It was a pleasure to return to Edith Garden to support the work of Citizen Zoo with Elliot and his team on Tuesday evening. There has been a great transformation since our first visit a couple of years ago. It is now a more beautiful, well-maintained natural space which is litter free and accessible to all.

This local nature reserve is a safe haven for wildlife as well as offering people with disabilities or mental health needs the opportunities to engage with nature. Since our last visit, it now boasts an array of new features including bee boxes, bug hotel log piles, a beautiful pond, hedgehog rehab space and an abundance of well-supported local plant and insect species.

After a brief overview of the space involving many interesting facts about its journey and history (including its previous use as a World War II air raid shelter as remembered by local residents!), Elliot outlined our tasks for the evening. These included clearing the boundaries of the path to maintain the safe access by cutting back any plant life away from the path edges and pulling up any weeds, hacking away at nettles as well as ridding the space of the plant-choking, invasive bindweed .

Many of us chose to brave the nettles and pull at the bind weed. After a good session of clearing, pulling, lopping and hacking, we started to lose the light and had to stop to pack up the tools.

Grateful for Caroline’s baking, we were each rewarded with a homemade brownie! Who knew we could get a brownie and Edith too at our community mission today!

There are more volunteering opportunities ahead with Citizen Zoo at Edith Gardens this Saturday as well as future chances to get inVOLEved in supporting the reintroduction of water voles to the Hogsmill and join in the FestiVOLE ! More details to follow! Watch this green space!

And so balsam bashing season begins, this time with a fantastic ulterior motive that was to clear the river banks of the Hogsmill of not just the hardly sprouted balsam but of everything in preparation for the release of 600 water vole next year. But first things first - dinner time. This weekend citizen zoo will begin the planting of various plants favoured by water vole as food, so clearing the overgrown banks of nettles and balsam was the first course.

We met Elliot from Kingston Council, just off the cycle super highway who gave us the low down of the mission and some instructing on how to use the slasher tool. Due to a dry April so far the balsam we were looking for had yet to really sprout and any that had was still in it's infancy, but with his keen eyes he spotted a little balsam shrub from the path and was able to show us what to look for.

Splitting into three teams we got to work on two different areas of the riverbank, plus a litter pick around the area. Freya couldn't wait to get stuck into Elliot's welly boots, Jassy slashed and hacked at the nettles with much gusto and Jane took her stress of dog sitting out on the nettles and weeds. Kate went digging for a plastic basket, Di got to work on the other bank with her slasher, Rob nearly went for a swim whilst tackling the balsam right down by the edge of the river and Rachel flew off with Eleanor to find something to sit on.

An hour and a half later having made solid inroads into our sections of the banks we downed tools and left Elliot to cart them all back to fishponds, whilst in the middle of his own conference call.

It was great to see a number of you back today - Jassy, Freay, Eleanor and Di - but a massive well done and congratulations to the one and only Rachel who completed her 100th good deed! Amazing work and thanks so much for all your efforts, especially over the past year.

After a day of heavy rain, thunder and lightning, 7 runners braved the elements (and thankfully avoided the rain) this evening to meet for our weekly wellbeing fix. Led by our steadfast leader Mark, we cantered through the warm up stretches so that we could maximise our time at the task. With Stravas activated, we set off...

This week’s task was to help out Citizen Zoo with their Edith Garden project in Berrylands. The aim of the project is to provide a wheelchair-accessible garden for the local community to use. Incredible stuff. The ever inspirational Elliott from CZ met us at the site and led us into the gardens to show us what we were going to be doing. It was amazing to see how much they’ve achieved since GoodGym were last there in May. The fences posts that we had been driving into the ground a few months ago have now been transformed into fully functional dead-hedges. No fence posts tonight but we were tasked with moving two massive piles of rubbish onto a huge trailer.

With our headtorches shining we set to it. Wheelbarrows were loaded and wheeled back and forth, with all manner of things thrown onto the trailer. Drainpipes, fake Christmas trees, Manhole covers and burst footballs to name a few. Jessica and Caroline impressed with their deadlift form by lifting the wheelbarrows to empty into the trailer... Mark was well chuffed.

After a good few shuttle runs from the garden to the trailer, we had cleared the majority of the rubbish and there was an impressive amount piled high in the trailer. We bid Elliott farewell and head off back to the Guildhall to stretch out and finish another successful GoodGym team run.

Mark's sun dance worked! After an afternoon of grey and drizzle we ran in sunlight to tonight's task and it was glorious.

Tonight 10 of us returned to Edith Gardens to work with Jeremy and Elliot from Citizen Zoo to develop a garden for individuals with disabilities.

Before heading out we welcome new GG runner Leo who was already on his second Goodgym run of the week having already ventured to Richmond yesterday.

The market square was our warm up location and we thanked Mark for this as we got down low in a press up position on the comfy fake grass and lunged to the sound of the water feature.

Then stravas at the ready.. it was time to run

Now you would think having been there before we would remember which turns to take when on the run there , but we still managed to get confused as we made our way through the maze of Berrylands.

