A whopping turnout of 17 GoodGymmers made a huge difference to the grounds that wrap around St Peter's Church.

One main aim of the session was clearing all sorts of unwanted stuff out of the gardens and filling up the bins outside, including a heap of old furniture and scrap metal, stray traffic cones, old plant pots and fallen leaves. Another task was scooping mulch out of a very large container and tipping it onto the flower beds and there was even time and enough helping hands for some litter picking.

A warm welcome to the three new faces, Ming, Lake and You who all made their GG debuts on this sunny evening. Afterwards a few people headed to the Royal Oak pub in Columbia Road for a well deserved drink. 🍺

Returning to the canal club, this time we concentrated on weeding the winding paths between the plant beds, alongside the canal. Others chopped and sawed wood. It was a crowded space for the lucky 13 of us, but we spread ourselves into twos and threes and set to work, while catching up with each others’ activities since last we met

Our reward, supplied by lovely task owner Sally, were weather-appropriate home-made lollipops, with even a choice of flavours! So we continued the socialising while exciting our taste buds, then after most people had dispersed, four of us decided that the night was still young, and headed for The Hare in Cambridge Heath Road

The Canal Club, however, is currently proposed as a site for development. It was built for residents of the Wellington Estate and its activities include toddler storytelling, baby dance classes, Tai Chi, knitting and sewing, outdoor pizza making, breakdancing, line dancing, karaoke social evenings, a science homework club, singing, refugee activities, a food bank, arts and crafts, and Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings. There is a ball court and a children’s playground

This is not an empty site! If you want the council to remove the site from its accelerated housing scheme, sign the petition at https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/save-our-space-e2-save-the-canal-club

There have been a flurry of GoodGym community missions at St Matthew's over the last few months. Maintenance of the ample garden space surrounding the classically designed 18th Century church has driven a swell of community-minded spirit.

A genteel counterpoint to the more sinister sense of dread that may have swirled around these parts in the days of its two most famous former parishioners, Ronnie and Reggie Cray. The twin kings of London's criminal underworld were both commemorated with funerals held here 30 years ago.

With all that well in the past now, Monday gone saw the GoodGym firm return to keep up the momentum of kindness and goodwill, on what was a lovely, warm mid-summer evening. Slightly hazy skies, there was also a swift breeze swaying and creaking through the trees, a little askew from the GoodGym bonhomie in the air.

Whatever spirit was blowing about, walking, running and rolling into task came each member of the crew, most of the team members arriving well ahead of time. Some of the clan sneaking in a little after, excuses and alibis provided, naturally enough, under intense interrogation, with nervous smiles and the odd chuckle.

The initial friendly greetings quickly bubbled over into a lively hubbub of upbeat camaraderie. On the brink of a full-scale turf war, @John, as session lead, stepped up to shush the growing cacophony. Thus formal proceedings began with a calming round of introductions, before running through the carefully laid blueprints for this community heist. There was a reason we were all there. There was a job to be done.

As a marker of their usual thorough preparation, Linda and the St Matthew's family, our mission bosses, had identified four operations where muscle was needed. Furthermore, for our reassurance and comfort, they provided the means to honour three sensible security basics to avoid leaving prints: wear gloves, use tools and stay hydrated. The fulfilment of the latter with ice-cold squash and chocolate rice cakes at the back of the church exceeded hydration to bring us back around replete with sugar-fuelled stamina, after all our exertions.

Whilst busy digesting all the instructions and precautions, local heavy, @Lobo, wheeled his way to join us, dressed in unorthodox but eye-catching pink, lending his support to consolidate our protection racket; i.e. helping everybody find the task, despite our straying from the official meeting point. Rendezvous check noted for our future jobs. Perhaps a tall pink flag is needed?

Altogether, the team converged on the business of the evening, choosing tasks in a seemingly chaotic fashion while somehow remaining focused throughout. We dispersed thus, rather randomly, across the varied church surroundings, a site made up of paving and then lawns, interspersed with paths and a scattering of benches. A territory increasingly familiar to our regular enforcers. One or two seem to know it like the back of their hand.

Now to task: by far the most popular activity was the ongoing battle with the bindweed, a plant pest well-known in this corner of Tower Hamlets, one that had engulfed the poor, innocent circular flowerbed in the area behind the church.

@Jo and @Ilana, seasoned in bindweed disposal from previous experience here and elsewhere across East London, untangled bindweed from the shrubs along the perimeter. @Chloe and @Frankie played a more central role in operations, fighting through to the centre of the flowerbed, cutting back bindweed from the plants in the middle. Frankie, terrific performance for a newcomer. We all hope to see more of you. @Sam and @Kareem stooped and scrambled in the between areas, intercepting knotted threads of the same pervasive vine.

