It's potato planting time! And who knew all your needed was some potatoes and elbow grease! A group of us planted a load of potatoes at the GG garden in Clapham - which we'll harvest later this year and donate.

The sun was shining and the blossoms were out, and I was off to Battersea to help guide one of the visually impaired runners at the Chase The Moon 5k event. I discovered guide running through GoodGym, and volunteer to help people with visual impairments to get out and get running, which is something that would not be accessible outdoors for many of these people. I was with brilliant Mark, and he had been making good progress in knocking down his time, and wanted to get a sub 36 minute run in, which would be a new PB. Challenge accepted, we headed to the start line with our tether in hand and when the gun went, we made our way around two laps of the park. Mark put his trust in me as we made our way around obstacles which people with normal vision often don’t realise are there. Mark was chatting and making jokes as we ran, and 33 minutes and 25 seconds later, we had crossed the finish line. When I told Mark he had taken almost three minutes off his personal best, he wasn’t just chasing the moon, he was over the moon! The jelly legs were worth it to see him so pleased as he rang the PB bell and celebrated with non-alcoholic beers which we were given at the finish funnel. It’s always a lovely feeling to be able to help someone out, but tonight was extra special. Although next time, Mark, you’ll have to try even harder to beat your new PB!

6 Goodgymers helped prepare the Goodgym garden for a new season of crops.

There was lots of weeding to do, soil to turnover and even some leeks to pick that survived the winter!

We welcomed two new Goodgymers: Manon and Helen. Great to have you join us!

After an hour of hard work, the garden was looking in tip top shape, ready for new produce to be planted soon.

Last night, 8 intrepid GoodGymers gathered to take on a mammoth task at the Katherine Lowe Settlement (KLS). For those whose first visit it was to this Battersea institution, KLS is a truly wonderful community centre that provides support for older adults, refugees, young people and vulnerable communities in the area. Not only do they provide a warm, supportive environment, but they also offer vital social services and activities for local people, so we were more than happy to help out!

KLS is having two floors redone, and they needed all the old flooring transported downstairs to be picked up this morning. We knew it was going to be quite the session so after a warm-up (where we spent way too much time discussing whether we were motivated by the carrot or the stick – turns out, most of us are stick people, which we should probably look into a bit further!) we set off on a quick jog down to KLS.

As we arrived and were met by Tracy and Tony. The scale of the job soon became evident with Tony's first question, 'how strong are you feeling?', which gave us an inkling about what lay ahead! We were working in a beautiful Victorian building, but those narrow stairs were definitely not designed for moving hundreds of planks of wood. Still, we are GoodGymers. And we fear no floor.

The plan was simple: Start at the top, and move planks down, all the way to the bottom.We were soon sweating, but there was a job to be done and we were going to do it no matter what. It was like a full-body workout, but after half an hour of intense work we managed it - after all, many hands make light work. We celebrated with a very artful group photo and headed out into the night.

The fun didn’t stop there. After all that lifting, we finished the night with even more fitness- a workout based on the classic game, I Have Never. We soon found out who has run more than 15km in one go, who has recently moved house and even who has broken the law. But there is a golden rule - what happens in GoodGym fitness stays in GoodGym fitness!

If you're free this weekend, Jordan will be leading a session on Saturday at the GoodGym Garden. You can find all the details here. Next week, I’m away, but Steph will be leading the session and you can find the info for that here

Great work, team! Another task well done, with plenty of laughs along the way. Until next time! 👏👏

Steph already signed up for a mission at 4pm to deliver freshly cooked food to vulnerable person with Sunday Best Volunteers(Jags Foundation). As they were missing volunteers on the earlier shift to prepare the the takeaway boxes and bags, Steph signed up for an extra session to help out. On arrival, Steph was in the kitchen to put rice in the containers, hand it out to the next person to put the meat(chicken and beef) and vegetables. Both volunteers took in turn to put veggies and the lids on the containers. Rice rice baby : nearly 100 containers were prepared - 2 big pots of rice. Next task was to put in the bags by delivery area and make sure that the number of portions and type of food were correctly put in the already tagged bags. Then put them in bigger bags by location ready to be delivered. At 4pm all the delivery bags were ready and Steph took his batch and went on a cruise walk to his deliverice area.

Sunday 4pm and Steph was ready to deliver food to vulnerable families in the Brixton area. Second mission today with Sunday Best Volunteers(Jags Foundation) after preparing the meals and bags. It was time to deliver. Steph has already been here and was allocated the area he did last time. 11 different flats to go to and give them the rice dishes with meat(chicken/beef) and some veggies. Steph decided to find street art while doing his deliveries as in Brixton. Roughly 3 to 4 km walked to deliver to different flats and some art found in Brixton. This tour was much quicker than last time as knew where the flats were in the maze of concrete Brixton. The persons were very happy to receive their evening rice meals.