We were back at Ocean Youth Connexions to support Kamal for another session, helping keep the site in tip-top shape.

First on arrival, John, Sam, Kareem and first timer, Ken were set straight to work litter picking in the yard and clearing leaves. Meanwhile, Darren and I tackled the front of the building, pruning what we identified as a milkflower cotoneaster shrub, as well as clearing leaves and picking up litter.

A little later,Emma, Arina and Louise joined us. Louise deserves special credit for navigating a heroic bus journey to get there! They headed upstairs to clean and soap the doors, with Emma declaring it was “the most I've ever enjoyed cleaning doors!”

As summer fades, we couldn't help notice the darkness creeping in earlier than usual.It won't be long before the head torches make their seasonal return.

A special mention goes to Sam, John and Darren, who all took part in the Big Half on Sunday and still turned out to volunteer.

Finally, a big welcome to Ken on his first GoodGym task. We hope to see you again soon!

The original idea was to help set up the family party for our friends at the canal club, not least so Tower Hamlets had a Saturday morning task that week

As it happened, we were involved in another task https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/setting-up-a-stall-for-the-cemetery-park-summer-fair-c49d2f87-92f2-412b-8628-5a61e8b8a8dc that morning, and coincidently, Sally from the canal club phoned on Wednesday to suggest we instead served coffee in the afternoon. Synchonisity!

So five of us turned up in dribs and drabs, to find the task had changed yet again – we were now looking after the barbeque! And it turned out that special guest Sooz from Hackney was a dab hand at turning chicken, halal skewers and sweetcorn, until they were just nicely cooked through the inside

Other useful attendees were Sam, despite a late night at the Queen’s Head in St Pancras, Ilana, who’d just knocked nearly a minute off her previous ParkRun PB (despite a lack of photographic evidence), and Adam and Emma, who stayed well beyond the call of duty in order to tend the barbeque and keep everything safe and sound.