On such a chilly night, it was good to have an indoor task to keep us warm for our group session. Abby set us to work sanding, taping, wiping and painting some of the church skirting boards, to match the newly painted walls. Although we were a small group, we whizzed through the task in record time and Jon even managed a bit of a lie down. We had to admit the results were simply brush-taking (although we didn't want to get too emulsion-al).

Last night we tackled a mission at South Mitcham Community Association, to clear a large garden bed and prepare it for planting. With spotlights and all the right tools for the job we were in for a real treat as the rain held off and we got busy unearthing lots of weeds and roots, filling many bags, and salvaging a few potatoes! 🥔

With the bed cleared in just 30 minutes, the team took the initiative and set about tackling the rest of the garden area, then tidied up and went on our way. 

Most of us joined the group run back to base via the beautiful River Wandle. While it will undoubtedly be a stunning path in the spring and summer daylight, running it as a group at night provided an excellent fitness boost.

A big welcome to Ivo, on your first Merton task, and we hope to see you again soon. Well done team, we totally aced those spuds!

Those who joined us at our last visit to Critical Support will remember the organised chaos of a multi-bank delivery, and this time was no different! We threw ourselves into sorting through the wall of crates, making sure everything was collated and ready for distribution. It's always fun to sift through random items and definitely one of our favourite tasks.

We also started on the wrapping of Christmas presents! Working diligently to prepare as many gifts as possible, although we will be back next month to do more of this.

A huge congratulations to Becca who completed her first session! We hope this is the first of many more missions with us.

5 of the team took part in Morden Parkrun this morning wearing their Goodgym t.shirts with pride to mark 1 year of Goodgym in Merton. Well done team and congratulations to Alex on your first parkrun.

Tonight we headed to Raynes Park Station to assist FORPS with a monumental task: shifting two bags of topsoil for their planters, along with some essential pruning.

We knew the topsoil challenge was steep - on previous visits it took ten people who could access the platform to shift one bag, in 30 mins! Tonight, with half the hands on the platform and the rest of the team helping outside, we had our work cut out!

Challenge accepted. Everyone flew into action, carrying bucket after heavy bucket, while keeping to safety protocols (no running etc), and avoiding disruption to passengers disembarking. Despite a huge effort and an extra ten minutes, we had to concede defeat with a small amount of soil remaining.

A massive welcome to Alia who completed her first mission, we hope to see you again soon.

After helping pack up we headed to the pub to drown our sorrows knowing we gave that topsoil our best shot.

Great work, team! We may have been defeated by the soil, but we definitely won the battle for community spirit, marking our one-year anniversary with cake and celebrations.