On a warm summer evening, the lovely GoodGym Greenwich crew took a short dash to Charlton Manor Primary School to lend a hand in their nursery garden. The mission? A mix of bench painting and weed-busting to get the space looking spick-and-span for the little ones.

Paintbrushes in hand, we gave the playground benches a fresh coat of colour while the rest of the team tackled overgrown patches of the nursery garden with gusto. It didn’t take long before the place looked greener, neater, and definitely more welcoming.

During our weeding adventures, we made a surprising discovery: 15 tennis balls scattered around the garden....Perhaps a mini-Wimbledon had taken place without us? (Very on-theme, with the real Wimbledon just around the corner next week!)

To top it all off, a group of curious fox cubs peeked out to watch us work, clearly approving of the transformation.

A good workout, a tidier garden and some brighter benches for the kids to enjoy. Game, set, and match to us!

This weekend we've got our river walk and weeding at Mycenae gardens. Next week to kick off July we've got a new task in the woodland garden of the memorial hopsital. Be prepared for a run up shooters hill for that one 😁

Until next time!

Rachel

Last night Julian, Marta and Khai ran the distance in the heat to Brooklands, the rest of us making our own way there. In no time we were ready to get stuck into the earthy business of shifting a mountain of soil to their newly built veggie beds. During two previous sessions we had depleted the store and filled two beds but we still had a lot to go.

Armed with shovels, spades, and a surprisingly musical fleet of wheelbarrows, the team got straight to it. Soil flew, sweat dripped, and laughter echoed as we powered through the task—step by step, barrow by barrow.

But tonight wasn’t just any GoodGym task. No no—we had a centurion in our midst. 🥳 HUGE congratulations to Khai on completing his 100th good deed! 💯 Incredibly humble and kind, always looking out for everyone else and a pleasure to spend time with, Khai is a highly valued member of our group!

Anyway, that's quite enough praise, Khai will have his head in his hands at this point. As the evening settled and the barrows rolled on, someone started humming a familiar tune... and soon, the soil-shifting spell was cast:

Shovel shovel toil and trouble, Wheelbarrow squeak and sweat a’ bubble. Load it high and push it fast, Make this veggie bed built to last. Soil on boots and sun on brow, No time to stop—we’re shifting now! Dig and dump, the wheel spins true, With Khai the centurian leading the crew. Spade and scoop and compost thrum, Helping hands till the job is DONE.

And done we were! By the end, we’d shifted a serious amount of soil and left the veggie beds ready for action—Brooklands students will be growing their greens in no time 🫛🥬

Thanks to everyone who came and mucked in (literally).

Next week we're back at Charlton Manor, this Sunday we've got the Hornfair Parksfest and remember our Sunday walk next week!

Until next time

Rachel 👋🏼

This evening we gathered at Charlton House (Khai unexpectedly starring in a wedding photo shoot) and shared which gameshows, past and present we'd like to go on. We also did some balance and core exercises - remember to stand on one leg while you brush your teeth, guys - suck your tummy in and squeeze your bum = strengthen your core for the Big Half!

Today we were celebrating Marta reaching the 900 good deeds milestone! 😇😇 She's hoping to get to 1,000 by next march and then she gets a new t-shirt with a sun on it because she will have then been deemed to have reached godly status (I for one think she's already there but the Tshirt will prove it!)

A lovely evening for a lovely task and after a short run and meeting Robert, Annie, Bobbie and Ivar (email not ipad) at the task, Annie got ten of us got to work watering, weeding, planting some fox gloves and sewing some seeds. We got loads done tonight and it makes such difference!

Bobby gave Annie a hand back with the wheelbarrow on the rest of us trundled off back to Charlton House and during a quick stretch we discussed upcoming tasks: we've got the Community Hospice (celebrating Johnny's 500th good deed) and Hervey Road again on Saturday; next week we're back at Brooklands on Wednesday and the following week we've got helping at Horn Fair PARKSfest .

Until next time :)

Rachel

5 Good Gymers joined Team Clean Up Charlton to tackle a bad patch on the Woolwich Road near Selco, and a usual favourite grot-spot down Anchor & Hope Lane. With 9 of us it was almost a scrum to chase that litter down! The youngest member of the team showed amazing talent for searching out clean recyclables - we got two bags of bottles and cans between us and 11 bags in total in just an hour.

As usual Ashton was the first behind the bushes and down in the ditches - we know he puts Sarah and Ivar on a pedestal but maybe this was taking it too literally. We might love a fair but there's no excuse for dumping the signs behind the shrubs - there's no hiding your trash from us, Blackheath Fun Fair!

As usual the approved bags are left for our friends at Greenwich Council to collect. Thanks to everyone who came along!

Today we were back at Maryon Park community garden, a wonderful space that has been lovingly run by Edna and Tim for many years. Coming here has always been a favourite task for Good Gym Greenwich and it was nice to be back. The tasks today were manyfold; the garden having become quite overgrown in places and a gap had opened up in the orchard that needed to be plugged to make things safer.

So to work, and two of the team worked to plug the gap using some old pieces of fence (with some masterful manoeuvring needed to get said fences to the orchard), two of us set to trimming overhanging foliage and the rest of us set to removing copious numbers of weeds.

And karma was kind to us: despite a terrible weather forecast the rain held off for the whole session and after an hour’s hard work we were done. As usual Tim and Edna had generously provided snacks and we also benefited for some lovely leftover cake that Cat had prepared for her book group (thanks Cat, it was lovely).