I arrived at Beverley Park and got a quick primer from the people at FullCycle on where on the bike to place the pair of ID stickers and where to find the bike frame number.

The area quickly filled with bikes and riders, and I got half a dozen bikes labelled up while people filled out their details on a form. Others got minor repairs and advice from FullCycle. There was a nice energy with adults and kids ready to get going on their trip.

When the group and marshals set off, I counted them out of the gate and made a total of 111 people. I had a coffee in the park's cafe for an hour or so, then labelled up another handful of bikes when everyone got back.

This week GoodGym Kingston headed to Elm Road Recreation Ground to help the Friends of Elm Road Rec with some autumn maintenance.

Playgrounds and recreation grounds are such important community assets we were pleased to be able to pop down to lend a hand to give this one some attention. Our task was to tackle the weeds and fallen leaves building up around the playground, particularly beneath the fences and along the perimeter, where debris can create trip hazards and litter can accumulate.

Armed with bags, litter pickers, secateurs, and rakes, the team got stuck into clearing weeds, collecting litter and sweeping up the autumn leaves. The nights are certainly drawing in as we all had to have have our head torches on by the end!

What a great turnout we had too. This week we had a running, walking and cycling group. We were also delighted to welcome two new GoodGymers to the team. A lovely way to spend an evening, get active and give something back to a local community space.

Big thanks to the Friends of Elm Road Rec for having us and providing a great collection of tools. We hope the recreation ground and playground is looking a little tidier - before another drop of autumn leaves!

Laura, Saber and Martel joined a group from Kingston Mencap to volunteer at the Kingston Half marathon this morning. Laura and Saber helped make sure the runners bags were taken in and stored in a long snake going across and under tables ready for them to be collected by the finishers. Then helped pack up the storage tables after the race completed. Martel was a steward near Hampton Court making sure cars were controlled whilst the runners went passed. Congrats to Dave who was one of the runners completing the course. Together with other volunteers a donation will be made by runfest to the Mayors Charitable trust which will be a great help to the charities supported.

This afternoon Levita and myself started the tidy up around the memorial to get it ready for all the veterans on their day next month, early start but still another visit to be done to finish off. We dug weeds out from the paving slabs and trimmed some of the plants around the trees and weeded them in that sacred area. We had a few passers-by stop and thank us for doing this, always nice to know how much it means to some people, it is a focal point of New Malden High Street.

As well as our main job of watering, we also had time to clear the piles of leaves that has accumulated around these plants. After this our arms were twisted to refresh ourselves 😉

Four GoodGymers descended on Stay Well this morning for what turned out to be a very satisfying hour of weed warfare.

Tom was our last-minute recruit – and excellent timing it was too, as four turned out to be exactly the magic number needed to get the job done. Sometimes things just weed themselves out nicely…

Our first mission was the front flower beds, which were sporting a rather impressive crop of weeds. Armed with pickaxes, Jana, Tom and Emily got stuck straight in, while Saber tackled another bed nearby. Before long, weeds were flying and the beds were beginning to look considerably less wild.

Then we spotted some brambles making a bid for world domination around the Stay Well sign. We couldn't leaf them there, so naturally they became our next victims.

With an increasingly enormous pile of greenery at our feet, we went hunting for the green waste bin. Unfortunately, the green bin had other ideas and was nowhere to be found. After a fruitless search, we admitted de-leaf and temporarily piled everything into a general waste bin.

Round the back we went, where the four of us tackled the weeds poking their way through the paving. And then came the plot twist of the morning: we found the green bin! 🎉

Cue a glamorous bit of bin-to-bin weed transfer and all was right with the world again.

While we were there, we also admired Raleigh Houses' very smart new shed and the beautifully organised gardening tools inside. Frankly, it was some serious shed envy.

And somehow, after all the digging, weeding, bramble battling, bin hunting and shed admiring, we'd completed the lot in an hour.

Best of all, the lovely people at Raleigh House had left us brownies as a reward. Needless to say, after all that hard graft, we didn't need much persuading.

A blooming good morning all round!