Almost simultaneously, a surprisingly punctual crew of Chloe, Sam, Kareem, and myself converged on St. Margaret's Garden on Saturday morning, with Emma arriving shortly afterwards.

Task owner, Emily, was ready and waiting, armed with gloves, paint, and brushes. We were to give three benches and three sets of tables and chairs a fresh coat of paint ahead of a memorial event at the end of the month.. Splitting into groups of twos and threes and making the most of a welcome patch of shade, conversation inevitably turned to everyone's plans for where to watch the evening's football match as we made swift work of the first coat.

After an hour and a half, the first coat was complete. Another session is pencilled in for the end of July to add the finishing touches before the memorial takes place. See you for the second coat!

Undeterred by the heatwave, Fiona and I managed a quick visit to Mr B to remove some pesky weeds that had overgrown his garden and patio.

A lovely day out with the Asian Girls Run crew. We met at 640East where everyone could drop their bags then I give a intro speech into what GoodGym is and the Movement For Change initiative. From there I lead the warm up then we took a nice and easy run out to the Poplar Recreation Ground to do some litter picking.

I provided everyone with gloves and bin bags then we all split off in groups to cover different areas of the park. The team got super into it to the point where they had a tough time stopping. By the time we were done, Poplar Pecreation Ground was so much cleaner then what it looked like when we arrived. Once done, we ran back to 640 East, did our cool down, got some ice cream from the nearby Waitrose, then we finally parted ways.

On a balmy East London evening, task owner Alex welcomed us by Barge East for what must surely be one of the most seasonally appropriate GoodGym tasks ever. With temperatures hovering around 30 degrees, it almost felt like we were at the seaside rather than in the middle of Stratford/Hackney Wick!

Our mission at Bola Beach Tennis was to help maintain the three beach tennis courts. Over time, the sand gradually migrates to one side thanks to a combination of enthusiastic players and the wind doing its thing, so we spent the evening shovelling, moving and raking sand back into a level playing surface. We also swept around the edges of the courts and returned escaped sand to its rightful home.

Some of the group embraced the beach atmosphere fully and went barefoot, enjoying the rare experience of getting sand between their toes during a Monday evening GoodGym task in central London!

The evening's most memorable challenge, however, came in the form of a gigantic roll of astro turf that needed moving. Despite the combined efforts of almost the entire group (the only exceptions were Jo and Dan, who wisely remained focused on expertly levelling Court 1 ), it refused to budge. We wrestled with the stubborn, immovable object and eventually admitted temporary defeat.

We then spent a lovely half hour after the task relaxing with cold cans of pop from Alex (including sampling the Brazilian favourite Guaraná) and brainstorming increasingly creative solutions to the astro turf problem. Suggestions included: - A "toss-the-caber" style approach (from Lucinda) - Sawing it into smaller chunks (Reymon's practical engineering solution) - Dragging it flat like a giant parachute game (thanks Chloe!) - And finally the consensus view: it probably needs a crane or to be airlifted ?

Watch this space... the saga of the astro turf is (possibly) to be continued...

A huge thank you to everyone who came along and brought beach energy to East London for an evening. Hope you enjoyed your slice of Hackney Wick seaside life — see you all next week! 🌞🏖️💪

Returning to St Paul's for part two of the Shadwell church's summery refresh, five GGers put in a greyt shift painting the outdoor railings. The black paint was chipping away and Chloe, Kitty, Ilana, John and Sam dedicated two hours of a warm Saturday morning giving it a smart new colour.

The church leaders kindly provided coffee and pastries to keep us fuelled and plenty of conversation, about the outdoor gym classes the church's fitness team provides and their backstories of moving to the area from Germany, the States and other places. Many of them loved hearing about the work we do all around Tower Hamlets and we'll hope they can come along to a task as a GoodGymmer soon!

Earlier in the morning we also dealt with fallen leaves in the church grounds, using a battery-powered leaf blower and a good old fashioned broom.

Today's return to Mr J's involved framing and hanging some further guitar heroes of his on the wall of fame - we're on first name terms now, so it was a case of getting Carlos, Jimi, Jeff, and John Lee successfully hung - and whilst I was doing this, Mr J chatted away and played various YouTube music videos on his TV - it proved to be a highly entertaining afternoon, and by the end I had 3/4 of the band on the wall - there wasn't enough space for Carlos in the living room, so we agreed he could wait for the next visit...Mr J assured me there were only a couple of other guitarists that he wanted, and that would then complete the set (and the task!).