10 GoodGym Hackney flyers ran 6k to Abney Park Cemetery and cleared 150 metres of concrete pathway to allow easy and safe access all year round to the far end of the park.

A balmy evening in Hackney brought alone a highly skilled group for the Group Run Party!!

Welcoming Tyler for her maiden run in GG colours!!

Setting off weaving our way3k to Stoke Newington and the very lush Abney Park Cemetery, steeped in history and part of the magnificent 7 London cemeteries it is amazing to partner with Hackney Parks to keep this enchanting park fit for use to enable a wide variety of uses for the park.

Heading off armed with brooms and shovels to the far corner of the park to clear the last concrete path of the year. By keeping the path clear it allows safe and frequent use of the path to encourage people to use this amazing green space.
Without it getting cleared each summer the few concrete paths get built up with debris and cause the paths to be unsafe and difficult to use.

So we swept away a long line of fallen debris, shovelling it up and letting it decompose in the undergrowth rather than build up on the pathway.

45 minutes of hard work must have turned our blood sweeter and Dharmesh was like a mosquito attraction (which was a very selfless act for everyone else!!). So we buzzed out with 150 metres of pathway cleared.

Fortunately/unfortunately were were trapped into the park with a dress rehearsal of Wind in the Willows so we got to see Ratty do his stuff for an upcoming performance!

Leaving a bit late we powered back to base with a strong running effort to round off a successful evening!!

See you next week!!

Joel

21 Hackney GoodGymers ran 6k to Abney Park Cemetery to clear debris from 100 metres of concrete pathway. To make sure the park continues to be super accessible for its users.

Great to have you all along for the session this evening! Great job to the injury crew for still showing up and dominating the task even when the body is not at 💯.

Top work from our first timers! And George on her first run as an official member!!

Bakehouse to Abney lead speedily by navigation expert Amy and super backmarker Ros.

Arriving in good time we got straight to work fully tooled up. Brilliant sweeping combined with accurate shovelling got as going in the right direction from the off and we made excellent time and progress. The debris and mud was pretty thick in places so we hard a fair bit to shift.

40 minutes of solid effort with a mini mass sweep at the end to finish off completed the task for the evening.

Dropping the tools off before making up some time with a fast run back to base to round off a fun, productive and energetic evening!!

Next week we are heading to Ion Square Gardens to complete our painting task. Probably best to wear your older kit if possible! There will also be a walking group heading down from the Bakehouse if you fancy a stroll over run!

See you there!

Joel

15 Hackney GoodGym ran 6k to Abney Park cemetery to daisy chain lift and carry the cut up sections of 2 fallen trees.

Phil leading the charge on the way to Abney smashing out some Pre Hackney half strong running in prep for Sunday’s 21.1k tour around Hackney.

Meeting Quentin the park keeper of Abney who had a heavy job for us! Going deep into the park we were moving a huge pile of wood! After 2 trees had fallen in the storms there was a huge pile of cut up wood which needed a new home in part to make the park look tidier while becoming a home for the Parks diverse range of invertebrates and also to try to dismantle the prime cruising location the pile of wood had created.

We moved over a thousand pieces of wood in slick motion, some big, some small pieces of wood but all impossible to workout how heavy they were from appearance.

A great task to get a load of physical work done and being able to be super social while doing it!

45 minutes zipped by in a blink of an eye and we had shifted all the wood needed into new areas for the parks invertebrates to make their homes!

A quick pic and we were off dropping off runners on the way back to base!

Thanks for coming along for one of my favourite GG tasks we have done.

All the luck and positive vibes for everyone doing Hackney half/5k on the weekend!! If you are not running hope you are able to sample some of the atmosphere by cheering on the masses (and GG runners a bit louder) and they run by!

Next week we are going to Ion Square to get painting!! then Hackney Half celebrations at Tad post run!! Hope to see you there.

Joel

Seven GoodGymers met on a drizzly Saturday morning to help local gem Abney Park Cemetery set up for their spring fundraiser.

Abney Park Trust run an annual Spring Fayre, with lots of stalls, food outlets and activities for kids. The Abney team had lots to get ready before the big day, so having GoodGym along to help set up the gazebos meant they could get on with the main tasks

The group arrived to find 12 gazebos laid out for them, and quickly became experts at setting them up!

By the time the showers started, luckily we'd already got one gazebo up, which we sheltered under while the team at Abney kindly ran round dispensing ponchos!

After about an hour, all 12 gazebos were popped-up, pegged-down and had tables set up, ready for the stall holders to come in for the Spring Fayre.

Shout out to Alex for joining us for his first ever GoodGym session, and to Alberto for bringing a team of additional helpers!

The Abney Spring Fayre was a great day out - thanks everyone for your help!

8 Hackney GoodGymers ran 6.5k to Wick Community Garden to help with a load of jobs on the brilliant community garden.

A compact group this evening with everyone on excellent running form allowed us to power our way River side to get stuck into some vital jobs in the Hackney Wick community garden. Plus some investigating into some of the new sections of the Hackney Half.

First job and toughest was to carry 2 very full builders bags filled with multichannel from the main garden 200 metres down to the new garden. With a bit of leakage and lot of effort we managed it in no time.

Then splitting into groups we had 3 growing beds to dig over mixing mulch and leafs into the soil so that the flowers and veg have the most fertile soil in which to grow.

The heavy and wet job was going water collecting from the river and filling all the 8 water butts up around the garden as well as watering all the flowers, fruit and veg.

With lots complete in 45 minutes of gardening action we munched our biscuit rewards before taking the pretty Victoria park route back to base!!

Thanks for coming along, see you next week for our visit to Abney Park!!

Don’t forget our community missions this weekend helping to set up and clear away the Abney Park fundraiser!!

Joel