A fantastic effort by the team on our mission tonight, helping the Merton Garden Streets project get their flowers in order - literally! We successfully delivered packages of bulbs to addresses across three different areas (Raynes Park, South Wimbledon and Colliers Wood) showing splitting up can lead to a lot of blooming good.

Prioritizing safety, each team either walked, ran or cycled ensuring an energized evening of community effort, sowing the seeds for a brighter, more colorful spring for residents in Merton!

GoodGym Merton have been supporting Merton Garden Streets with a flexible mission: delivering bags of bulbs across the Raynes Park and South Wimbledon areas. Fitting in and around our members' schedules we've been making deliveries whilst on our morning runs, a lunchtime walks, or simply dropping off the bags while out on another errand. A huge thank you to the team who put the "bloom" in South Wimbledon and Raynes Park! It’s fantastic to support this initiative and help the community grow while getting those good deeds logged. We can’t wait to see the colourful results of our efforts next spring!

Last night our trusty crew tackled a truly rewarding task, proving once again that a little sweat and a lot of smiles can make a big difference. Our mission after running to the Methodist Church was to extract the sunflower seeds from the flower heads, retrieve the last tomatoes from the plants in the greenhouse, pulverise the sunflower stalks with a mallet (Jo particularly enjoyed this) and generally tidy and prepare the garden for the colder months. By the end of the evening everything was shipshape and there were heaps of green tomatoes ready to be transformed into chutney. Now that's something to relish.

Tonight, the team faced a colossal challenge at Critical Support: as we split into two groups, diving into the chaos. Crate by crate, transforming the overwhelming sprawl into organised piles - first completing the fresh food deliveries, followed by large stacks of clothes, shoes, homeware, and more.

Then came the heavy lifting as we hauled full crates upstairs and carefully tackled a quick round of repacking. This was crucial for maximising the space and ensuring the crates could be safely stacked.

With a final push and an "all hands on crates" effort, the job was done!

The warehouse was almost spotless and impressively organised - far exceeding what most of us thought possible in the time available. A huge welcome to Tori on a fantastic first task! Well done, everyone; the teamwork was absolutely amazing. We were truly "crate"!

It might have been blowing a hooley but that didn't deter our hard-working team, including Isabella who was joning her first Merton session. Maggie set us to work clearing leaves (the wind had already made a start) and planting, while Williams spent his second day in a row taking care of compost! The local residents are all super appreciative and one even donated a chocolate cake. As the evenings are getting shorter, we ended the session in head torches. This may be our last evening here for a while but it will be lovely to see the fruits of our labour come spring.

The tranquil garden is looking lovely and we were able to see how the log work we did last time has been transformed into seating. Tonight we were tasked with painting the wooden planters green and gold, as well as moving logs and clearing some brambles. It was great to see Georgina, who popped by while doing a litter pick. With her arm on the mend, hopefully she will be back at sessions soon. The nights are drawing in, so we were working in darkness by the end of the task but hopefully the results will be brush-taking! Thanks to Maggie, who lives nearby, for kindly donating some post-session chocolate, meaning that team green and team gold were transformed into team mint and team orange.