This afternoon Levita and myself started the tidy up around the memorial to get it ready for all the veterans on their day next month, early start but still another visit to be done to finish off. We dug weeds out from the paving slabs and trimmed some of the plants around the trees and weeded them in that sacred area. We had a few passers-by stop and thank us for doing this, always nice to know how much it means to some people, it is a focal point of New Malden High Street.

As well as our main job of watering, we also had time to clear the piles of leaves that has accumulated around these plants. After this our arms were twisted to refresh ourselves 😉

Today, Levita and I headed down to a Meet and Greet event with Kingston’s local Councillors and a ton of brilliant voluntary groups from across the borough. It was the perfect chance to get out there and chat about all the ways GoodGym can lend a hand to organisations doing amazing work in our community!

It was great to catch up with some of our long-standing partners. Always a treat to see the familiar faces at Staywell, Kingsgate Food Pantry, KVA’s Surplus to Supper Hub, Save the World, and Refugee Action Kingston.

We also got to mingle with plenty of new groups to brainstorm future team-ups and hand out leaflets. We connected with:

• Kingston Association for the Blind
• The London Buddy Scheme
• Learn English at Home (LEAH)
• Kingston Carers Network
• The Kingston Society
• Malarum Ithayangal CIC Tamil Women’s Community Group
• Balance Support CIO
• Kingston Voluntary Action (KVA)
• Shine Bright UK
• Kingston Eco-Op
• Superhighways
• Connected Kingston
• Kingston Community Football

Whether we were convincing folks to lace up their trainers and join us for a run, or finding new ways our volunteers can help out local residents, it was such an inspiring day!

This evening Levita and myself welcomed Chris to the group . Before we all got stuck in ducking buckets in the Thames to refresh the soil around the produce In the community garden to continue to make it grow and produce lovely products for someone's table. It was a most enjoyable hour with much laughter and posing for photo''s, the chickens also strutted their stuff. I then also couldn't resist buying a plant to put in the Gg garden tommorow, it's vibrant colour spoke to me.