The one with the lifts.

This is what GoodGym is all about. Friendship, heavy lifting, connection and sore muscles.

On Saturday we helped Barking Food Forest prepare the ground for the new shed, rainwater tanks and vegetable planters.

Pretty standard stuff, right?

Nah. We lifted the shed from its current position (notice 1st lifted structure) and got down to work with the soil. Level it up, folks! Yes, ax pick your way through that soil. Are your muscles burning? Good sign!

Now, lets lift that water tank (notice 2nd lifted structure) and move it behind the shed! Classic PIVOT! PIVOT! PIVOT! moment. Check out our insta for all that GoodGym goodness.

By now, we got 25 minutes left in our community mission. The ground is weedless, quite levelled, the water tank is now comfortably behind the shed and after some slight acrobatics from superstar-volunteer from Barking Food Forest we are all at ground level wondering how much more levelled that does this area needs to be. Apparently much more. As we were.

But, hey is that another water tank at the opposite end of Barking Food Forest? Yes, it is and we want it to sit on top of the first one. After a dynamic risk assessment (fancy H&S terminology, brownie point) we lifted the tank (notice 3rd lifted structure), moved it from one end to another, PIVOT! PIVOT! PIVOT! and up it goes.

Another classic community mission at GoodGym Barking & Dagenham.

So...

...after sitting on my bum all day working from home, the temptation was strong to move to the sofa and do more sitting.

I was tired, it was Monday, but...

...earlier in the day I had signed up to tonight's session with GoodGym B&D. Now I was accountable - to other GoodGymmers, and the host partner AbPhab Youth Club. Doing more sitting was now not an option!

This is the great thing about GoodGym B&D - it provides the motivation needed to get up off your bum and do something active & useful in the gap between work and dinner.

Setting off from Upney Station at 5.45pm, I took a very gentle job through Mayesbrook Park towards AbPhab Youth Club. Struggling at first, once I got to the park I really noticed the blue sky (yes, the sun was still up at 6pm!) and started to feel more energised and alert.

Arriving at AbPhab 20 minutes later, I met fellow GoodGymmer Austin - giving each other a very smug welcome as we knew we'd made the right choice coming to GoodGym tonight. Smug welcome over - Sarah & Kelly from AbPhab briefed us with tonight's task, and revealed there was pizza on offer (result!)

We got stuck into weeding the 10 planters and adding top soil - ready for young people to plant-out their seedlings (beans, peas, carrots and spinach). Task complete, we did a speedy weeding session at the opposite end of the garden, clearing up a very overgrown area.

Wrapping up the session with some selfies, snacks and a nice chat with Deputy Manager Kelly about upcoming tasks.

GoodGym will be back at AbPhab again soon to help replace weed control fabric and pebbles, as well as freshen up the planters with a lick of paint - find out more about these upcoming sessions on the website here