Last night 9 Good Gymers ran over 6.5km to help Sue at St Augustine's Church improve the soil in the church flower beds with composted leaves and grass.

Although it started off as a chilly night, a quick warm up and we were all feeling toasty and set off at a gentle pace down to South Croydon. We arrived at the church to find three runners already there and making a great start on the task. Sue asked us to clear the grass away from a new bed the church is creating and move the turf into some patchy areas of the lawn. It was an atmospheric evening as we arrived in mist and worked to the music of the choir practice. Ingrid also set to work cutting away the grass to make a larger circle of earth around one of the new trees which both makes it easier to cut the grass and to water the roots. We helped move a large bag of compost Sue had made from leaves and grass into smaller bags and carried them round to the new bed ready to make a lovely border.

It was a lot of work all done very quickly and the gardens will look great for it. Join us next week when we will be Keeping Croydon Beautiful.

Last night 3 members of Goodgym Croydon ran to Parkhill where we met with Co chair of volunteers Josi Kiss to design and make the Goodgym Croydon Peace Pole (hence the running feet and busy bees as we are so busy helping community groups in Croydon).

What is a Peace Pole? A Peace Pole is an internationally-recognized symbol of the hopes and dreams of humanity, standing vigil in silent prayer for peace on earth. Each Peace Pole bears a message of peace. There are estimated over 250,000 Peace Poles in every country in the world dedicated as monuments to peace.

The Friends of Park Hill Park plan to have 12 Peace Poles erected in the Walled Garden project with different community groups including Mencap, Faiths Together in Croydon and GoodGym Croydon

What will our message be on the Peace Pole? Below are some of the suggestions we have received from our members, we have not decided which to go with so you still have a chance to put forward your suggestion or vote on one of the below. I’m happy to be sent a text, email or receive a call with ideas, suggestions or a vote.

• Community, resilience, trust

• kindness, unity, harmony

• Encourage, Dream, Inspire, Hope, Sparkle

• Patience, Generosity, Nurture, Community, Growth

• Go vegan now

Myself, Ingrid and Stephanie do not consider ourselves gifted with the artistic skills to draw but with the help of Josi who made up for our lack of talent and giving us expert advice on how to draw some of the things on the pole we were able to make a decent start on our pole.

Using the below are you able to reproduce some of our creation? If not keep an eye out for our next session (date to be confirmed) with Josi where you can receive first hand tutoring on mastering the arts.

Figure 8 = Running Feet

Clock face = Flower

Teardrop = Bumble Bee

We were a small but mighty group last night who had a wonderful time laughing and chatting away as we worked alongside Josi. Soon it was time for us to down our tools and head off. We said our farewells to Josi and set off back to Solutions.

Will you be joining us next on our next adventure? Sign up here.

Last night we welcomed Lynda, Kate and Stephanie to their first outing with Goodgym Croydon. For Lynda and Kate this was their first ever task with Goodgym. Stephanie was returning to the Goodgym fold having been a member of GoodGym King's College having graduated and relocated to Croydon she decided to rekindle her love of Goodym.

Our task for the night was a visit to Croydon Refugee Centre to help arrange and sort their donation of clothes for their clients.

Ivanka as always was ever so happy to see us, when we arrived at the task she was very proud to announce to the new minister that her little helpers had arrived. The church has recently changed minister and this was his first time seeing the red brigade in action.

Before the CRC had an entire hall to themselves but following some changes the hall is being shared with other community groups so they have to pack away their stock once their clients leaves to prepare the hall for the next users. Ivanka explained that it was a very busy day and at the end of the day her volunteers were exhausted and did not get a chance to check and pack away the clothes rails.

Our task on the night involved going around the room checking the clothes rails for empty hangers, counting and sorting them into categories (skirts, trousers, shirts hangers) to get an idea of the amount of how many items of clothing they provided to their clients. We counted 273 empty hangers but Ivanka also informed us that some families takes the clothes as well as hangers. Regardless of the true total whether 273 or 350, it is good to know that these families have somewhere to turn to for essential items of clothing especially in a time where the weather is colder and current hike in gas/electricity prices for households.

There was also 18 bags of clothes to be sorted and put on the clothing rails which was done by Stephanie, Kate, Lynda, Paul and Ros. Once the clothes rails were refilled and stacked away in the storage room, myself and Ingrid joined the rest of the team to sort the clothes from the bags. Unfortunately time ran out on us so we were not able to label them and put them in the correct order but Ivanka was happy that we were able to empty the bags and hung the clothes on the rails.

We bid our good byes and headed back to Solutions for a few cool down stretches and talked about the other upcoming tasks.

Looking for a local 10K?

Why not sign up to the THE CROYDON 10K ROAD RACE SUNDAY, 23 OCTOBER 20229

We will also be listing some community missions for the race so if you are interested in taking part but not wanting to run and have time to assist with setting up, marshalling and taking down signs keep an eye out for the community mission. For all things Goodgym Croydon

Next week we'll be heading over to Valley Park to assist Unique Roots at the peppermint Centre sign up here.