@Ciarán provided bags of welcome enthusiasm for this challenge, along with the actual body bags needed to amass all the severed greenery discarded in crude piles about the immediate area. The bindweed, and any unforeseen collateral damage, needed bagging up and disposing of in an orderly fashion. And there's only really one GoodGymer for a clean-up job like that.

The second major activity was litter-picking, where the assorted items the team gathered up offered the usual insights into the life and crimes played out here. Remnants lazily left behind were the typical mix of mundane and extraordinary, both of which raised eyebrows amongst those who know.

@Chantal and @Nuunuu accumulated sackfuls of contraband cups and cans so efficiently they were asked by a dog walker: had they accidentally collected an expensive dog collar gone astray? Clearly not.

Equally tenacious, @Louise picked up detritus hither and thither, a half-eaten tray of takeaway food here and a small sports jacket there, one inscribed with the name of a highly feared local crew.

@Dan and @Darren collected debris left from the full range of suspicious human activity: eating (forks aplenty), smoking (groups of cigarette butts) and inhaling nitrous oxide gas (a large and heavy canister akin to something incendiary).

The third activity caught @Jack's attention. He dedicated the evening to scraping moss and weeds from between the paving stones, creating a much neater getaway route for visitors to stride or saunter around, however they prefer. Attention to this detail brings out the pride in those who cherish a place of such significance. Credit due for the hard graft that now looks, at a glance, like all is neat and tidy, and really rather well.

Bringing our mission's efforts to a close, current Capos @Lucinda and @Emma introduced us to @Nazifa, who is one of GoodGym's first cohort of Future Leaders. Nazifa will be joining the leadership team to help coordinate sessions over the coming months, thus igniting the next generation of GoodGymmers giving time and care to their local community. One to watch.

And another one amongst our number deserving of a special moment. For Lucinda, we joined our voices together, a bit like an evensong choir, but less tunefully, singing a sketchy but heartfelt rendition of happy birthday to celebrate thus dedicated and dynamic volunteer. Three cheers ring out still for our Lucinda!

FYI, the GoodGym Taskforce is for any volunteer who has attended ten missions and completed a short online training session: set up to do that bit of extra behind-the-scenes work to prepare, deliver and evaluate the GoodGym calendar of task activities we all sign up to each week. If that sounds like something for you, chat to any of the Tower Hamlets Taskforce (listed on each task listing on the website). We will happily give you the lowdown!

But, what of that fourth and final activity? Nettle removal. Overlooked or forgotten? Or maybe a little intimidating and foreboding. My thought, maybe just too tricky and prickly for a warm summer's evening. And yet, perhaps a fresher weekend mob might be better set to take the sting out of St Matthew's gardens...

Be it nettles or other gardening activities that spark your interest in this patch of Tower Hamlets, you can join GoodGym and friends on Saturday morning, where you can help stirring the spirit that started this Goodgym team's week: https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sign-up/let-s-grow-together

We will be with you. And, wherever you are, we will be watching.

Almost simultaneously, a surprisingly punctual crew of Chloe, Sam, Kareem, and myself converged on St. Margaret's Garden on Saturday morning, with Emma arriving shortly afterwards.

Task owner, Emily, was ready and waiting, armed with gloves, paint, and brushes. We were to give three benches and three sets of tables and chairs a fresh coat of paint ahead of a memorial event at the end of the month.. Splitting into groups of twos and threes and making the most of a welcome patch of shade, conversation inevitably turned to everyone's plans for where to watch the evening's football match as we made swift work of the first coat.

After an hour and a half, the first coat was complete. Another session is pencilled in for the end of July to add the finishing touches before the memorial takes place. See you for the second coat!

We convened at Shadwell station, sheltering from the afternoon heat, shortly joined by John, Darren, and first-timer Kelly (welcome Kelly!).

We headed south towards Shadwell Basin, dropping leaflets at Shadwell Gardens and various churches along the way. Highlights included a promising chat with a potential task owner at Glamis Adventure Playground, and a detour to the Outdoor Activity Centre where many locals were attempting to cool off in the water. Kareem joined us just in time for a well-earned hydration break at the historic Prospect of Whitby before we pushed east towards Limehouse.

We paused to admire some previous GoodGym handiwork at The Royal Foundation of St Katharine, and made a valiant attempt at leafleting Moo Canoes (surprisingly closed on a sunny Saturday). We called it a day at Limehouse Basin with a celebratory drink at the Cruising Association, having navigated our way through a stretch of East London many of us had never explored before.

Join us next time as we continue spreading the word across Tower Hamlets.