Once at the task we were reintroduced to the tools...loppers, saws and not forgetting the monkey ears (i think thats what they are called), used to bash down the stakes into the ground to start the creation of the famous dead hedge! While some bashed others were processing wood...that's right, we got technical! The first step was to spend an awful lot of time separating the wood into piles (Wood from the trees if you will) according to size..thin, not so thin, thin but almost medium, medium...well you get the idea! Then we had to make sure that these piles consisted of neat pieces of wood without lethal branches growing out the side of them which meant snipping them down and being careful not to cause any damage to each other as we did so. This wood will be part of the dead hedge, layered on top of each other in between the stakes so that animals and birds can nest inside.

Speaking of animals we were lucky enough to come across our very own Mr Toad who looked like he was covered in sawdust giving the impression he had already been working hard in the garden that day. Elliot put him somewhere safe so that loppers and monkey ears couldn't get to him and we got back to work.

As ever we wanted to stay longer than we could and hope to return again soon to do more great work on such an awesome project. All that was left was to run back up the frog and toad with the talk of dinner taking priority while trying not to eat river flies as we made it back to Guildhall.

Great running everyone and big well done to Jane on the Vitality 10km yesterday

Happy Birthday Kingston

Party time for sure fell upon us runners at the Kingston Guildhall tonight, there was Martel’s Birthday… Jane hit the 100 good deeds, the new Mayor coming to office and GG Kingston celebrating doing good deeds for one whole year already!! I know exhausted just reading that aren’t you and you haven’t even got past the warm up yet!

Neither had we as we had cakes to be set out, balloons to be carried in and out of Guildhall and a budding young chef, a 13-year-old boy named Luke to thank for making such scrummy cakes to help us celebrate.

Did anyone eat one before the run??

Ok so the brief was briefer than ever (I’m sure cakes were going already during it) as we had to meet the Mayor but not before a document check is squeezed in and of course we welcome two brand new runners Tom and Lucy. Great to have you join us and while we are here let’s shout out to Victoria, Eliza and Africa from Richmond for making the trip over to party and run with us.

We made it to the Mayor just on time and had a great send off from his party including the Chief Exec for the council (who is promising to run with us soon!) some lovely words said and photos had and then there was no escaping it. Escaping the craziness that is a warm up from a run trainer that just does not sleep at night inventing ways to get a team primed for action and Kingston bless you for you have survived a year of them - so much Kudos to you all.

Star jump Mexican wave anyone? We know how to have fun #warmup #party #fitness #goodgym #kingston #birthday #marketplace #volunteering pic.twitter.com/lIrIoefLhR

— GoodGym Kingston-upon-Thames (@GoodGymKingston) 15 May 2019

So, to Market – Kingston market that is and some mobilisers and activators in front of Golden Queen Anne and then would you believe …more cake but this time on the run or conga if you prefer (there’ll be no munching this time) and a relay around the square that left many passers by wondering just what we were up to. In fact, some runners too also had the same question I think but it’s party time so let’s all do it! For the record we didn’t use Luke’s cakes here as they were just too good and it’s worth highlighting too that every runner made the task look a lot easier than it was. (A year’s warm ups and acrobatics had paid off a trainer smugly thought!!)

Party games! 🥳🎉#warmup #goodgym #kingston #cake #running #volunteering #tuesdays #dogood #fun #birthday #firstbirthday #ayearold pic.twitter.com/ASK2jWy9gj

— GoodGym Kingston-upon-Thames (@GoodGymKingston) 15 May 2019

So, without this going on until a second birthday what’s the task I hear you cry and well, wait for it I say as we have a 3.4km run to get there first with the added bonus of a little hill or incline of sorts if you will just to spice it up. Loved it (speak for all of us when I say I think we all did). The task was at Edith Gardens and was to help Citizen Zoo renovate a green space to create a nature reserve for those in the community with disabilities to be able to access and enjoy. It is to be the first of its kind in our borough and wider so in South London. Citizen Zoo are a super organisation so definitely give them a look up to see what they are up to and how you may help the great work they are doing in our communities for wildlife, conservation and habitat so it can flourish, and we can all get to benefit from it.

We were met by two great gentlemen Elliot and Jeremy who had been on site since 8am and they were still fired up and super passionate about the project, so we couldn’t help but feed off the energy and get stuck in (some were feeding off of some cake energy too I think!!). Elliot’s brief was awesome, no sooner done though and we lost Nik and Rob to the woods where the stake banger tool (not sure that is the correct name for the contraption) was put to work as the supports for the dead hedge that the rest of us were creating were put into the ground. The photos speak for themselves here – It was an awesome task and a great chance to assist on such a super project. A gift for a birthday run really so it was hard to leave and we look forward to going back already but we had to run as ….well, the pub was calling and a social was awaiting!

A strong focussed run back was on the menu and….. oh yes, I remember… that was until the run trainer turned to watch most of the group run blissfully the wrong way and so had to go screaming after them. We settled for a strong steady run back rounded off by a cool down without the usual sounds of our dustcart in the background to drown our voices or was it there and I just don’t notice anymore? No matter there was cake and beer to be had and so to the pub.

A great turn out with an awesome group of people, so a thoroughly enjoyable time was had – We even had a GG quiz and the prize of a Unicorn! NO not a real one but one in an inflatable ball – you know ; - )

Thanks all for the great year had and all the super running, good deeds and kind hearts that make a marvellous team to be part of. Such a blessing in the community and here’s to the next year!