For this week's issue of GoodGym... Brambles.

We assembled at the Bridge House, welcomed Henrietta to the crew and named ourselves and our favourite tube or train lines.

Then we set off to Albion Millenium Green, where we met Jorella from the friends group who had a prickly task for us.

Ramble in the bramble.

Lots of the lovely bluebells were getting shrouded by overgrown bramble bushes, so our job was to cut them back in a few different areas. Armed with secateurs, shears, saws and even a scythe(!) we got to work trimming and swiping until the areas looked much tidier.

Nice job & jog everyone 👌

It was International Women's Day on Friday, so we kicked off by highlighting our favourite females. From Rosa Parks to queen Jacinda to amazing family members, we demonstrated that the best, most caring, and morally correct people are always women.

Next we ran up the hill to CP Triangle and our regular task at the St Christopher's Hospice charity shop. Teresa is always super grateful for our help and ability to give the place a quick spritz and blitz.

Adam was sorting odd shoes and found some serious labels with a price to match.

Cat was steaming through a rack of creased clothes.

Louise, Molly and Stephen and Kelly were making sure all the garments were ordered nicely and facing the right way.

James was hoovering the whole shop and Kelsey was dusting the shoe racks.

Hannah was on pricing duty, Clare was cleaning the counter and I was mostly trying to figure out the name of the teapot from Beauty and the Beast (see pic). Spoiler: it's Mrs Potts 🙄

After a solid half hour we bid our farewells and made our way back to base with an obligatory wallsit en route.

Nice one team 🏃💥

St Christopher's Hospice provide amazing end of life care to people across South East London and tonight's task was all about helping them to raise money for their FUN WALK fundraiser.

We jogged around a bunch of local shops, pubs and even a cinema, looking for windows and noticeboards to put posters up to advertise the event.

A few kms in the bag and hopefully some awareness raised! Nice job gang ✌️

Double gloves were the way to go for our task with the welcoming Friends of Kelsey Park this morning! We got straight to work in snazzy orange vests yanking up lots of stinging nettles, making sure to remove their sometimes very stubborn roots and also avoiding the bulbs and flowers in the area. The hori-hori knives proved useful again, and we discussed some possible culinary uses for nettles (tea / soup?) before instead opting to leave them in a pile to be collected after all. Oh, and Dani made easy work of dismantling a wooden fence in one go. Thanks everyone!

What are you going to do with your bonus Leap Year day?! was the question posed at the 'Leap into Volunteering' fair in Bromley.

Luckily lots of people wandered through the door intrigued as to how they could use their time to benefit their local community.

Hannah, Laura, Rebecca and I got pretty adept at explaining GoodGym to new people by the end of the event and fingers crossed a few turn up to some GoodGym sessions 🤞😬

We also made some great connections with loads of local organisations that may want a hand from our crew. Laura was even surprised to see her uncle there who is a local scout leader!!!

A toad-ally awesome 11 of us met up last night for a jog and some good deeding.

We were joined for the first time by Tim and Adam - welcome! 🙌

After a naming and fave biscuit loop, we hit the road. Hannah and Molly took the shorter, direct route, whilst the rest of us opted for the longest hill ever.

We arrived to meet John who was fully prepared with tools.

The water tower base at Crystal Palace Museum is an amazing historic structure and the museum team are keen to clear it out of soil, weeds and rubble so that it can be safely accessed as part of visitors’ museum experiences.

We focussed on a couple of specific areas, aiming to reach down to the concrete and pipes below.

John found a massive toad, hence the pun! 🐸

10+ bucket-loads of soil sieved later, we called it a day and headed back down the hill for some stretches.

Great stuff everyone 🥳