Tonight’s happy band of GoodGymers went to Jubilee Square to the scene of the Great Woodchip Mountain!

We shifted, spread and raked our way through a serious amount of woodchip, filling every available nook and cranny around Jubilee Square.

The result? A much more even surface underfoot, a considerably tidier and more pleasing-looking space, and hopefully a few less opportunities for those pesky weeds to stage their next invasion.

There was also time for a good old litter pick.

And a big GoodGym welcome to Adamtonight. Always great to see fresh faces joining the gang — new blood is very much encouraged!

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 😉