What a brilliant start to a Saturday. We helped other organisations, including Fostering Portsmouth, set up their gazebos and stalls after getting our own stall ready to talk to festival-goers about volunteering and the positive impact it can have on mental health and wellbeing. We also joined in with some of the festival activities, including dancing and drumming. It was a wonderful morning of volunteering, connection and community — and the sun was shining too! ☀️

Wow, what a turn out! It was great to see so many GoodGymers out tonight - thank you everyone for coming.

We welcomed Dani from GoodGym Lewisham for a spot of GG Tourism whilst he is house-sitting locally, and met Lucifer for his first ever session - head to their profiles to give them a cheer!

Tom had plenty of tasks for us tonight, the main job being spreading woodchip over the children's play area and around the pond. With lots of lifting and shifting, and plenty of raking, many hands made light work of the task.

Meanwhile, the rest of the team got to work weeding and pruning on the side path of the orchard. We temporarily lost David to a large bush where he was extracting a bramble. Sinéad's trimming of the rosemary bush left a pleasant aroma for the rest of the evening. The discovery of Fred the Frog led to a lot of distraction, and even a photoshoot, courtesy of Jane.

We enjoyed and evening of education, with history lessons with Jim, spanish with Dani and nature studies with Sinead. Other conversation topics includes Sandi Toksvig, Mastermind and David the Gnome.

We ended the session with picking apples and grapes, ready for our lunchboxes for the rest of the week.