There must have been a poltergeist or spooky ghosts on the loose in Richmond, causing havoc and some last minute change of tasks.

An awesome foursome were out posting leaflets for Richmond Aid, a charity that supports local disabled people to live their best lives. Specifically, we were spreading the news about the upcoming ‘Time To Shine’ awards, witch aims to celebrate the contributions and achievements of disabled people in the Richmond Boo-rough.

It wasn’t long before all the flyers had been posted through letter boxes. Ghoul achieved. In true Halloween spirit we were joined by a feline friend for the evening, and we even managed to avoid the rain.

Seven GoodGymers made it to AFC Powerstation on a chilly morning, ready to warm things up with some community spirit. We stepped inside and got straight to work, accompanied by the beat of a Zumba class pumping away in the next room.

Monika, Chris, Suze and Adam formed a laminating squad as disciplined as an army, tackling sheets of music with military precision. Meanwhile, Maena, JP and Manuela got to grips with a rainbow of coloured powder, carefully pouring the vibrant shades into bottles. One team was making the music last, while the other was adding a little colour to the world.

The chatty bunch worked like clockwork, laminating, pouring and chatting away as the Zumba beats kept us moving steadily. But when the music finally stopped, we were left in silence. Something had to fill the gap! So, naturally, our thoughts turned to one of the songs we’d been laminating: the legendary "Banana Boat Song".

We went off to a cosy coffee shop to sip warm drinks afterwards for a rewarding bonding time.

We were off to Twickenham on Monday night to meet Emma from Box Walks. Box Walks for those not in the know are a Richmond based charity that takes the now iconic but now unused red phone boxes and turns them into interactive nature walks. Back in the summer, we had taken a tour of the Richmond boxes, and now it was time to take on Twickenham.

Our job for the evening was to give each box a clean and keep them in ‘box fresh’ condition. A quiet Monday night in Twickenham might not be the usual idea of ‘painting the town red’, but armed with cleaning spray and wipes, dusters and brooms, and tins of iconic post box red paint, we got to it. We started with ‘Cara The Climate Change Box’ before heading down the Green to ‘Ralph The Resource Circularity Box’.
Some of the boxes needed a bit more TLC, with graffiti, stickers and other unorthodox anti-social behaviour needing some clean up too. If we weren’t going red, we were influenced by The Rolling Stones, and were painting it black. Fun fact, the Stones have a well connected history with Twickenham having had residency on Eel Pie Island, and playing sell out shows at the stadium!

Once we’d completed the two boxes on the green, and completed the quizzes for each box (did you know that less than 10% of our rubbish is actually recycled?!), we made our way along Heath Road to the Church Street box, ‘Polly The Pollinator Box’, before getting her all sparkling spick and span.

A successful evening of doing good, getting fit and educating ourselves. Thanks to Adam for leading the runners, and welcome back Louise who was visising for the evening from deepest darkest East London!

It was a bright and fresh morning in east Twickenham as 4 GGers met up at Marble Hill Park for our Saturday mission at the playground.

Task owner Kelly was on hand with tools and instructions, as the sun got warmer and more cheerful. Adam and Manuela got going on lugging logs to a storage area with the aid of a wheeled cart, soon joined by Sabina, while JP (minding a sore back) began with a litter pick before giving the sandpit and woodchip a good rake.

We all then gathered to help with the straightening of some fencing before a quick group pic and off to our various Saturdays

It's that time of year when the headtorches are back out, ready to plot out the often varied surfaces of Richmond as we run around! But before we switched them on we celebrated Sam hitting 10 GoodGym deeds 🥳

A lovely chatty run along the riverside then back into town to avoid the slippery post-tidal silt brought us to the Buccleuch Arcade in the dark. No time to get cold though as we carried out a bodyweight workout of squats, shadow boxing and lunges before getting equally stuck in to cleaning up the arcade removing debris from the shutter gulleys, sweeping, de-cobwebbing and breaking down the compost heap into smaller pieces. Lovely work all round 🕸️🧹

The rain held off for Manuela and JP to visit Mrs O for some garden maintenance.

The task was listed as grass cutting but the absence of a lawn mower - or indeed any grass, as the lawn was mainly composed of moss - rendered that idea a little challenging.

Instead we gathered the available tools and set ourselves to a general tidy up, raking up the leaves on the lawn and in flower beds and doing some weeding in the beds and on the patio.

Then work was satisfying and we soon managed to fill 4 bags with the leaves and weeds we had gathered.

Mrs O was very satisfied and keen for a repeat experience with GoodGym!