It's not often we're accompanied by a bear, but that's exactly what happened during our task this evening! 🐻

We gathered at Welling Library, where Julie and Alex from Discover Welling were waiting for us. Alex was dressed as a rather large, cute bear. Julie had brought along a big roll of stickers promoting Welling Sparkle, the town's Christmas market.

Our task was to put the stickers on all 72 lamp posts along the high street. We split into two teams, unwound a supply of stickers for each and set off in opposite directions to cover the ground as efficiently as possible.

Working along one side of the road, we peeled the stickers from their backing roll and applied two to each lamp post to create a complete wrap. Once we'd reached the end of our stretch, we crossed over and worked our way back along the other side, eventually meeting up with the other team.

(In case you were worried, the stickers use a low-tack adhesive, so they'll come off cleanly after the event. And the council had sanctioned their application to the lamp posts.)

Our friendly bear was certainly a hit with passers-by, handing out high fives and stopping for photos. It was lovely to see so many smiles along the way!

Welling High Street is a long one, so we certainly clocked up some good mileage while getting all those lamp posts dressed for the Sparkle ✨.

Let's hope our efforts help bring plenty of people along to the event. A bear-y good evening's work! 🐻

What a lovely morning with the Friends of Lesnes Abbey and Woods (FOLAW)!

Their woodland conservation sessions take place on the first Sunday of every month and, as usual, we met at The Lodge. There was a big turnout today, with our GoodGym red t-shirts adding a vibrant splash of colour to the proceedings.

Marc from FOLAW had already pre-loaded wheelbarrows with equipment, so we trundled them a short distance into the woods to an area earmarked to become a coppice of hazel trees. Eventually, the hazel will be used for woodcrafts, reviving a traditional way of managing the woodland that would have been common at Lesnes Abbey in centuries gone by.

But before any new tree saplings can be planted, there’s a mammoth task ahead: clearing the long tract of land of ivy, brambles and fallen branches.

So we got to work!

With so many people, it was a hive of activity and a buzz of chatting as everyone worked alongside each other. Some used loppers and shears to cut through the green carpet of ivy and bramble tendrils, pulling and scooping everything up and ferrying it to one side to gently rot away. Some dug out bramble roots to try to curb their re-invasion plans, and others coordinated their weight-lifting efforts to lift move large fallen branches out of the way.

It was impressive to see just how much ground was cleared before we headed to the Chestnuts kiosk for coffees in the sunshine. ☕️

These sessions are a wonderful way to spend time outdoors, meet new people from FOLAW, catch up with familiar faces and be part of a initiative that’s helping restore an area of the ancient woodland to a more traditional form of management.

We’ll be back next month to keep the project growing! 🌱

It's not often that GoodGym is asked to go out and look for fairies, but there's a first for everything!

Discover Welling had invited us to test their augmented virtual reality trails, created using a new app called Love Exploring.

As an 'anytime task' GoodGymers could do it as and when they wanted, before the deadline.

Kam was the first to give it a go, finding a few virtual reality tree fairies 🧚‍♀️, then giving feedback to Discover Welling via an online form.

The rest of us decided to meet up and try the trails together. Between us we found not only VR tree fairies, but various VR bugs too, including a giant - and rather scary - ladybird 🐞.

We loved the concept but the Love Exploring app had quite a few bugs of its own that need to be ironed out so that Discover Welling's creativity can shine though.