It was great to put up Old Spike Peckham and welcome back Sophie who has been in Australia for the past few months. It was also good to see Lucy who hadn't been around these past few weeks. As Maria, Isaac, Rosalind, Daryl, Paulin came in, they discussed about the precious six inches of top soil that is the life blood of humanity. Some deep stuff and quite fitting as our ice breaker snap poll had to do with Earth Day: if you had to go with one policy: clean the ocean of plastics, stop deforestation or embrace cleaner and sustainable energy, which one would you go for? As it hit 18:45, Sam got on with his usual speech and asked for his ice breaker question, he asked which charity people have run or would run for if they did the London Marathon?

In the snap-poll, most want to embrace cleaner and sustainable energy, a couple said clean the ocean and no one went for deforestation. For the marathon question, we had a variety of charities including GoodGym.

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Bath time

Opting for a warm up in the alleyway due to the route taking us out that way, Sam had to do a quick warm-up as the ice-breaker question took too long. With Maria backmarking, off the group went through the backstreets of Peckham/East Dulwich to arrive at East Dulwich station, through the park and the backroute to get to Sunray Avenue near North Dulwich. They had to push and run up the hill for the final part to make it to Denmark Hill Community Garden. Here they met Rose, her partner, Richard just arrived and shortly afterwards so too did Jo and Phil. After a quick introduction, Rose outlined the two main tasks. Firstly, to move three bathtubs out of the way to make space and room for the second task. The second task was to dig a trench a spade deep and a forearm wide.

We split into teams with the girls diving into moving the bath tubs as a group. Paulin, Sophie, Lucy and Rosalind took on the first bath tub finding it somewhat easier than it looked as these bathtubs were filled with soil. The others soon followed to move tub two and three, but Louise, Maria and Jo picked up the dutch hoe and shovels to make a start on the trench. With limited tools, each person took it in turn to help out dig this trench as we soon realised it would be harder than we thought as we couldn't dig deeper than 20 centimetres before encounting gravel and brick. We realised with 10 minutes left that we could only prepare as much as we could and opted to come back next Wednesday - splitting the group with one half going to Thorlands Gardens in Camberwell and the other coming back here.

All was not lost as we had the first HIIT session with Louise and Jo being the only ones joining in and right at the end, we were treated to fresh mint tea, which was a blessing as the night took a cold turn after such a promising sunny start.

After sipping down a warm cuppa, we ran down the hill down to Old Spike in no time and made it back for 20:30.

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Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came out last night! Rose was really pleased that we made a start and happy that we can come back next Wednesday to finish the job. Thank you to Maria and Paulin for backmarking.

Quick work setting up SE5 stall on a sunny April morning 🤙🏼🤙🏼

On International Day of Pink & National Siblings Day, 16 GoodGymers came out in full force to help out Alan and Jaki at Cossall Estate and Kirkwood Nature Reserve with litter picking and weeding.

Sam arrived in time to open Old Spike to Maria as Lindy, Rosalind, Daryl, Gemma, James, Andrada, Adrian and Nathan trickled in. We caught up on weekend trips away and activities that we did. As soon as it hit 18:45, Sam got on with his usual speech, but posted a photo on the WhatsApp group....siblings or dating: snap poll. As everyone introduced themselves and answer the ice-breaker of first thing that they think of that's pink, they also had to say if the photo shown was a photo of siblings or two people dating.

In the snap-poll, most thought they were dating, but in fact they were siblings. Top of the list for "pink" word association was "Pink" the artist then came Barbie and then piggies...oink!

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A getaway bag, a hoover and mixed pairs of high heels

Since the evenings are getting lighter, Sam opted to do the warm-up on the Green. Afterwards with Paulin backmarking, off the group went down towards Peckham Rye Park as we needed to do a loop around to ensure we covered at least 2.5k. We ran into Nunhead and down Gordon Road to reach Cossall Estate to meet Alan, Jaki, Anna, Sander and eventually, Folarin and Jessie. Here Jaki explained that she needed 3-4 people to stay in the courtyard to tidy it up, but the rest could head to Kirkwood Nature Reserve as we split half the group to weed the nettles and half the group to litter pick:

• Emma, Jessie, Nathan and Paulin stayed behind to tidy up the courtyard.
• Anna, James, Rosalind and Sam stayed around the gates of the Nature Reserve to weed the nettles and unwanted plants to beautify the entrance.
• The rest paired up with one holding a bing liner and the other using the litter picker to pick up litter: Maria and Adrian paired up, Gemma and Folarin, Andrada and Lindy and finally, Daryl and Sander as they combed the Nature Reserve finding hidden treasures.

As the night started to draw in and as we reach 19:55, those in the Nature Reserve gathered outside the gates to take a photo of their haul - 8 bags - including 5 bags of litter (including a hoover, shoes and baby/kids lunch boxes...) and 3 bags full of nettles and weeds. We threw them away and met up with the other group back in the courtyard for a final group photo and to say our goodbyes to Alan and Jaki.

It was only a 1k run back to Old Spike Peckham. After a quick stretch on the green, a few of us opted in for an impromptu social at The White Horse.

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Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came out last night! Alan and Jaki (plus Oscar) were very pleased with what we got done in 45 minutes and can't wait to have us back in June. Thank you to Paulin for backmarking both ways.