9 GoodGym members joined several local volunteers from St Mary Magdalene Church on a beautifully sunny Saturday morning in central Richmond to start work on restoring the setting to the Grade II listed War Memorial in the church graveyard.

Ken was running the task and briefed us on cutting down the 6 cypress trees that were obscuring and threatening the monument. These were recently small clipped shrubs but will soon grow over 20m tall and were already over 2.5m tall having grown a metre in the past year alone. There was a risk that these would undermine the foundations to the Memorial and were already obscuring the words.

In 15 minutes we had cut all the cypress down and thought we were done. But no, the roots all need to come out and we needed to cut all the piles of branches into small bits to fit into a 1 ton dumpy bag for garden waste composting. That was the hard part! The group got stuck in though, with Peter taking on the fearsome roots with help from Chris, Sofia (on her first mission!) and Sam (and the Vicar and one of her team!) while most others got on with chopping up the branches, occasionally jumping in the bag to pack them down.

It was a great task and we will be returning in late October to replant with a range of seasonal perennials and flowers in time for Remembrance Day - sign up here! https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/restoration-of-the-war-memorial-and-gardens-at-st-mary-magdelen-92cf9788-22bf-4f39-82f9-cc3f412b942b

It was a lovely morning on the banks of the Thames as we gathered for our monthly visit to the Ham Lands to do our bit for the conservation of the nature reserve. It was brilliant to see two new joiners to Richmond GG back amongst the action - a very warm welcome to the Ham Lands gang to Sarah-Jane and Peter. Also great to see newly appointed Richmond AA Liz there with her kids and the family dog - Ham Lands is a task perfectly suited for extra helpers and canine friends!

We were set to work on an area we have been working on previously. The job at hand was to cut down and clear brambles and other spiky weeds and we set to with loppers, gathering the cuttings up into big sacks and depositing them in the wooded areas close to our patch.

The other fun for the morning was that Taskforce stalwart Jack was walking the Thames Path Challenge, a 50km route wending its way along the river to Runnymede. With live communication through Monika who was doing part of the walk with him, we coordinated the end of the task and visit to the Swiss Bakery with a dash to Teddington Lock to cheer him on his way, a Hi-Jack of the very best kind.

The morning was a perfect example of how GoodGym Richmond is such a lovely community to be a part of, as well as introducing more people to the joys of the Swiss Bakery - and Peter to the particular joys of their flammenkuchen! Looking forward to the next one on 8th October - sign up here! https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/helping-the-happy-ham-landers-86bc64b9-5d1b-4099-bc51-9d24af8d072d