This Friday, GoodGym volunteers swapped gardening gloves for burgers and hot dogs as we joined the Friends of Everton Park for their Community Garden Open Evening.

The event was a great opportunity to celebrate the hard work that goes into maintaining this fantastic community space throughout the year. We spent the evening enjoying delicious food, chatting with local residents and catching up with fellow volunteers in a warm and welcoming atmosphere.

One of the highlights was meeting people from the neighbourhood and hearing their stories about the park and garden. The friendly conversations reminded us how important community spaces are for bringing people together and creating lasting connections.

Goodgym got a special shout out from John, the Gardens Lead, who recognised us for all our hard work throughout the year in helping their team to maintain this valued community space. John's speech included some lovely words about welcoming those seeking safety, and the importance of inclusivity and community.

A huge thank you to the Friends of Everton Park for inviting us along and for all the work they do to keep the park and garden thriving. It was wonderful to see so many people enjoying the space and sharing a genuine sense of community spirit.

We're already looking forward to our next visit!

Monday evening brought another brilliant GoodGym Liverpool session, this time on the Mount at the beautiful St James’ Gardens by the Anglican Cathedral. As always, the evening started with movement and good company, with part of the group meeting near famous Suitcases for a run before heading down to the task location together. After a warm-up and an easy run through the city, we arrived ready to get stuck in.

The gardens were waiting for a bit of love and it didn’t take long before everyone found a job to tackle. Armed with tools, gloves and plenty of energy, we spread out across the space to help tidy and refresh the area. Some of us focused on clearing overgrown sections, cutting back vegetation to help reopen parts of the pathways and make the gardens easier to enjoy. Others got busy cleaning, litter picking and generally sprucing things up to bring a bit of order back to the space.

Bit by bit, the area started to transform. Paths became clearer, corners looked brighter and the gardens felt more open and cared for. After plenty of teamwork, laughs and muddy hands, we wrapped up the session feeling accomplished before heading back, knowing we’d made a real difference to a much-loved local space.

Five thousand, six hundred and thirty five good deeds

Five thousand-six hundred moments so dear

Five thousand, six hundred and thirty five good deeds

How do you measure, measure 8 years?

In daylights, in sunsets, in parkruns and breakfasts

In walking, in running, in laughter so rife

Five thousand, six hundred and thirty five good deeds

How do you measure eight years in our life.

How about Love

How about Love

Seasons of Love

Five thousand, six hundred and thirty five good deeds

Done by, three hundred-forty three volunteers hands

Seven Hundred and twelve times we helped a community

How do you measure eight years in GoodGym plans

In brushes, in litterpicks, in weeding and planting

In painting, in clearing, in cheering so rife

Five thousand, six hundred and thirty five good deeds

How do you measure eight years in our life.

How about Love

How about Love

Seasons of Love

(apologies Jonathan Larson)

Celebrating is something that comes second nature to a GoodGymer. Every week for eight years we’ve celebrated the amazing communities we get to work alongside and be inspired by. We’ve celebrated connecting with older people who may be a little isolated, hearing their stories and sharing a smile. We’ve celebrated running and walking together, and all our achievements and milestones along the way, big and small. And we’ve celebrated milestones in each other lives, weaving together our own stories as we dig, plant and weed. If there’s one thing you can say about a GoodGymer is that our group is full of people cheering each other on! Celebration is second nature.

And if we are ever lacking in energy, feeling a bit glum in this complicated world, we know that an hour or two working side by side with neighbours, communities, and projects in Liverpool will lift us up and remind us that Liverpool is a city full of love.

It’s no surprise that when it came to our 8th Birthday celebrations, that even people who couldn’t stay for the evening popped in to help Bekah and Heetu set up before heading to another commitment (lovely Clara) and that everyone coming mucked it for this GoodGym style DIY party.

We had use of the fabulous DoES Liverpool space arranged by our ever amazing Bekah (where would we be without the effort love and care of our Bekah!) and everyone brought food to share (including Bekah’s now famous sausage rolls!) and Liam provided the music (after a somewhat intense discussion about what playlist to choose - why 80’s/90’s bangers of course!) With party decorations a plenty the room soon filled with the buzz of joy just to be in each others company, and one of our favourite things we also got to meet new people as Aatefa brought two friends along as a means to pursue them to sign up (It was lovely to meet you Kate and Sadia) (If Aatefa has her way her whole class would be joining GoodGym!)

We talked about what our favorite tasks have been (seeing the sunsets from Everton Park always gets a mention here) and what we would like to do in the coming year.

And I managed to share some statistics from our 8 years together reminding people that each and every task has been an act of love in a world that often feels scary and isolating for so many of us. There is no greater achievement in this world than connection, creating community as an antidote to what ails us, and community as a radical act of love.

“Community is much more than belonging to something; it’s about doing something together that makes belonging matter”

In eight years (including the time spent in national lockdown) 343 GoodGymers have cumulatively completed 5’635 good deeds in Liverpool. This includes: 349 visits to people who are older and isolated, helping with the things that usually slip through the net of social services, and finding that the task is what brings us there, but the chat and the cuppa is what we always remember most.

712 Group Tasks, planting, clearing paths, painting rooms and fences, wrapping presents, cleaning walls, lopping trees, sorting clothes, weeding, brushing yards, shifting furniture, stewarding runs and festivals, and not to forget litterpicking! Often in the dark, sometimes in the rain, always in laughter.

8 years, 32 seasons of love Happy Birthday GoodGym Liverpool