What a fun filled, mud filled, pun filled Wednesday evening we had this week! *Stay tuned for as many oarsome boat/ sailor puns as we could come up with in this report.

For those of us who met for the run from Charlton House, this week's icebreaker was deceptively thought provoking:

"If you could relive one moment in your life, what would it be?"

What I failed to anticipate was the immediate descent into philosophy:

What actually counts as a 'moment'? Are you reliving it, or changing it? Which self gets to choose? Your current self or your younger self? 🙄

After several minutes adrift in a sea of existential pondering, I found myself pleading, "No more questions!"

To be fair, that's something I say at least five times a day to my son, Arthur. Poor boy. But hey, someone has to stamp the curiosity out of children, right?

Responses ranged from the birth of children, to choosing that dream career that our pesky parents forbade, to extra cheesy points for Sarah for picking the moment she came along to a GoodGym session! 🧀🥳

Anyway, before we drift too far off course...

A huge welcome to Rhena and Candida on your first Good Deeds with us! And an extra shout-out to Rhena for completing her first run. We hope you're both hooked and don't immediately jump ship!

Our task for the evening was at the lovely community garden at the Prince Philip Maritime Collections Centre, where our much-loved rowing boat had finally reached the end of its voyage. And so, with a heavy heart it was time to break up the old and make way for a younger model.

The steps were as follows:

1) Remove all the soil from the old boat

2) Smash it up with shovels (One member of the group might have enjoyed smashing the boat up a little bit too much...he certainly made his Mark.)

3) Break up the wood to wheelbarrow to the bins

4) Debate exactly how on earth we were going to get the new, bigger boat into position (this took a while)

5) Shovel out more soil and grass

6) Tow Tow Tow the boat into position and attempt to secure it with blocks of wood

At times our plans felt a little rudderless, but somehow we kept things afloat and while we may need to come back to fully anchor the boat in place, that was a job well done in the pelting rain - hardened sailors that we are!

After that, it was time to run, walk, or otherwise navigate our way home.

Thanks everyone for another oar-some evening!

Coming up This weekend we have:

Parkrun volunteering

Helping at the Family Fun Day in Hornfair Park

Clean up Charlton

Leafleting for Prince Philip's Community Day

GoodGym Picnic!

Until next time, lovely people!

Rachel

Last night, 10 of us met at Charlton House for the run, with a few heading straight to Thomas Tallis School ready to get stuck into the task.

Our icebreaker was: What's one thing you can cook or bake really well? Judging by the answers, next week's picnic is shaping up to be a feast 😋

When we arrived, Kim welcomed us and led us to a collection of second-hand school uniforms that needed sorting. Our mission was to size everything up, organise the good-quality items into the correct categories, and separate out anything that wasn't quite cut from the right cloth.

We got straight to work and, in just half an hour, had made short work of the mountain of shirts, jumpers and PE kit. It was a refreshingly low-sweat task, but we were kept busy, dotting the i's, folding the tees, and making sure everything was neatly stacked and ready for its next owner.

With the crates sorted and tucked back into storage, it was time for a quick run back, a stretch, and then we buttoned up another successful Wednesday evening.

After all, when you've got 10 GoodGymers working together, it's easy to make shirt work of sizing 'em up.

Congratulations to Mark on earning your nice shiny red Tshirt! You're already part of the furniture 🤗

**All credit to Aman and Ivar for the puns (well, the best ones anyway!)

Coming up

This weekend in addition to the Parkruns we've got:

• Helping at Maryon Wilson

• Building playground equipment with Halstow Primary (and BBQ!)

Next Wednesday we're back at the Prince Philip Collections Centre

Until next time!

Rachel 👋😁

It was back to Senior's this week for our monthly visit and as always there was a variety of tasks for us to get stuck into. They're always tasks that the garden team would struggle to do themselves but thats where were come in to help!!

It was a straightforward run over other than we were all feeling a bit warm in the humid weather. With everyone meeting outside at Senior's it was time to head in and see what was in store for us.

The tasks for the evening focused on:

• Cutting back brambles around the Yucca Plant and the pond
• Digging over the flower and vegetable beds
• Cutting back Thistle Plants
• Watering the garden
• Filling up the water butts near the poly-tunnel

We made our way through the list and it was soon time to be on our way. Just enough time to be treated to some flapjacks and also sandwiches that would have gone to waste!

Grounds for Celebration: 100 Good Deeds

Congrats to Lindsay who achieved a huge 100 good deeds!! We're looking forward to seeing you sporting those wings over the next couple of weeks!

The end of the month has come around quickly and 10 Good Gymers were on hand to attend the monthly session at Mycenae House, one of our favourites (not least because they’re always very generous with cake).

We were met by Fiona, the amazing coordinator of the many taks occurring at the house that morning, and she soon put us to work with a couple of tasks: first up we had some cut material to move to the dead hedge before the main event of clearing all of that perennial Good Gym enemy, green alkanet, from one of the reserved spaces. But being Good Gym we’d got that task done quicker than you can say itchy skin so another task had to be found. We were soon split into two teams, one cutting back some holly trees to increase ground coverage and one team moving the cut foliage to the dead hedge.

And finally it was time for cake.