Five GoodGymmers, one solar eclipse, and a truly heroic amount of extension cables — that was the scene at the Green Skills Library today.

While the sky dimmed to an eerie twilight, the team lit up the indoors with some top‑tier tidying. Stairs were vacuumed with gusto, floors were swept into submission, rubbish was cleared with precision, and the cable chaos was tamed.

As the moon slid across the sun outside, inside it was all brushes, bags and banter — a neat little eclipse‑themed clean‑up that left the Library shining brighter than the sliver of daylight overhead.

Massive thank you to Jen for stepping up and leading the task.

Seven GoodGymmers gathered on Raymill Island for a double‑mission evening of watering and repainting.

We were welcomed by Nivi and Shoshan from the Friends of Raymill Island, and wasted no time getting stuck in. First up: helping Shoshan haul a few stray logs out of the stream — an early warm‑up before the main tasks began.

With the logs sorted, the group split into two teams. Sol and Jess took on the watering challenge, ferrying bucket after bucket from the stream to thirsty flower beds and planters. It turned into a full‑body workout!

Meanwhile, Meggie, Katie and Nicola breathed new life into the Ladybird Hopscotch, carefully repainting each cheerful bug. Mike tackled the rainbow, restoring every colour so it shone brightly once again.

By the end, the whole area looked refreshed and revived. Passers‑by stopped to thank us and commented on how much better the space looked — always lovely to hear.

A job well done, and we’ll be back next week to help Shoshan tether the logs so they stay put and don’t end up in the stream again!

Carol, Katie and Sheila helped out at the Baby Bank the day before it closed for a week to give the staff a well-earned break. Katie sorted through the food, making sure it was all well within its sell-by date, moving on to tidy the piles of nappies which had gone critical. Carol was upstairs sorting clothes, while Sheila was on door-answering duty with a spot of bedding-sorting when time allowed. We were all kept very busy, with lots of donations coming in, and many referrals being collected too.

(rag)Wort a lovely evening that was!

On our journey out, we walked or ran the scenic route, about 2km along the Thames Path and through Battlemead Common. Many thanks to Juli for leading the walkers and Gillian for showing the runners the way.

At Battlemead, our task was to go into battle with ragwort, a plant with distinctive yellow flowers, which an be dangerous to grazing animals such as horses, if not kept under control. Battlemead Common has been acquired by RBWM within the last few years and is maintained as a haven for wildlife. Grazing is an important part of the plan, so we needed to pull up as much ragwort as we could.

Armed with gardening gloves and with long trousers to protect against prickles and stingers, we fanned out and hunted down those yellow shrubs. There looked to be a lot and we wondered whether we might end up with sore hands and ant bites, and singing the rag(wort)-time blues, but the ragwort was easy to spot and came up with a good tug and a satisfying pop.

We worked for about 40 minutes and made surprisingly good progress. Check out our group photo to see the heap we had pulled up by the end! That's the magic of GoodGym - teamwork makes the task as easy as falling off a log...or so the phrase goes...Sol can tell us whether it's true as she managed to do both this evening. Glad you're OK Sol!

We then had fun with a quick fitness session including such delights as spotty dogs, aeroplane arms and mountain climbers. Well done everyone for joining in!

Then it was time to walk and run back to our start location and homes, taking the more direct route this time, but still chatting merrily as we went.

Special mentions this evening to Amy R, who did her 10th good deed with GoodGym this evening, and to Matthew, Rachel and Scarlett, who were out this evening for their second good deeds of the day - fantastic!