instructions (no alcohol, no meat, 2-4 toilet rolls etc) , there was no stopping us and in total over 150 bags were checked and packed, ready to be distributed next week!

Six of us made our way up Anerley Hill tonight (it never gets easier...) to meet James and Teresa at the St Christopher's Hospice charity shop on the Triangle. Once there we sorted and steamed clothes, organised wall art, vacuumed and dusted to make the shop spick and span for Christmas shoppers. A couple of us even picked up our own bargains in the process!

Excellent work on our final group run of the year!