Returning to the canal club, this time we concentrated on weeding the winding paths between the plant beds, alongside the canal. Others chopped and sawed wood. It was a crowded space for the lucky 13 of us, but we spread ourselves into twos and threes and set to work, while catching up with each others’ activities since last we met

Our reward, supplied by lovely task owner Sally, were weather-appropriate home-made lollipops, with even a choice of flavours! So we continued the socialising while exciting our taste buds, then after most people had dispersed, four of us decided that the night was still young, and headed for The Hare in Cambridge Heath Road

The Canal Club, however, is currently proposed as a site for development. It was built for residents of the Wellington Estate and its activities include toddler storytelling, baby dance classes, Tai Chi, knitting and sewing, outdoor pizza making, breakdancing, line dancing, karaoke social evenings, a science homework club, singing, refugee activities, a food bank, arts and crafts, and Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings. There is a ball court and a children’s playground

This is not an empty site! If you want the council to remove the site from its accelerated housing scheme, sign the petition at https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/save-our-space-e2-save-the-canal-club

This Monday evening, we headed to Ocean Youth Connexions in Limehouse. Task owner, Kamal greeted us there after we rang the small, but very mighty doorbell. Many thanks to Kamal for hosting us after a last minute cancellation. Before starting, we gathered in a the shape of a digestive which was apt, given that we soon introduced ourselves and our favourite biscuit. Bourbons, jammie dodgers, ritz, ginger nuts, hobnobs, Biscoff, French raspberry jaffa cakes, malted milks, Choco Leibniz, and others were mentioned. Great biscuit preference diversity within the Goodgym demographic.
As usual, there was a range of tasks to occupy us:

• Simon and Kim headed upstairs to tidy the offices there. Tidy seems too small a word as what they accomplished was a changing-rooms-esque transformation (without any tears).
• Darren, gave the front of the building a makeover. A lone worker at first, by the end this was where the party was at and he was joined happily by several others
• Jack, supported by Sam (and a ladder) got to work giving the backyard hedge a trim. This task came naturally to Jack given that his mum is a professional hairdresser.
  
• Kirsti , Ciarán, Chantal and Chloe did a mix of weeding and rubbish clearing in the back yard.
• * John and Jack got to work clearing the back-backyard.

An array of equipment was used to aid clearing: from litter pickers to broomsticks (the latter not just getting a mention here so that the report title makes sense...)

Shout out to Chantal for coming to her first task and getting stuck in the weeds, in a good way!

Congrats to Chloe for recently completing a milestone 10 tasks (this being her 11th)! A keen tennis player, Chloe has quickly established herself as a familiar and valuable member of the team - one could say she has 'set' the bar high for new joiners, always on the 'ball' and 'game' for all goodgym tasks.

This was a productive evening with many bags of rubbish cleared. Group photos taken, and a record number of shout outs and announcements announced, we said our goodbyes and went off in different directions.

Until the next time!