This morning I met up with GoodGym superstar, Patrick for a mission for Ms J in Newham.

This mission marks Patrick's 499th good deed for GoodGym (or ID to the lay Roman), meaning that his next good deed (scheduled for tomorrow) will make him the 4th ever GoodGymmer to reach 500 good deeds. It will also give him a very regal badge for his profile 👑 Awesome sauce. This run report will consequently be even longer than normal (I tend to be as extra as my parentheses when celebrating), but I'll give a heads-up in case you want to skip that section (I'm cool like that 😎)

Ms J contacted GoodGym as she hasn't been able to use her garden for a while and it was getting her down. She asked if just a few runners could come by and spend a little time on helping her gain access to it again. Patrick and I volunteered to help out! 😄

After saying hello to Ms J, we were shown through to the back garden to start work. Unusually, a lot of the brambles had already been cut, so our primary task today was to bag them up. I don't think I've ever had a mission that was purely as clean-up crew, but it gave us a good opportunity to have a decent chat as we worked, discussing various volunteer work and concepts like kindness in more detail.

So, here's the threatened celebratory ruminations. Skip ahead to the penultimate paragraph if you just want to read about how - spoiler alert - we said goodbye and ate some food 👍

In the run up to this mission/Patrick's imminent milestone, I've been thinking a lot about what marking deeds really means (a lot of which Patrick and I have chatted about over our last few missions together). For me, it's not just that a lot of good has been done that otherwise wouldn't have, but also that it's brought me closer to my local community as a result by helping to create a wealth of positive memories.

For example, while walking to a tube station in Tower Hamlets yesterday, I suddenly remembered a gardening mission I'd done last November in a neighbouring street (see here). I instantly remembered the task, the beneficiary, the fun I'd had with the other GoodGymmers during the task and a subsequent trip to a local café (including cake!). I expect I'll experience this happy memory every time I walk through this area. Effectively this means that just an hour or two of my time in Tower Hamlets 6 months ago has created at least four positive associations of that area that I'm still experiencing today. Each good deed that I've done in my year of GoodGym has formed simular small nodes of joy in a net spanning London, enmeshing me more strongly with my community and to the people within it.

So, when I think of Patrick's 499 good deeds (soon to be 500!), I'm in genuine awe at the sheer amount of positivity he must feel as he walks/runs around his area. Marking his milestone in this context isn't just a celebration of a number as a bare number, but rather a celebration of how widely his net has been cast and to reminisce about our own. Hopefully we'll all get the opportunity to gain roots to our community as deep as Patrick's, and we'll feel that connection both deepen and spread as we continue to contribute towards it 🍀😄

Anyhoo, back to the regular mission stuff, after 2 hours or so, Patrick and I finished clearing up the garden waste for Ms J (there's still lots more to bag up, but we ran out of black bags!) before making our goodbyes and going for lunch (& cake! 🍰).

It was great working with you Patrick! Have fun at your 500th good deed tomorrow! 😄