A toad-ally awesome 11 of us met up last night for a jog and some good deeding.

We were joined for the first time by Tim and Adam - welcome! 🙌

After a naming and fave biscuit loop, we hit the road. Hannah and Molly took the shorter, direct route, whilst the rest of us opted for the longest hill ever.

We arrived to meet John who was fully prepared with tools.

The water tower base at Crystal Palace Museum is an amazing historic structure and the museum team are keen to clear it out of soil, weeds and rubble so that it can be safely accessed as part of visitors’ museum experiences.

We focussed on a couple of specific areas, aiming to reach down to the concrete and pipes below.

John found a massive toad, hence the pun! 🐸

10+ bucket-loads of soil sieved later, we called it a day and headed back down the hill for some stretches.

Great stuff everyone 🥳

Fresh off the back off a smashing January Challenge, 11 amazing human beings came out tonight for a dark task in the park.

We met at the Bridge House, shared our favourite types of cake (no gluten free, egg free, dairy free chocolate party cakes to be seen), and made our way to Cator Park.

⚡️ Hannah, Hannah and Clare did a POWER WALK.

🔁 The rest of us did a stupid loop before heading down the hill (Note to self: Always plan the route beforehand...)

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We met Millie from the Friends of Cator & Alexandra Parks, grabbed tools from the container and got to work on two tasks:

1️⃣ Trimming bush - The path that runs alongside the park is very neat in places but not where we were. There was ivy, branches sticking out and loads of head-height vegetation that meant people were walking on the grass to avoid getting speared. We were trimming it back and making the path significantly wider in the process. Nice.

2️⃣ Slicing the mud pie - Just inside the park, the path was getting swallowed. Equipped with shovels we were slicing the mud away to find the border. Clare did a fine job freeing the bollard (see pic).

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A very satisfying session and 2 paths freed up from the claws of nature. We love nature, but it's also nice to have space to walk/scooter/wheelchair/buggy/run on.

Well done team :) ✨

Our last Group Run of January, and what a way to blast out! 💥 We had a very special milestone to celebrate - read on to find out more....

January Challenge

Plus we were on 87 good deeds and with over 10 signups, reaching our target of 100 good deeds in the January challenge was tantalisingly close. What seemed an outlandish doubling of our 2023 target was now a realistic goal 🎯

A roadblock appeared, however. Winter 🌨️ is a notoriously difficult period to find tasks at times, but not for lack of trying. Mark managed to line up a task for us a couple of days before the run, though it sadly got cancelled on Monday afternoon, requiring some quick thinking 🤔

Best laid plans

Mark suggested we split into two groups - some guerilla gardeners to weed unloved planters 🪴 by Kent House station, and GoodGym promoters 🏃 putting up postcards on noticeboards to tell the world (well, Penge and Crystal Palace) what we do.

After introducing ourselves with a contender for the most odd question of the week ever (Which toothpaste do you use? 🪥), we prepared to divide. The promoters further split into two teams led by Cat and me (Stephen). We fought with rock, paper, scissors for who would go up the hill to Crystal Palace; Cat's scissors ✂️ resigned me and my paper 📰 to the steep incline and won her Penge.

Up the hill, down the hill

I wasn't alone, though, as David, Harry and Renier also volunteered for the harder route, and the band of merry men headed off for higher altitudes ⛰️. Mega shout out to David for pluckiness in seeing if newsagents, restaurants - anyone, really - would host our postcards in their window. We got positive response from numerous places we'd never promoted with before, and this was on Anerley Hill before we got near to The Triangle 😀

Mark's and Cat's teams flew towards Penge, with Team Green (Fingers) getting to work on the weeds at Kent House.

All together now

We met back at the Bridge House to hear each others' task stories and prepared to surprise an unsuspecting GoodGym'er, for it was none other than Mark's 500th good deed, an occasion demanding cake 🎂 and an amazingly augmented card and badge from Hannah!

Congratulations Mark! 👏

100 club

We're now a good deed shy of 100 - our goal is within reach and will surely be toppled before the month is done. Well done everyone who participated and helped us get there 🥳

For tonight's sesh we were up at the Crystal Palace Museum, spending a little more time digging out soil in the old Water Tower base. It's Grade 2 listed so I guess we're kind of like archaeologists? The plan is for it to be open to the public occasionally and one day, maybe even an actual working part of the museum?!

GoodGym Gives You Wiiiiiiings!

100 good deeds not out. Incredible pub quizzer, top TaskForcer and a rock solid pair of hands, Stephen is now the owner of a winged GoodGym t-shirt. 100 good deeds for community projects and older people is a serious achievement. 👏👏👏 💯

Totally foursome!

Not sure that’s okay to put in big bold letters but whatever.

We had 4 new GoodGymers tonight! - shoutout to Renier, James, Andy and Emily - So pleased you could join us!

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We split into two groups for separate runs through/around the park. Stephen and Clare led the longer run round, which left Hannah, Richard and I heading up through the middle. Lots of talk about GoodGyming over the years in our group...

We met John who gave us tools and we cracked on:

🌱 Removing little weeds

🛒 Sifting soil through a trolley (as you do)

🧱 Moving bricks and rubble to the side

The aim was to dig down until we hit concrete, which we achieved in several places! 🥳

It’s all downhill from here!

We had a short jog back to base with some wallsits and squats en route.

Great job everyone - See you next time!