It's the time of year when some of us look forward to putting up the Xmas decorations, and we were all set, Louise even brought her Santa hat to partake in the festive task. The 4 of us helped out at the hub with a variety of different tasks, including moving furniture and general bits and bobs in order to prepare the space for the Christmas fair at the weekend. We managed to get in a lovely festive photo in (not so Santa's grotto) once we were finished.

We stayed indoors on fireworks night, so the only bangs we heard in our task were the shuttering up of other shops in The Glades Shopping Centre as we worked after hours to brighten up Greener and Cleaner's unit with some white painting.

Tamsin first asked us to coat a sign board that had its fair share of scuffing. We got out the roller and brushes and made it look a lot smarter! Other painting tasks were to touch up walls where adhesive tak had taken off bits of paint, and the doors and door frames, which had only had one coat of paint to begin with. Finally, we coated a trolley for the sign boards in white too.

Linda did a cracking job of painting the sign board, and Hannah coated the door, with Louise covering the sign trolley beautifully. In between some cutting in, I helped Tamsin raise some bunting :)

We'll be back at Green and Cleaner in a couple of weeks for Christmas decorating - would be great to see you there!

This evening we had a post bank holiday posting task! A new volunteer-led repair cafe is being set up in Beckenham and the team wanted a hand spreading the word, to recruit volunteers, to let people know they can get their stuff fixed for free, and to ultimately lead to less waste and less buying new. Lovely stuff.

We met at Beckenham Spa and welcomed Jane and Karine who are brand new to GoodGym - so great that you chose to join us today!

We split into two groups - Stephen, Charlie, Karine and Jane took on a nearby road, whilst Ria, Michael and I did a short jog round the corner.

150 or so leaflets down, we called it a day with a few of us taking extra leaflets to pop into shops/other streets.

Nice one, team!

We were once again down at the Greener and Cleaner allotment to do a big clean up of the site.Louise brought her brilliant energy and Mark his experience but we also managed to also get some additional friendly helpers (thanks Eventbrite) who were brilliant in helping us get potatoes, tomatoes, horse radish and removing horse tails. Clare from Greener and Cleaner popped down to help with watering too and the allotment was now 'bake in business's!

WOW, it was a shock to see just how much all the trees, herbs and vegetables has grown. The last time I was at this space was back in March when we had only just planted everything.
The bramble tree was giving off loads of apples that would make the best pies, there was also an abundance of blackberries not to mention the potatoes I brought home to show off to the neighbours. Louise spent time mulching and avoiding the flying ants nests, Mark was busy watering everything while I tried to free the baby trees from all the weeds that were surrounding them. All in all it was a very productive mission. I really enjoy coming to this space and It was lovely to see the chickens again they're always such a delight.

The GoodGym team went down to the Greener and Cleaner allotment to water, plant and pick cherries to support the amazing work the organization does. As we drew attention from other allotment owners, we helped out carrying pallets, picking pears from trees and taming berries. The team will for sure be back again 😊😊😊