12 Goodgymmers braved a cold Wednesday evening to provide a much needed weeding of the Peckham Rye Tiny Forest

After a quick warm up we headed out around Peckham Rye park, running about 2km to the Tiny Forest. Once there we met Anna, who is a Goodgym Southwark member and Treekeeper for the Tiny Forest.

Though the night was dark we waded into the sea of grass, weeds and even some drooping sedge (a native of this country) and cleared areas around the trees. This helps the young trees grow, as at this early stage they can get out competed by the more aggressive grasses. It was already impressive to see the growth of some of the trees, which are only about 2 years old.

Once we made a big dent in the weeds we headed back to Old Spike, where we celebrated with Benjamin, who had reached his 50th good deed. Santa came early with Ginger cake and we know that there will be be a new tshirt in your Christmas stocking!

Today we went to Salvation Army in Nunhead to help out. After a 2k run Polis met us at the shop. After a quick tour of the old bookstore (which has had a glamorous new makeover) , Polis then introduced the task... smashing chairs!!

Polis showed us a huge mountain of chairs, which we had to move downstairs before dismantling with our legs and hammers. We quickly got organised. David, Daryl , James and Benjamin made a chain to pass the chairs down, to Nathan, Folarin, Sander and Mansur who got really good at dismantling chairs. Finally the helpful bee Nelly was clearing up and taking parts outside. Great teamwork! 🙌

As an added bonus, we were very excited to meet Nunhead Elvis, who was also helping out from Salvation Army.

Today we were also celebrating James' 50th good deed. Well done James! 🎂

And also not fast car driving involved but there was lot's and lot's of bulb planting involved! It was a short run this week to Florence Green and with half the group meeting us there, it was a small group running up the hill.

On arrival at Florence Green, Subo had kindly put all the bulbs into individual bags and numbered them depending on which tree we should be planting around. It was time to get stuck into the planting. A fairly straight forward task and the only obstacle was the many tree roots.

On the way back it felt like the group had got much smaller, but it hadn't, we definitely didn't lose anyone! I hope the fox hasn't ate too many of the bulbs we planted!

Next week we are heading to The Albany to tackle the litter and also to tackle the weeds in some areas of the garden. Don't forget headtorches!

Not our usual type of group run as this Wednesday, Teach First needed us for their event. They reached out a few months ago to source more volunteers for their fundraising, Run the River. So, instead of meeting at Old Spike Peckham, we headed to our spot along Southbank and Potter's Field.

Sam had to inform the Teach First volunteer coordinator that we could only help out 18:30 - 20:30, so she offered us spots closeby to the start and the middle of the race. We also had to go straight to our spot instead of the volunteer tent at the start. Our area/section manager had our t-shirt, high vis and dinner pack, which had our lanyard too.

In position, we had Mansur and Gemma were placed at the start whereas Daryl, Lindy, Maria, Paulin, Sam, Sander and Sian were placed between kilometre one and kilometre five (for the 10k) as Route Marshall.

As each wave started at 19:00, 19:15 and finally, 19:30 as there was no 19:45 wave, we cheered and directed the runners ensuring they kept to the route and minded out for the tourists and general walkers walking the Southbank.

After 20:00, it started getting dark and cold really fast, so everyone was wondering where the backmarker was. We waited and waited until Sam was the first person to get relieved of his duties at around 10 past and the rest soon followed suit within the next 30 minutes, but felt like hours... We all handed our high vis to a volunteer that was heading back as it was easier for most of us to head off from where we were.

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Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came out last night! It was a lovely evening until it got cold, so I hope you all managed to have something nice and warm when you got back home. This was a one-off, so I appreciate you signing up and volunteering. Next week, we're back to normal!