Last night, 10 intrepid GoodGymers traded stories of the fantastic beasts we've discovered on our various travels across the globe, or what we've witnessed vicariously through others 😁 Answers ranged from cheetahs, tigers, a leopard family, a herd of reindeer, to riding elephants, running with bulls and almost being eaten by a crocodile. What a fascinating bunch we are!

We ran and walked the short uphill distance to Glyndon Community Centre where Andy awaited us with an indoor and an outdoor task so we split into two groups and got underway. The indoor group went down to the gym where we apologetically walked through the gym-goers (one recognising Ashton from a Lesnes Abbey task) and got stuck into tidying up the storage room. It was jam packed with a mixture of gym, church and kids equipment and so we spent a happy 20minutes shifting tyres, bikes, drums and having a general sweep up and we left it much clearer with lots more space for extra storage. Then we venutured outside to join the outdoor team who'd been weeding and having a tidy up of the car park and back garden. Sweeping featured in both tasks and earned the session it's name - a clean sweep indeed and lots of time left for chatting and hahem hill runs, aka a short run up the hill to the pub!

We were publicising This Girl Can's 'Let's Lift the Curfew Campaign' to raise awareness of night safety exercising concerns for women now that we've got dark evenings back for a while. Last year GoodGym launched some night safety training for men to support with making people feel safe when out exercising at night. You can read about it and complete the training here: https://www.goodgym.org/v3/stories/women-night-safety - and thanks to Aman for doing the training 😊

Good work everyone! On Saturday we have a group run to Mycenae Gardens: https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/maintenance-at-mycenae-gardens

Next Wednesday we're litter picking by the river: https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/woolwich-river-litter-pick-57deb427-7033-49e5-85fc-c8010e88f8ef

Until next time!

Rachel

Seven GoodGymers showed up in the cold, autumnal weather to join the usual gang, including Otis the dog, at the pet cemetery, and leaves was yet again the key word for the task.

With our usual dumping ground soon to be removed because it’s become a suspected rat residence, we bagged up mountains of leaves and wheeled them away on a trolley. The rats’ days of rent-free living are soon numbered.

The rain had the decency to wait until we left, and before we did, some of us harvested a little thyme, which is now presumably adding flavour to a nice and warm autumn dish while the rain pours down outside. 🍁🍂

There are easier ways to spend a sunny Thursday than enthusiastically attacking a giant hole with a mattock, but where's the fun in pondering about it? Alongside Iyabo, we helped Froglife.org transform a soil excavation into what is now, against all apparent odds, a functioning pond 🤞 Our role involved hammering some mattocks, clearing loose soil and such, sharp roots, stones, glass and anything else that clearly wasn't part of the frogs' long-term housing plan. We then helped lay the liner and protective rubber before throwing plants and carefully dripping enough water to make the whole project look deliberate. The day's engineering highlight came when the Froglife team used a hose and plastic poles to establish the pond's level. To spectators, this resembled a cross between civil engineering and summoning a water spirit. Yet somehow it worked, and the water remained in the pond. Science wins again. Meanwhile, the council hose had thoughtfully evolved a side quest by spraying water through a puncture (pre-existing condition so no cover for that), requiring emergency bag-rescue operations led and solved by the cupcake chef using a brick to plug the leak. Locals kept everyone fuelled with halloumi sandwiches, fried tomatoes and Jaffa Cakes among other yummies, while a reporter documented events and an artist attempted to capture the spectacle of dozens of adults repeatedly running in and out of a muddy crater like in Twister game and at the end everyone gradually turned into a human pretzels.

Thanks to Froglife, local volunteers, the council's mostly-functional hose, and plenty of hard graft, the day ended with a brand-new pond 🤞 In the end, we all mattock'd the walk and pond-er'd the impossible. 🐸💧

The whole mission onsite was carefully currated and managed by Harry.

P.S. the pond's name TBD and then TBC.

Another beautiful day at Charlton House & Gardens with residnet volunteers around to help and guide 🙄 The garden master, Jason, is also running around with his cup of coffee telling people what and how to do things here... with love and compassion, of course. While one GoodGymer was tidying up outside the house, another one was caught in dilemma of human selectiveness of what is weed soon discovering that bulbing and weeding on a cold morning requires more clothing. The result is: 🧹Fronts done 🌱 Weeds out 🧅Bulbs in

Two of us from GoodGym joined the regular CABAHS volunteers at Charlton House for some gardening today, helping to spread aromatic woodchips to create lovely pathways through the Glade.

We had so much fun! Even though the rain cut our session short to just an hour, we still managed to chip in and make a difference. Every little bit helps!

Another do good, get fit moment in the bag!

Great session, great company, and plenty of woodchip puns!

Last night, 12 of us gathered at Charlton House before running or walking our way to Charlton Manor Primary School for an evening of community spirit, paintbrushes and several spiders.

After a short run, some of the runners met up with our walking crew at the school, who were already armed with paintbrushes and getting stuck into freshening up the walls of the Mary Seacole classroom. No hanging about here!

Meanwhile, another small but mighty team tackled the lost property cupboard. We made some decent headway, sorting the mountain of mystery belongings into different crates and uncovering what felt like a thriving spider community along the way.

As they say, many hands make light work, and with everyone mucking in, we got plenty done.

Thank you everyone - we'll be back later in the year to give the outdoor equipment a fresh lick of paint, so watch this space!

Coming up

🌳 This weekend: Alongside our usual parkruns, we've got two lovely community missions:

🌱 Spreading woodchip on the woodland walk at Horn Park: https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/spreading-woodchip-on-the-woodland-walk-at-horn-park

🐾 Helping clean up at the Old Blue Cross Pet Cemetery: https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/clean-up-at-the-old-blue-cross-pet-cemetery-4b4c6df7-1980-40e8-ab7b-12ef394e39b9

🏫 Next Wednesday: We're heading to Woolwich for a run to help out at Glyndon Community Centre: https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/helping-at-glyndon-community-centre-fe52fe5b-49c1-4ed6-a817-a3de5d46ff9a

🌿 Next Saturday: Join us for a group run to Mycenae Gardens for some garden maintenance: https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/maintenance-at-mycenae-gardens

Until next time, wonderful people! 👋

Rachel