What a beautiful evening spent in a beautiful garden!

After sharing which were our favourite packed lunches (and inspiring the idea of sprucing up our June social with some champagne), we did a quick warm up and jogged by the river back to the Christchurch Community Garden to be met by the lovely Patrick and Fiona. The garden is looking fantastic ahead of the Open Gardens this week (no wonder it's on the front of the leaflet!) Some of us got to work trimming the hedge out front and others spreading some gravel in the old bee enclosure and bringing a bench in. And those of us who hadn't been before enjoyed exploring the gorgeous garden and forest school.

A lovely evening topped off with a pint at the Yacht!

We'll be back here to cut back the hedge more at the end of July. Remember the Open Gardens this weekend. Sign up here for the GoodGym team for the Pub quiz next Thursday organised by Sarah to raise money for the Maryon Park community garden!

Next Wednesday we're down at the Charlton Station Community Garden thanks to Julian!

Saturday is Hervey Road and Sunday is [Parkfest at Hornfair Park].(https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/hornfair-parksfest)

Until next time!

Meeting on this rainy Wednesday, I thought everyone would cancel. But Jenny and Marta came along! We had a little exchange regarding our worst work experience, then off for the run.

We went along the river until Telegraph Avenue, Jenny and Marta helped me find the venue's entrance as I had never been myself.

Victoria joined us directly at the task, cycling from another mission.

We cleared the space where bees used to live, but have now migrated elsewhere. We removed loads of weeds, enough to fill several wheelbarrows.

Fiona was pleased with the result and is looking forward to having us towards the end of the summer.

We then run back to the Royal College or directly home for Marta who felt strong after a first run for a little while.

17 excellent GoodGymmers met on a somewhat blustery evening to get fit and do some good.

We heard some GoodGym news:

• Lots of people with us tonight had done The Big Half, including with some impressive PBs!

• There's a community mission at Hyde Vale, Blackheath this Saturday morning (10am-1pm).

• There's another community mission supporting guide runners at Paddington Rec Track next Thursday evening (19th March).

After a quick warm up, we braved the riverside path to run to Christchurch Primary School where we were helping in their lovely garden. We heard about (and saw) their brand new apple trees and were instructed on our tasks for this evening:

• Moving some very heavy pallets.

• Moving some equally heavy soil from big bags into smaller bags.

• Moving some slightly less heavy individually rocks to form a rockery around the pond for an amphibian habitat.

• Doing some equally important litter-picking.

We split into groups and got down to business quickly, efficiently dividing the jobs up and developing systems of lifting and shifting. In no time, it was time to down our tools and head off, after a group photo, naturally.

Our run back was into the headwind and very impressive considering just how strong it was! We ended with a quick fitness game and some stretching, before heading our separate ways to warm up and feed up.

Next week's group run is at Ballast Quay Garden, another opportunity to get those green fingers working!

The promise of burgers brought out an enthusiastic bunch of 17 runners ready to work and do good to earn their food.

We gathered at the meeting spot and counted heads (a few of us were number 9...), each saying our favourite cereal with most options on the health spectrum represented.

We dropped off our stuff and completed some loops of the green in the Naval College - in an exciting twist we were on a different patch of grass to normal! We limbered up with a quick game of “if I say 1, touch the ground with your left hand” and so on. We then set off on our way along the river and through some residential roads (navigated skilfully be Elle) to GoodGym Favourite Christchurch School.

Our task was to clear grass in a long 1 metre by 8ish-metre strip, ready for trees to be planted on Saturday for an orchard. At the same time, a barrel of water had to be emptied eventually moved to allow the digging to pass seamlessly by. Armed with forks and spades to dig, and watering cans to transport water, we got to work.

We dug (and forked and emptied) for victory for half an hour and in classic GoodGym fashion completed our allotted task so got to move onto another plot of grass! The tree planters on Saturday won’t know what’s hit them!

We headed back to base camp to pick up our bags and half-heartedly stretch before it was time for the main event - the food! We munched our way through beef, chicken and vegan burgers and plenty of chips, celebrating 4 years of GoodGym Greenwich! A lovely evening full of good friends, good deeds and good food - not much else to ask for on a Wednesday!

Thank you to Alice for the run report this week! If anyone else fancies it, let me know!

15 goodwilled goodgymers attended Goodgym Greenwich this week, ready to run in the rain

Jennifer reached 10 good deeds. Fantastic work and dedication! Go and give her some cheers!

After quick introductions and pointing out that I am not in fact Sarah, I found out that lots of you have signed to the BIG HALF in March! It's a brilliant route and it's YOUR chance to go head to head with Sir Mo, assuming he's running it again next year! If you haven't signed up, why not?! (I know Greenwich have some community entries, are there any still available?! ;))Please remind me below which other races/runs/parkruns you are all preparing for? :)

We had lots of lifting and moving to do this week as the outdoor classroom was being readied for winter. We got through the following tasks:

Sweep up classroom Move Benches into outdoor classroom Clean off the bases of benches Move red shed items into classroom Take wood from car park, add to wood stack Put soil in rubble bags and stack

Some of us also had a lesson on the environment:

Fiona, our task owner, was telling some of us about the recent planting of ornamental pear trees along Blackwall lane. They will act as a natural drainage system and the water collected will be used by the school for the garden. Wild flowers will also be planted, adding to the asthetic as well as helping to reduce pollution!

Next week's task will be flyering for the Made in Greenwich shop. You can sign up for it here: next group run

We finished our tasks and made our way back to base, where I gave the group a quick circuit training session, focused on aerobic fitness and core strength. We finished with quick movements based on marshal arts and some cool down stretches.

Thanks everyone. I hope everyone enjoyed this weeks task and I look forward to seeing you all again soon!

14 wonderful runners ran 3km to help trim branches at Christchurch School Community Garden!

For the first time this year, it was dark before we'd even started. It's coming to that time where only the most hardcore runners show up.. so well done one and all!

After a quick warm up, we headed off towards Christchurch via the river where we stopped for a nice photo... Greenwich is surely the most photogenic of GoodGym locations? Am I right?? Plus the most photogenic group of course!

Moments later, we arrived at the school, greeted by the wonderful and always super organised Patrick and Fiona who had got everything ready for us and explained the tasks at hand.

The main one was trimming overgrown branches that had started to peek through the blue fence plus there was also some work to do on a raised bed so Alex, Steve and Julian stayed to help Patrick with that while the rest of the group grabbed some gloves and some secateurs and began snipping branches!

The fence seemed like it went on forever but it was quite a satisfying job and the branches were coming down at lightning speed. Before we knew it, some of you were right down the other end of the school already!

The raised be was coming on nicely too and after 30 minutes we were done! The fence was so tidy and all the cuttings had been bagged up and put by the bins, there was even time for a final sweep of the pavement and a few minutes to put in the last bag of soil into the bed. NICE!!

On our next visit we will be helping to plant some trees for their orchard project! Sounds like it'll be another good one!!

We had a little jog back and called it a night!

Community Mission on Friday...

Just quickly.. the community mission helping at the Pop Up Kitchen in Woolwich tomorrow is here. Big thanks to Julian who is already signed up and if anyone else can lend a hand at any point during the day from 1-8pm then they would hugely appreciate it!

Hopefully see some of you at Victoria Dock Parkrun this weekend! There are lots of spaces still on the volunteer roster if you didn't want to run!

Great job on the task last night, you got so much done and made a huge difference as always!! If you know of any other schools nearby that could do with our help then please put me in touch or let me know! See you next time!