GoodGym x Earth Hour - Britain's POT Talent

We were two-tasking it again this evening, and really putting the ‘earth’ into Earth Hour on both our tasks.

A secondary SOS task to Cranbrook Community Food Garden

In an eleventh hour addition to our planned activity, task force member Becky J headed up a splinter group of four to one of our longest standing, favourite tasks, Cranbrook Community Food Garden. Writes Becky, “Just a mini detour en route to Cranbrook this evening, as fellow Task Force member Bryon challenged me to attempt navigating our route without assistance (always a challenge...). This added just one small loop to the run, but I'm all in favour of a little extra (accidental) mileage.

On arrival at the garden, we witnessed Storm Gareth had indeed left a trail of destruction in his wake, felling a tree and damaging fencing in the process. Bryon and Eimear set to work removing twigs from a boundary fence, while Tom and I began the tricky task of untangling climbing plants from a now broken trellis, before pulling down the arch.

Having successfully achieved this, (and, btw, saving a tree we feared may have to be pulled up in the process), we were then presented with a flat pack replacement arch (turns out flat pack instructions are easier in daylight, with a mug of strong coffee, than in a dark garden, deciphered under torchlight alone).

But Bryon and Eimear joined us and together we got the arch standing, just in time to pose for a couple of pics alongside our evening’s handiwork.”

Team Tower Hamlets to the rescue indeed.

Potting at Parkview

Meanwhile, I headed up the Parkview crew who were Glasshouse-bound to this most wonderful community hall on the Parkview Estate. Task owner Catherine met us with two tasks – potting bee-friendly plants and leafleting for the upcoming Spring Fayre - leaving no preparation stone unturned as she presented a proposed plant production line of such efficiency, the likes of which I’ve never seen before; ditto leafleting instructions (think hand drawn maps of the estate).

Two leaflet teams were dispatched onto the estate's many blocks, while the plant-potters, headed up by Luke, and initially Dave (who was then demoted to deputy by young Connie, who joined from the Parkview residents team to instruct on best plant-handling practice) grouped in two different areas of the hall.

It was a race to the finish, but by the time we left all 800 plants had been potted, and the area swept and scrubbed down. Wow.

Tempo run and tree pose

And so we headed to Victoria Park, led by Steve, for some fabulous speedwork headed up by both Tom and Steve, and finishing with a couple of resistance exercises.

And then it was back to our beautiful hotel base, where we were lucky enough to have Christina, a regular runner and qualified yoga teacher, lead us through some fabulous yoga stretches to finish.

Another totally neat night. More missions awesomely accomplished. More thoroughly relieved and appreciative task owners. Well. Done. You.

Monday shout-out’s

A very big shout out to tonight's first time runners, Ridwan, Anais and Eirini – thanks for making such a huge contribution on your first run, and we hope to see you really soon.

And thank you to Becky, for enabling the second task to happen, and for kind of saving the day and for taking some great pics, and writing the report.

Now, don’t forget, we’re doing it all again on Saturday when task force member Bryon leads up a brand new gardening task in E3 – yes, we’re putting the ‘earth’ back into Earth Hour for the second time this week. More details and sign up are here.

Have a brilliant week, won't you all, and hope to see you very soon.