An abundance of Goodgymers (14 of us!) met at Plumstead as the dark clouds rolled in.... but our luck was in and we had a fine, fluffy-clouded day. Our walking route took us along the Ridgeway which follows the Southern Outflow Sewer, part of an 82-mile London sewage system opened in 1865. It was a big deal at the time and the Prince of Wales attended the opening of one of four new pumping stations ('Cathedrals of Sewage') at Crossness. Although there was rather an abundance of litter and fly tipping on the first part of the route, it's a Site of Importance for Nature Conservation (SNIC) and we saw some butterflies and dragon flies but no hedgehogs or rare carder bees. An abundance of conversation and laughs along the way too!

The next abundance was blackberries - a handy snack along the secret path to Crossness. There was an open day on at the pumping station and the lovely man at the gate let us into the grounds to see the courtyard and get a sense of what goes on although you need 2-3 hours for a proper visit on one of Crossness' Pumping Days.

On the return leg, we stopped for abundant plates of food at friendly Thamesmead Social - a lovely cafe on Southmere Lake. This was where the 'abundance portal' (which maybe had been transmitting its vibes across SE London already) is to be found... who knew? We dispersed in various directions at this point with some of us walking back to Abbey Wood station to get the Elizabeth Line home - with thankfully abundant trains on a Sunday!

4 GoodGymers helped celebrate Hornfair junior parkrun’s 2nd birthday in style! We donned party hats, decorated with balloons, cheered on our brilliant young runners, and helped everything run smoothly. Every milestone deserves a celebration, so we finished off with a table full of sweet treats. Here’s to another fantastic year of junior parkrun!

Jenny, Alex, Vic and Ivar met up with the two-legged (and one four-legged) volunteers at the pet cemetery to brighten up the place once again. A very generous hornbeam tree who decided that autumn couldn’t come soon enough had left a thick carpet of leaves for us to sweep up. We all brushed up on our sweeping skills, broomed where no Goodgymer had broomed before, and we were all broommates by the time we finished. The difference was remarkable.

With the leaves gone, the cemetery looked peaceful once more. Every plaque tells the story of a much-loved pet, and we hope our efforts helped make it a fitting place to pause, remember, and smile.

When our planned task fell through at the last minute, 11 GoodGym Greenwich runners and walkers proved that adaptability is one of our greatest strengths. Rather than call it a night, we grabbed the litter pickers and headed around Charlton for an impromptu community litter pick.

Before setting off, our icebreaker question was: "What's your favourite thing about Greenwich?" Answers ranged from its beautiful parks and riverside walks to the markets, history, community spirit and, of course, GoodGym itself. It was a lovely reminder of why we're all so keen to help keep the borough looking its best.

The evening was also packed with milestones. A huge welcome to Cathy, who completed her very first GoodGym task, hopefully the first of many! Meanwhile, massive congratulations to our Norwegian pun-King Ivar, who celebrated an incredible 300th GoodGym task!

We split up to tackle litter hotspots around Charlton, collecting bags full of cans, bottles, wrappers and plenty of the usual unexpected finds. Every bag filled was another small but visible improvement to the neighbourhood.

A big thank you to everyone who embraced the change of plans with such positivity. Another lovely evening spent amongst the rubbish!

Until next time!

Rachel 😁

This week at Charlton Manor Primary School, our task coincided with England playing in the semi finals of the World Cup so our numbers were depleted but we were a mighty few that turned up, happy to not to have to pretend to be interested in the match! Our ice breaker question tonight was to share three emojis that describe our day and so ensued lots of comments on frustrating meetings, long hours in front of the computer and generally looking a bit bug eyed 🫪🫪🫪 No wonder we love coming out to GoodGym every wednesday for that mid-week boost! ❤️

Our task for the evening was tidying up in the nursery garden, trimming the trees (not the threes, the trees 🌳) with some very stiff and rusty shears which sounded like a they were coming to the end of their life and gave us some laughs. Threes trimmed, and we set about clearing the little path, and creating more of a canopy and before long we heard the cheers for kick off which was our signal to be off so off we went our ways running back to our homes a little bit fitter, a little bit happier and a little bit more of a do-gooder!

Until next time 😁

Rachel

On Sunday, Khai and I discovered the lovely Bostall Gardens, where the friends of group had invited us to help out at their Parksfest family fun day. And a very fun day it turned out to be with hundreds of families out enjoying the music, dance, tennis and of course the bouncy castle at a very reasonable pound per child for the entire day!

We were busy giving out leaflets at the gate before helping out with the raffle and bouncy castle collection - by far the most popular activity!

I'm sure we'll be back at another point - thanks for a lovely day Khai!

Until next time 👋

Rachel