A beautiful sunny day and a bit too hot for a marathon but 59,000 people braved it and some of us cheered them on in different spots before meeting up for our litter pick with the amazing Friends of Woolwich Common. We teamed up to tackle different areas and overall the common was in pretty good nick but we still collected several bags between us. A great way to start the day so well done everyone!

Despite a drizzly start, we had a fantastic turnout to yesterday's litter pick and that's proof that the January Challenge is providing some proper motivation! AND six members of the group had volunteered earlier at Hornfair Junior Parkrun so with this session we’ve now officially hit our target of 140 good deeds in January, which is a massive achievement.

Afer an ice breaker discussing our favourite breakfasts, yum, the walking team set off first and arrived ahead of the runners, who in typical GoodGym generosity took it in turns pushing the running buggy. Not an easy task with a whopping four-year-old on board, especially up those hills, but plenty of encouragement and shared effort got us all through it together.

Once everyone arrived, we split into groups and spread out across the Common to tackle the litter. By the end of the session, we’d collected an impressive 26 bags of litter in total. Great work everyone and well done on smashing our good deeds target.

Coming up...

On Wednesday we'll be weeding and doing other odd jobs at St Richard's

On Saturday, as well as our usual Parkruns we've got more litter picking around Sutcliffe Park for our last push on those good deeds!

Until next time, wonderful people!

Rachel

Sunday saw us back at Woolwich Common for the monthly litter pick. We met at the Old College cafe with tales of the upcoming Greenwich Peninsula parkrun and cakes to celebrate Jennys 499th good deed (amazing work Jenny) before making our way off into the sunshine to the Common. On arrival we split into 4 or 5 groups and made our way in different directions, encountering different amounts of litter depending on which way we went. After an hour we were done, leaving the common a lot cleaner than when we started

It was a busy GoodGym morning so one of us kept the red shirt present on Woolwich Common with lots of locals who joined The Friends of...

Sad to see two huge bonfire areas and a discarded campsite covered in litter. As usual, used nappies in bushes, water bottles and plenty of beer cans. Anyway, there's a bit less of it now so everyone can enjoy the view again. And great to see the earlier scorched areas from the big fire turning green again!

A tragic scene awaited 5 GoodGym-ers as we joined the Friends of Woolwich Common for today's litter pick. A huge area of the common was burned down in a fire earlier in the week, and whilst the exact source of ignition is under much speculation, the dry summer had not helped, leaving much of the area vulnerable.

On a much more positive note, so many areas were unaffected due to the quick work by local fire teams, leaving plenty of space as the haven it is, for wildflowers, wildlife and vegetation of all kinds. So, armed with litterpicks and rubbish bag hoops, a smoky aroma followed us as we set out in various directions, ready to clear as much as we could, Cans, bottles, vapes, plastic, glass, newspapers & crisp bags soon filled up those bags, and nature gave us a little materials science lesson in how various materials burn - or don't, as the case may be, in the areas affected by the fire.

It's not the first fire on this common, but nature also teaches us it will fight back, and as the seasons change, the plant life will gradually begin to take root again, which hopefully we can help with in some small way by clearing away the artificial stuff threatening that growth.

Have a great week & catch up soon! 😊

This morning 10 of us gathered, with four mini litter pickers in tow, to join the Friends of Woolwich Common for their monthly litter pick. Such is the GoodGym community that several of us bumped into each other in Charlton Park - on that note, special welcome back to Ibrahim on your third task in a week! Seems like someone's got the GoodGym bug!

After gathering all the necessary equipment, we all headed off to different parts of the common, filling lots of bags of rubbish and a couple of dumped chairs and lots of chats along the way. Thanks to Robyn for sharing her snacks at the end! And to Ashton for pumping up my running buggy tyres. No excuse now!

On Wednesday we're back at Brooklands School for more soil shifting.

Until next time 😊

Rachel