30 Awesome GoodGymers ran 4k to London Fields to build and create a dead head fence for Hackney parks then 18 of the crew celebrated a few GG anniversaries at the February social!

With the combination of storms Ciara and Dennis causing us a change of plan from Abney to London Fields. We still had a bumper turnout of 30 GGers.

Welcoming in our new runners and heading out on a couple of local loops to to get the body warm for the task ahead. With feeling coming into your fingers and toes we rounded the corner with 4k of running under the belt. We grabbed the tools and headed off into the park to load up on twigs and branches to make and repair the dead head fence through the woodland trail.

Barrows, rakes, barrows at the ready we searched the parks and loaded ourselves up with the masses of fallen mini branches and twigs which got the wrath of Ciara’s path!!

Working hard so that we stayed warm we got so much done in 50 minutes of epic action before the time and cold hit and with a huge regeneration to the parks dead hedge complete!!

We dashed back grabbed our stuff and headed for well earned Pizza with an 18 strong crew.

Thank you all for coming along!! Big shout out to Pamela for the pun, Chi and Liz fir the extra pictures and Toyin for arranging the pizza extravaganza!!

Have a great week

Joel

24 Hackney GoodGymers ran 6k to Abney Park Cemetery to shovel 2 tonnes of mulch to complete the final mulch path of the Winter!

Great job by a great team this evening!! Great to see the experienced GoodGymers going strong and guiding the new runners at the beginning of what will Be an awesome GG journey!!

3k our to Stokey to meet Park ranger Quentin at the magical Abney Park Cemetery! Grabbing the narrows, lights, rakes and shovels we headed off to the far corner of the park to find the last remaining unmulched path.

Trying to create the most lite pathway to allow for easy barrowing we kind of succeeded but it was still a bit of an adventure!

A rotating team of Shovellers kept the barrows rolling at a great pace and mulch pile going down fast!

Zipping around the loop tipping out the mulch and dancing the moguls back to the Shovellers on repeat! A great pace was set and we managed to pretty much complete the 2 tonne pile of mulch in 40 minutes of action!!

Our mulching efforts are a massive help to the park as it helps to enable all the park to remain accessible to more people throughout the year! This helps look after the historic grave site as well as curb antisocial behaviour!

As we completed the path and dropped off the tools with an excellent job complete Quinten announced that Abney has just found out that their application for a multimillion pound refurbishment of the historic building in Abney has been successful!! This is a massive boost to not only the park but the local community! Was amazing to hear the our work going to Abney each month was a major contributor to the application helping to show high volumes and consistent volunteering as well as community engagement!!

Not only that but Jatin will be running the London Marathon in aid of Abney this year!! Let’s all help him along in his training and fundraising!!

See you next week for our visit to Hackney Parks!!

Enjoy

Joel

p.s Thanks Liz for the pictures!!