This weekend's visit to the 3Ps had 4 GGers who were greeted by a fresh minty smell on a glorious summer day.

They were tasked with keeping the plot in mint-condition. This included dead heading and the removal of weeds as well as a general tidy up, which both Jenna and Manuela kept on top of.

While Sabina and Adam filled up the watering cans from the River Thames and ensured that the plot kept looking minty fresh and mint-ained high spirits in the process!

A lively crew of GoodGymers made their way today to a community mission at the Purple Elephant project playground!

The Purple Elephant project does incredible work supporting children and families in the local area, so we were delighted to pitch in and assist with work that was needed with their outdoor play space.

What We Tackled: After a welcoming brief from Maggie on the tasks ahead, we split up, grabbed paintbrushes and tins, and got straight down to business.

Varnishing the Playground Wonders: The outdoor playground features a lovely wooden tunnel, raised flowerbeds, and a garden bench, all of which were in need of some TLC and weather protection. We got to work coating the wood evenly, ensuring the playground apparatus and seating are thoroughly protected and looking vibrant.

Fresh Canvas for Creativity: Over on the boards, Manuela took on the task of painting over both a well-used chalkboard and an acrylic board. With a smooth, clean coat applied, both are now blank canvases ready for brand new art, games, and outdoor learning!

Mission Accomplished: In just under two hours, we managed to protect the wooden play structures, revive the seating, and the activity boards. A huge thank you to the Purple Elephant project team for having us! It was a brilliant, productive mission for a fantastic cause.

What a day!

On Saturday we celebrated an incredible milestone as GoodGym Richmond turned 10 years old. It was fantastic to see so many familiar faces, old friends, new members, GoodGymmers from other area, community partners and supporters all together to celebrate everything we've achieved over the last decade.

What made the day even more special was that we were celebrating on the exact 10th anniversary of our very first session. Back in July 2016, over 40 runners set off from Whole Foods in the middle of a heatwave to tackle Himalayan balsam. Anyone who's been around GoodGym Richmond for a while will know that some things never change – we're still pulling out that same stubborn plant!

Since that first run, 623 amazing people have been part of GoodGym Richmond, completing an incredible 7,911 tasks across our borough. That's nearly 8,000 hours of volunteering for local charities, community organisations and green spaces. Along the way, members who've tracked their runs have also covered over 82,000 kilometres – that's the equivalent of running around the world twice.

But while the numbers are something to celebrate, they only tell part of the story. GoodGym has always been about people. It's about showing up for our communities, finding purpose in movement, making friends, improving our mental health, settling into a new area, and discovering that doing something good for someone else often does us a world of good too.

Over the last ten years we've had the privilege of supporting so many fantastic organisations. From Achieving for Children, local Scout and Guide groups, schools, care homes and community centres, to Richmond Furniture Scheme, Integrated Neurological Services, St Christopher's Fellowship, Purple Elephant and so many others. We've helped care for Petersham Common, Ham Lands, Crane River and other treasured green spaces, built community allotments from the ground up, and turned up week after week to lend an extra pair of hands wherever they were needed.

Sometimes we've simply helped make a task a little easier. Other times we've helped make projects happen that otherwise wouldn't have happened at all. Those moments make us especially proud.

None of this would have been possible without the organisations who've supported us over the years. A huge thank you to Richmond Council, whose original funding helped launch GoodGym Richmond ten years ago, to Richmond Foundation for their continued support and recently renewed grant, to Heathrow Community Trust, and to Richmond Council's Climate Action Group, whose recent micro-grant has helped us buy new equipment for our community base.

Thank you too to our event sponsor, Alpha Vets in Teddington, and a very special thank you to JP and Monica, who generously dug into their own pockets to help make our celebration such a lovely occasion.

The celebration was also a chance to recognise the incredible people who have shaped GoodGym Richmond over the years. Thank you to Mark, who laid the foundations by leading those very first sessions ten years ago, and to Sam, who led the group before me and helped steer us through the post-covid era.

Thank you to every single Run Leader and every member of TaskForce, past, present, and future! So much of what GoodGym does simply wouldn't happen without people quietly giving that little bit extra behind the scenes.

We also wanted to celebrate some very special individuals. Thank you to Anita, whose care and dedication have helped make our community space so beautiful, to JP, our most active member, and to Lucy, whose contribution over the years has been enormous.

A huge congratulations also goes to Chris, who celebrated his incredible 500th GoodGym task during the event! Reaching 500 tasks is an amazing achievement and we're delighted he got to wear the crown and collect his milestone T-shirt surrounded by so many friends.

We were honoured to be joined by the Mayor of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, Councillor Nancy Baldwin, who spoke so warmly about GoodGym Richmond and reflected on presenting us with a Community Heroes Award in 2022. She spoke about the impact volunteers have across the borough and how remarkable it is for a volunteer organisation to thrive for ten years. We were incredibly grateful for her kind words and for taking the time to celebrate with us.

Finally, thank you to every single person who has been part of GoodGym Richmond over the last decade. Whether you've completed one task or hundreds, whether you've been with us since the beginning or only joined this week, you've helped build something really special. Together we've created a community that is welcoming, supportive, active and full of people who genuinely want to make Richmond a better place.

Here's to the first ten years of keeping fit by doing good, and to the next ten!

In years gone by, missions to tackle Himalayan Balsam in the areas close to the river were many and not-far-between, with extra midweek sessions not a rarity. That Saturday’s task was our first (and possibly last?) of the Summer hopefully speaks to the efforts of many over the years to bring this invasive species under control, which are perhaps paying off. But it is a (little) shame because it’s always so much fun.

Himalayan Balsam, we learned from Friends of Ham Lands leader Sharon, escaped from Kew Gardens, whence it had been brought from afar (the Himalayas?) many years ago (19th century?). It quickly colonised large parts of the local area - as well as spreading all over the country - compromising the growth of important other flora and damaging soil structures on the river banks.

So on this beautifully sunny Saturday morning, 5 of Richmond GG’s finest met with Sharon and headed to an area close to the towpath on the river side of the Ham Lands to deal with a couple of patches of Balsam.

The fun part is in the ease of the job: despite their apparent size and sturdiness, Balsam plants are easy to uproot, having shallow roots as they do - and their wide hollow stems create a satisfying pop sound when pulled from the ground. So satisfying it makes you want not want to stop.

Stop we eventually did, however, as plans for the rest of the day (and a build-up of nettle stings) eventually required us to. We stood back and admired the result of our efforts - large clear sections and large piles of uprooted Balsam. And then off we popped.

Next time at Ham Lands is on Saturday 8th August. You can sign up here: https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/helping-the-happy-ham-landers-b8f34de0-18b2-4779-8129-bff4f391fa5a