12 GoodGymers made a difference at the penultimate winter shelter of the season!

We were super fortunate to welcome three lovely new faces this week — a big welcome to Emma, Joe, and Jonny!

And they joined our friendly and fabulous group of Al, Charlie, Emily, Jackie, Jacqui, John, Paul, and Philippa!

Across 35 well-spent minutes, this troupe:

❤️ Assembled, positioned, and dressed 14 beds ready and waiting for the evening's guests

❤️ Set 22 spaces for a (delicious-smelling) volunteer-cooked dinner

❤️ Did everything while connecting and chatting aplenty :)

Thank you, everyone!

8 GoodGymers dug a pond, planted wildflowers, and made a REAL DIFFERENCE in Highgate!

Tucked and nestled away — behind houses and flats — is a special green space that's being re-purposed by the community in North London!

The Makepeace Community Garden on the Holly Lodge Estate is fast becoming a nature-bound oasis, and our wonderful group of GoodGymers are making a steady and regular difference :)

This lovely lot — Cecilia, Charlie, DaMarcus, Emily, Harvey (celebrating good deed 1001! CONGRATULATIONS!), Leora, and Luna (on their first good deed — welcome!) — caught a good-deeding wind yesterday morning!

Together they:

❤️ Dug, lined, and filled a delightful new pond!

❤️ Cut away an old weed membrane and planted oodles of wildflower seeds!

❤️ Positioned and installed hedgehog highways!

❤️ Mowed the lawn!

❤️ Planted fresh flowers and plants!

Thank you, everyone! Here's to next time!

P.S. Thank you to Cecilia and Emily for the many wonderful photos ❤️

For one last time as a Goodgym Area Activator, Simon met at the Arsenal Community Hub on Benwell Road to meet a huge group of keen runners, ready to help at Caledonian Park this evening. It was truly a joy to see familiar faces from years gone by (including awesome folks who attended Simon's first session 6.5 years ago at Mildmay Community Centre - I'll find the link!). Also thank you to Astra for attending your first Goodgym session- I heartly recommend attending more sessions soon- we have wonderful people in this community!

After a short (but necessary) warm up, we ran together up McKenzie Road and the Market Road slopes to the wonderful Caledonian Park Clocktower, to meet up with Miriam and Gail, our local task coordinators.

Our objective for the night (with our 26 volunteers on hand!!!), was to shovel piles of crushed rock fines into wheelbarrows, and then transport the loads over to the forest pathways on the West side of the park. This is a lovely wooded walk, that is often frequented by children, families and wheelchair users, and we want to keep this area as accessible as possible during the Springtime months.

We separated into multiple groups to cover the whole area. Team 1 shoveled the ground fines, Team 2 pushed the barrows across the park and Team 3 raked and flattened the ground around the amphitheatre (carefully avoiding the grassed surfaces and paved sections). We also had a 4th team on hand to transfer soil from builder's merchant bags, ready for Spring planting later this month.

This is a massive task, and our crew did an smashing job over the 45 minutes we had available. 26 hands, all working in tandem, really makes a huge difference. Well done!

As we closed up our evening, Area Activator Simon lead a running group back to the Emirates Stadium, while Emily and Louise lead a walking group to The Tollington Arms on Sobell Road- a great local pub that serves incredible Thai food. Together, we celebrated Area Activator Simon's final fixture as a leader, but not his final Goodgym adventure for sure!