Another beautiful early summer's evening, another Monday task in a special community space! Tonight 12 of us met up to run to Christchurch school where we had a big job to tackle the overgrown brambles that are threatening to take over the pupils' secret garden.

We enjoyed a downhill run to the school, where, after retrieving the keys, we let ourselves in to the space. It's a special area which is well hidden, and has been an amazing resource for the primary school children who have learned about the environment, how to grow and then cook and eat the fruit and veg they grow.

Unfortunately the plants have made a bid to take over, so we quickly donned gloves, selected our tools of choice, and waged war. The massive bramble was carefully clipped and bagged, the sticky weeds was shown no mercy, and the weeds around the site were plucked and composted.

After a good stint we headed over to the park nearby for some sprinting games. Despite some very sketchy descriptions of the drills from me, we tested our reactions and turn of speed with some impressive results! After a coin toss based chasing game, we moved on to chase the hare, where Sophie showed some brilliant form as the hare and Dylan and the rest of the group displayed steely determination to chase her down! All that was left was a brief core challenge and run back to base.

Great effort and results tonight, well done everybody. Next week Step will be leading a community mission instead of our usual group run. You can choose to meet her at the BAC as usual to run to our task at the GoodGym garden, or meet the group directly at the task. the choice is yours, but you can sign up and find all the details here] (https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/planting-and-weeding).

We packed so much into such a short amount of time that I'm not sure how we're still standing today! Don't believe me? Read on for a run down on our brilliant Monday night at GoodGym Wandsworth...

First we met and welcomed Chris to his very first session - brilliant to have you join us Chris, and we definitely appreciate your green-fingered expertise!

We said a huge HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Jordan, who got given the task of choosing the weekly question after our warm up. As it was Earth Day he went for a plant based one, and we all chose our favourite flower.

Then we had our run up to Paradise Cooperative garden, a beautiful space for local people to grow and for educational programs for children. We divided up into two teams - one to tackle the turning of the compost, and one to saw up wood into pieces that could be used on the bonfire.

There is zero wastage at Paradise, so the wood was going to be used for community bonfires and the compost, which was rich with all sorts of beasties, was destined to be spread on the flower and veg beds.

Jobs done, we then popped over to the common to take on the three minute plank challenge, before racing to a local restaurant to make our reservation for 2 for 1 burgers!

To finish off a very busy but very joyful night we were treated to the most magnificent three layer cake with incredibly special icing courtesy of super baker Catherine, and some squidgely fabulous brownies from Sophie who had also tracked down the burger deal and booked for us. Team work truly does make the dream work!

Next week we're back at Doddington roof garden followed by our monthly pub quiz. See you there. And another very happy birthday to Jordan (and Paul and Catherine for recent celebrations too!).

A change to our normal group run day, the threat of pouring rain, and a huge challenge to shift hundreds of bags of compost up a big flight of stairs did not put off a small but hardy group of GoodGymers last night.

Easter Monday meant that we made the decision to change our usual Monday run to Tuesday, which did leave us feeling a little discombobulated, but we had been asked by Doddington garden to help with a huge job and we did not want to disappoint! They have been donated hundreds of bags of compost by the council, but the volunteers who manage the garden are having trouble getting it all up to the roof garden.

So after a warm up, during which we discussed footie teams (the only true fan was Dylan, who supports enough teams for the all of us!), we ran down in the increasing rain to the community garden.

The challenge was immediately evident - four huge pallets containing about 60 bags of either 25 litre or 50 litres of compost sat waiting for us. Wasting no time we got stuck in, each taking a section of the stairs. There was no doubt it was hard going, and proved to be an excellent workout for both arms and legs. After 45 minutes of very hard work, we called it a night, and covered in mud and soaked through we headed back to base.

An amazing job, well done everybody! Next week we're going to be helping out at Waste not Want Not, hope to see you then.

We also have loads of community missions coming up, from litter picking to emptying raised beds back at Doddington, so keep an eye out for one you fancy!

Eleven GoodGymers, two tasks, 52 playing cards and one great Monday evening - that was last night in numbers!

It was great to see some familiar faces back (even if it's only briefly - we'll miss you Eva!) and to welcome new ones. Great to have you join us James, especially as you bring with you gardening expertise!

After some warm ups we went round the group revealing what star sign we were, and if we believed in what that was meant to say about us. There were some definite skeptics, a couple of believers, and the majority were unsure either way. With stars in our eyes we set off for our tasks for the evening.

The Omnibus theatre is a charitable organsation that aims to the arts to everybody. They receive no central government funding, so we're happy to come along and support them where we can. Last night we had the choice of washing down the many (many) windows, or working in the garden, a space we have custodianship of with the plan of growing crops to donate.

While most of the group opted for the garden and got cracking digging over the soil ahead of the mulch delivery we are getting from the council this week, Jordan, Eva, Beth and Sophie began preparing to clean the windows. Unfortunately a few issues beyond our control, including a sick DM, meant that we weren't overburdened with equipment. However, there was plenty of GG spirit to go around and some makeshift cleaning stuff meant that the windows were given a bit of love. Just don't mention what had made a home under one of the buckets in the courtyard!

Before too long the garden had been thoroughly dug over, the weeds removed, the fig tree admired, the future of the peas debated, and everything was looking much better. Great job everybody.

All that was left was our fitness session, which this week involved two teams competing for who could win the most cards. After several minutes of hard fought competition, the result couldn't have been tighter, in a nail-biting 17 v 18 finish! What an effort from everybody.

Next week I'll be away, so we'll be replacing the group run with a community mission at an Age UK centre, which will be lead by the brilliant Catherine. Feel free to run together as a group from the BAC as normal, or meet at the task directly. You can find all the details right here. Have a great week everybody!