What a glorious day for a run! The sun was out, the birds were singing, and it seemed like everyone’s mood was lifted. With a spring in our step, we were eager to get started. There was much chatter about Friday night's Festival of Running, when Battersea park will be alive with colourful lights and energetic runners. If you haven’t heard of it yet, be sure to check it out! It's a fun mix of light running and vibes and ggers even get free entry when they sign up to help out - more about that later.

Unfortunately our planned task got cancelled last minute. No problem though, we were not going to let all that positive GoodGym energy go to waste! We quickly pivoted, and instead of refilling planters we started last session, we were to go the Ecogarden to give the whole place a good clean up. The idea is that this urban space is being converted to increase biodiversity and to create more places of well being in the city. So its no good having loads of trash strewn around among dirty benches. Enter Goodgym!

A big shout-out to Sevgi who joined us for her very first GoodGym session today. Welcome to the crew! We hope you enjoyed it and will be back for many more fun-filled missions. Also, huge kudos to Richard, who's just about to hit his 50th Good Deed! Richard has been doing so much good, net time you see him he'll be in a black GG tshirt, so give him a cheer! A special shout out goes to Anna for back-marking today, making sure we all I kept everyone going and no one got left behind in a busy tourist area.

Today's task involved heading over to the Grounded Eco Garden, a place we've helped out at before. For those who haven’t been before, it's a community garden focusing on eco-friendly practices, and it's the perfect spot to get your hands dirty and make a positive impact on the environment. We’d been there before, helping get it ready for the community, and today was all about cleaning up the surrounding area.

With the magnificent Tower Bridge as our backdrop, we met up with Alicia and got to work collecting rubbish. At first glance there wasn't loads, but when we really started to look we found an impressive haul, including a surprising number of bottles cig butts (which take 60 years to biodegrade!), and, most curiously, an old car key. If anyone has lost a car key lately... well, now you know where it went!

As we ran, we discussed all sorts of random facts inspired by our surroundings. Did you know that every Wetherspoons pub has its own unique carpet pattern? Yup, it's true! And apparently, there are over 900 Wetherspoons pubs across the UK, each with its own distinctly designed carpet. Who knew there could be so many different patterns?

There was more chat about the Friday Night Lights Festival of Running (where GoodGym volunteers get free entry!) - here’s the link for more info on how to get involved - there's a morning and an afternoon session to join in with. It's a great opportunity to get your run in while enjoying festival vibes.

Lastly, don’t forget about our Monday run in Wandsworth, which will feature our monthly pub quiz after the run. All are welcome, whether you're a regular or a newbie! It's always a blast, and we can’t wait to see you there.

Thanks to everyone for being such an amazing crew today despite he last minute change, and we hope to see you out there next time for the next stage of the transformation of Tower Bridge community garden!

What a lovely productive session that was.😊 Often there are just two of us on this regular task but luckily the stars were aligned and 5 of us were available for this midweek session. Not only did we get three cage loads of donations off loaded there was time to spare for extra shelf organising and filling plus a little stock taking in readiness for the next packing session. There was a slight "snackident" with some chocolates of an uncertain but as it turned out quite edible age and a little incident with some leaky Bovril 😬 but apart from that everything went very smoothly and efficiently. Well Done Everyone 🥳

When the Wanstead Community Gardners needed some furniture moving to help them celebrate their 21st birthday of course Marian called in her reliable "Heavy Mob" GoodGym.

5 of us made our way to a local address where Peter picked up two tables, Ed popped another two on to a small trolley and James grabbed two chairs which left Linda and Sibel a cushion each and they thoroughly enjoyed the unfair division of labour 😂.

Back at The Corner House we met Helen and Cedric. Helen joined us setting up the tables and chairs before being called away to help the task owner with something. Cedric had brought some compost and disappeared off to deposit it somewhere useful to the community gardeners.

There was a little waiting around until the gazebos arrived but when they did we soon had them put up with a little improvisation for a couple of missing parts. We are nothing if not resourceful in GoodGym.