When you absolutely must have the front end of your village hall looking pretty for your Afternoon Tea event, that's when you call in Goodgym. As everybody knows, Goodgym will do anything if free cake is involved, and that's why Vicky, Joe, Muireann and myself were there this morning to weed the overgrown areas around the building, and refresh the big flowerpots along the drive.

We all did a lovely job with the flowerpots - each one now has fresh compost, a young shrub in the middle - 1 rosemary, 1 sage and 1 lavender - each one surrounded by pansies. We also had to transfer some of the old geraniums from one of the big pots into smaller pots to be move to a new home. We think they survived the process... we think.

Next we pulled out all the weeds that had taken over the grow boxes and were spreading into the car park. Because Nature likes to mess with our minds, the great big weeds came out very easily and the little tiny ones were very hard work to pick out of the gravel one by one.

But we were well compensated for our efforts with delicious cake! After the task the Hall volunteers Claire and June provided us with tea, coffee, and yummy flapjack, brownies and ginger cake. And Goodgym are always ready for cake.

Picture the scene. It's early November- breezy and slightly raining- there are leaves coming off the trees at a rate of knots. Not just a few leaves, there are MANY MANY leaves. 10 intrepid GoodGymers made their way back to Littlemore Village Hall to help them clear leaves from their front space and paths. We'd previously helped at the Hall in July and it was wonderful to be back! We managed to get about 90% of the leaves cleared and safely into a space to be composted. Whilst one team ensured no leaf was left behind, another team had begun to plant some spring bulbs- they got a head start on being watered into the ground as it then began to rain steadily. That meant cake and tea in the Hall. We are always so well looked after by the lovely Hall team and it was lovely to see them again! Hopefully we'll be able to come back to the Hall soon to see the bulbs in bloom! A fabulous effort everyone and a big welcome to James on joining us for the first time, lovely to meet you!

A chance encounter with Saroj during our May Day gardening task at Flo's led to us being asked if we could help out with the garden at Littlemore Village Hall. The Hall is a community run space which receives no public funding, and is kept going by a dedicated team of volunteers. They requested a GoodGym flash mob to help blitz a few of the bigger garden jobs so that the space is a bit smarter for hirers.

10 GoodGymers packed their gardening gloves and spent a couple of hours helping out the village hall team. We had a task list including weeding, pruning, emptying out old planters, composting, planting out new plants, filling raised beds and cutting back an overly vigorous hazel tree.

At the end of the session we were treated to a delicious cake buffet, cups of tea and coffee, and an opportunity to chat with the hall volunteers.

Will garden for cake!