This evening started at Tap Tavern, as always, but with an added flourish as Area Activator Liz donned the wings to celebrate 100 GoodGym tasks! A blustery run along the riverside threatened to get the wings actually flying but the group arrived intact at Russell School, ready for action!

Following a very productive Sunday Community Mission at Russell School to carry out the first part of the task, tonight we laid the woodchip down and trampled it into position. With so many hands on deck, and leftover chippings, we were able to re-chip the nursery play area, tidy up the toys, remove some troublesome rubble and STILL find a little time to play on the climbing frames!

A last run back to the Tap completed the task, followed by celebratory drinks in the pub and a little look at the lovely team card made for Liz 😍😍😍

Less a task and more an opportunity to regress and play with a giant train set, we enjoyed constructing a very sophisticated track full of corners, junctions, bridges, and tunnels. Expert Richard was on hand to help when our creativity and ambitions were beyond the laws of physics, and we hope to be as fast as him at assembling the track after a few more sessions.

Mr K was out to lunch today but had left the list and money with his cleaner so the shopping mission was completed successfully.

Finally! The first sunny Saturday morning task at Ham Lands!

A large group including 8 GG members and other volunteers gathered for our monthly mission maintaining the natural habitats of the Ham Lands, and the difference of a sunny day was evident in the smiles and energy of everyone present as we set about our task for the morning.

This session saw us tackling some large areas of brambles. Armed with loppers, shears and secateurs we split into groups and got to work.

The time whizzed by as we made rapid progress, taming the wild bramble patches and creating a huge pile of cuttings as we went. It was a very satisfying mission, made all the more enjoyable by coffees and snacks at the Swiss bakery afterwards!

Next session at Ham Lands will be on 11th May: keep an eye out for the listing and sign up!

Whether it was April showers, the solar eclipse or the dark clouds of Storm Katherine , it was a very dark and wet 'Second Monday of the month Group Run' session in April to Buccleuch Gardens in Richmond. A lively 2km there before the skies broke and a more direct route back when we were soggy!

Steph's celebratory 250 good deeds cape (achieved in under a year!), doubled as a poncho as he headed out into the rain and battled through the dense shrubbery at the back of the Gardens to collect litter. In the gloomy light, black clad and caped, our CCL superhero looked like he might have stepped from a Batman film or a Gothic novel. Except for the big smile, the running socks and the sod-the-rain attitude, which were pure GoodGym. Congratulations on an amazing achievement.

More brave souls (including Vix,on her first mission, showing she’s got the same chutzpah and can-do attitude) braved the rain to help with litter picking, bagging huge quantities of green waste, relocating daffodils and building a second (and brilliantly constructed) twig and branch barricade.

Others worked in the Arcade to strengthen the legs of our willow-withy plant supports, making them ready to support our summer annuals.

Because of the weird gloom, the rain and the time running 🏃🏽‍♂️ away, we didn’t manage to do any planting or seed-sewing before heading back to the Tap Tavern for our monthly social and a chance to dry off!

If you like gardening or want to help out, look out for some extra GG Richmond Buccleuch Gardens Community Missions over next couple of weeks or sign up for our next second Monday Group Run on 13 May.

Not a task for the faint-hearted this evening as we headed to Lynde House Care Home to brush the windows free of any cobwebs and spider nest sacs, ready for lots of visitors over the Easter break!

We met at Tap Tavern ready for action with both a running group and walking group setting off over the river to the home. Feather dusters and brooms were the tools for the night, as well as some good creeping shoes for treading lightly around the residents' windows as they settled in their rooms! We worked around the whole of the outside of the building, finding some very active spider spots on the way before a suitably silly photoshoot with the feather dusters!

A final run and walk back to the Tap Tavern completed the group run for the week with a Taskforce meeting straight after to catch up on some fun ideas for GoodGym Richmond this summer and beyond!