Monday night and all the roads lead to ...The Purple Elephant Project. Runners, walkers and cyclists chased to sun through the streets of Richmond to meet Maggie at the the project. Task was planting bulbs and putting together some furniture. As the runners zoomed and reached the location early, Maggie welcomed them inside as said that we would focus on the furniture as it was darker than she anticipated outside for the bulb planting. As Goodgymers don't go undeafeated, we said we will get our head torches out when the full team has arrived to get the bulbs planted and have zero losses.

Four boxes were waiting for the Knights. The whole team was in place and we teamed up on unpacking and building the various furniture. Some of us felt strong and brought the older furniture down and out of the building. We had a whole symphony of sounds during the building of the furniture : screw-diculous sounds!! Instruction-page sighting due to missing parts or was it with the other team? Allen-key scraping, clanking screws and wood tapping.

Some parts took longer to build, but then some Goodgymers disappeared outside with their head torches to plant the bulbs that Maggie had for us. Mission accomplished in the dark like proper ninjas.

The brave furniture knights conquered the Flat Box Kingdom .

As the long summer of 2026 keeps on going, 8 GoodGymers gathered (after some location clarifications) at the adventure playground in Marble Hill Park for our Saturday morning mission. Brand new to the group was Andrew (Andy), while Khin was joining for the second time after Monday's long run to the mission at INS.

We were welcomed by task owner Steph (and her daughter Sophie) who explained the jobs needing to be done - weeding, litter picking, woodchip - and sand-raking and clearing up the mud kitchen.

We divvied up the tasks and got going, enjoying the unexpected warmth and sunshine for the time of year. Little Sophie kept up our spirits with her regular distribution of fruits including raspberries and blackberries.

Before long we had completed our various jobs and gathered for a group photo before heading off to enjoy a coffee.

What a bustling busy evening at INS for this week's group run! Starting with a longer run than usual, welcoming Khin for the first time as we ran through Twickenham up to the green. On arrival the group had already got going and had taken down a gazebo and almost finished sanding the handrails that needed painting. Donning aprons and gloves, we set to work with a second coat of paint on the ones we did last time, a first coat on the back area and some teamwork holding lights! That left three of us with spare hands so we set about wiping down windowsills, skirting, windows and skylights, getting rid of dead spiders, cobwebs and decorating dust from the gym! It was an amazing example of how much can happen in one session with nine sets of industrious hands at work!