it was the May edition of the social gardening club at St Margarets House and GoodGymmers Chloe and Sam showed up ready to tackle a thick ivy bush out on the front road. We snipped away and had to avoid being showered with dust as we the older inner roots came down. A focussed hour of work saw us fill 10 sacks of green waste! Come along next time for this regular midweek mid-afternoon task.

Here are the dates for the next four months:

Tuesday 23rd June, 4-7pm Wednesday 22nd July, 4-7pm Thursday 20th August, 4-7pm Wednesday 23rd September, 4-7pm

This Monday evening, we headed to Ocean Youth Connexions in Limehouse. Task owner, Kamal greeted us there after we rang the small, but very mighty doorbell. Many thanks to Kamal for hosting us after a last minute cancellation. Before starting, we gathered in a the shape of a digestive which was apt, given that we soon introduced ourselves and our favourite biscuit. Bourbons, jammie dodgers, ritz, ginger nuts, hobnobs, Biscoff, French raspberry jaffa cakes, malted milks, Choco Leibniz, and others were mentioned. Great biscuit preference diversity within the Goodgym demographic.
As usual, there was a range of tasks to occupy us:

• Simon and Kim headed upstairs to tidy the offices there. Tidy seems too small a word as what they accomplished was a changing-rooms-esque transformation (without any tears).
• Darren, gave the front of the building a makeover. A lone worker at first, by the end this was where the party was at and he was joined happily by several others
• Jack, supported by Sam (and a ladder) got to work giving the backyard hedge a trim. This task came naturally to Jack given that his mum is a professional hairdresser.
  
• Kirsti , Ciarán, Chantal and Chloe did a mix of weeding and rubbish clearing in the back yard.
• * John and Jack got to work clearing the back-backyard.

An array of equipment was used to aid clearing: from litter pickers to broomsticks (the latter not just getting a mention here so that the report title makes sense...)

Shout out to Chantal for coming to her first task and getting stuck in the weeds, in a good way!

Congrats to Chloe for recently completing a milestone 10 tasks (this being her 11th)! A keen tennis player, Chloe has quickly established herself as a familiar and valuable member of the team - one could say she has 'set' the bar high for new joiners, always on the 'ball' and 'game' for all goodgym tasks.

This was a productive evening with many bags of rubbish cleared. Group photos taken, and a record number of shout outs and announcements announced, we said our goodbyes and went off in different directions.

Until the next time!

Across the balcony from each flat on the Parkview Estate is a planter, visible to anyone walking through the estate. Many of the planters contain colourful flowers, giving the estate a much brighter look and countering the graffiti and litter to be found in some areas. But some of the planters are full of nothing but dry earth, a few twigs, and maybe a weed or two.Which is where GoodGym come in

We met in the community garden, a familiar place to us by now, except for Sam, who still got there eventually. “Have you seen Sam?” asked Emma”. Yes, he’s walking up behind you” I replied. Soon we were loaded with buckets of soil, a wheelbarrow (which we somehow took up in the lift), filled watering cans, and those all-important geraniums

Local knowledge was provided by Seb, a resident of the estate, as well as task owner Catherine, a long-time friend of GoodGym who also provided a cheat-key to enable us to get into the block

Some residents already had one or two plants opposite their front door, so we asked them if they minded us filling the gaps with a couple of geraniums. However, one resident who said “yes”, was unsure what “the missus” would think when she returned

Eventually, we’d flowered the whole of the Sidney House block. But there are other Parkview blocks which would appreciate the same treatment, so put a date in your diary for 13th June and sign up for our next visit at https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/parkview-free-plant-giveaway-538b5ba6-27b0-4fcd-97c1-317997cbd35a

A large group of Goodgymers gathered to help Ken at the Cemetery Park. Our mission: To remove cow parsley to make way for more biodiversity.

We set to work, eagerly pulling up the roots. Some of us with more ease than others! We moved methodically from one patch to the next and it was satisfying to see the impact we made in such a short space of time. See the photos!

Among the greenery lurked some goosegrass, very familiar to us from a previous task, so we also pulled up this sticky weed as we went.

Shout out to Jade for her first Goodgym mission and to Kevin for his first Tower Hamlets mission. Thanks for your hard work and dedication to the cause! And well done everyone for a great evening's work!