Today we helped out the charity Voices of Hope by manning their stall in the Bentall Centre, Kingston. They wanted to raise awareness of their cycling challenge called Cycle of Change that was happening in Richmond Park the next day and of Brite Boxes - their scheme to help combat food instability for families. Both great campaigns! We manned the stall and had a go on their static bike. Lovely hour spent supporting a local charity.

Dave, Rachel, Adam, Jennie and Tara all met up on Tuesday's Group Run night to help out the Voices of Hope on their leafleting campaign. We went to Fairfield Park to warm up and did a loop of the park to get the blood pumping. It's amazing how the hour change made such a difference to our evening - we could actually see each other and what we were doing! No head torches required.

We then headed off to Canbury to start our doorstep leafleting. We had three leaflets to drop so we separated into two small groups and did one side of the road each careful to avoid the houses that didn't want excess mail. An hour went quickly and we looped round to the river to add some extra mileage on our run.

Great work, everyone!

Regular Goodgym visit to the Rose garden saw us continuing with weeding , removing unwanted ash growths of various sizes, deadheading some the faded roses and generally tidying up the rose patch under the careful supervision of Andrew. Felt being part of the Enormous Turnip story whilst trying to get out some of the deep and far reaching roots of the ash trees that have been surrounding our beautiful roses. Whilst some of us were running away from rather angry ants since we disturbed them, others were fighting a slug in the glasses :) All in all, a successful missing completed as the sun started to set.

On a fine summer evening Andy greeted six good gymmers and set us to work giving some TLC to the rose beds on the community garden at Fishponds Park. Adam, John and Jassy dug deep to uproot a blanket of weeds, Emily and Victoria untangled the rose branches of bindweed, and Fung Yee dead headed and pruned the roses. We also upturned some wondrous wildlife - an eerie looking but endangered stag beetle larva and a family of small frogs - which Andy made sure to relocate safely. Several sacks of green waste later, we loaded them onto the compost and parted ways, leaving the rose bed looking considerably sharper for our efforts. Thanks to Andy for having us. We look forward to seeing this site blossom over the coming missions.

Gorgeous evening for our return visit to the Rose garden; after a little treasure hunt for the shed key, we set out to clear another section of the flowerbed armed with various tools from Andrew's shed. Tackling the never ending roots of bindweed, cutting down bramble and generally digging out anything weedlike, we made a sizeable dent (2 bags worth) in getting this flowerbed looking neat & tidy, with roses showing off their wonderful blossoms. Looking forward to the next visit, hopefully with more hands on deck so we can finish it off.

This week I was able to come to Kingston Gate Church again, along with Luís, to help move the Brite Boxes being made and transported by the charity Voices of Hope. The boxes contain ingredients and cooking instructions, and are given to children of local families as a fun activity and an encouragement to cook meals from scratch.

Upon arrival any volunteer has to sanitise their hands and measure their body temperature with a thermometer gun. I was running at a reassuringly average temp of 36.7°C whilst it turns out Luís is a cold-blooded (but friendly!) creature, at 34.5°C.

Up until a few days ago the church's lift was broken, so GG volunteers have been helping to take boxes and up and down several flights of stairs. However, they have fortunately fixed the lift. Therefore Luís and I loaded boxes into the lift and moved them down to the ground level ready for transportation. Maneuvering around the obstacles was difficult at times but we only had one or two near misses! After that we waited for each car and van to turn up and helped to fit the boxes into them according to destination.

Despite feeling like we did less hard work than previous weeks when the lift was broken, the people dealing with the logistics of the boxes were still very grateful for our help, as they were able to focus on the management side of things, taking constant phone calls and making sure that incoming cars didn't cause traffic problems in the alley.

We look forward to helping Voices of Hope again in the future!