24 Hackney GoodGymers ran 6k to help the Canal & River Trust keep the River Lea clear. Plus an awesome GG10 Birthday celebration social.

For GoodGyms 10th birthday week was great to have such a top group out to play!! Welcome to our Hackney first timers and Sophia for her first GG run!!

We set off running our way towards the River stopping off on the way to grab a #GG10 picture on the Havkney side of Victoria Park gates. Making our way 3k to Old Ford Locks we got straight into the lodge and found all the tools they had. Booms, grabbers, cutters, bin bags were all used to the fullest as we cut back, picked up and swept away any number of contaminates that were in or soon to be in the magical River Lea!

With the light closing in fast it was really head torch territory and we cleared the stretch of river up nicely while keeping an eye out for cyclists rolling past.

With bags filled we washed up and chucked away the litter before getting back to stride and powered ourselves back to base with the thought of a great refuelling social ahead!

Stretched out and bouncing down to the social we were very well fed while we celebrated #GG10.

Off to Hackney Parks next week for another adventure!

See you there

Joel

25 GoodGymers ran 4km to help Ground works transform the Welshpool community garden!

Amazing to have an infusion of GoodGym first timers this week to really amp up our efforts in our community volunteering efforts!! Hope you all enjoyed your first taste of GG and will be back very soon for more!!

Three big Shout Outs for upcoming activities and get togethers. St Joesph’s Hospice jumble sale clear away on Saturday! Our September Social after our group run on the 17th!! Not forgetting next weeks visit to Abney Park for our Tuesday fix of GoodGym magic!!

It’s great when a plan comes together and we get to complete the task which looked improbable 50 minutes earlier and even better when we get a biscuit and sweet for our efforts to.

With Groundwork’s helping out the Welshpool community garden with plans, ideas, resources we were much needed to get the heavy lifting complete so that the garden would become more manageable for the residents.

Dominating 2.5 tonnes of soil by shovelling, carrying, barrowing and tipping into the brand new triangle raised beds filling them all to the brim!

We weeded away to create a perfect surface to lay 2 massive builders bags of bark down so that the weeds would stay at bay.

With that done the seeds were sewn to start the growing process in the beds which will bring colour and life to the garden!

Special shout out to first timer Ignatius for single handily transforming a large patch of grass into a new double flower bed and sewing the seeds of life!

A 2.5k run to the task 1.5k run back brought us back perfectly for 8:29!

Thanks for your monster effort and see you next week for our visit to Abney!!

Joel