Only one place to start this report and that is to celebrate our incredible GGer Frances who last night notched up her 600th Good Deed! An absolutely fantastic achievement and it also marks the end (for now!) of Frances' journey with us as she is moving overseas, wishing you all the best and you will be sorely missed. 🤩

And so it was that we took a bumper group of runners including first time London but longtime GGer Matt from the Oxford group up to Windmill Gardens (ahhh there's the pun reference) to help out Jean and Annick get the park ready for the Winter Fair this weekend. Else thank you for signing up via the website - great to have you come through the MeetUp link and now onto your third run with us.

It was amazing to have so many runners out this time as there was plenty of work to be getting on with so we split into several teams in charge of the following: - A two person litter picker crew - Several people making up the 'raking crew' (1990s WCW reference.... no? Anyone?? Seriously???) - A few people on grabber duty (giant plastic hands for collecting leaves) - Brooms and giant compost bags for the remaining volunteers

We set about raking up millions of wet leaves, trimming the edges of the pathways and building a giant mud pile to dry out and be used for composting.

After a good 50 minutes labour it was time to tidy up and the park was looking much clearer than when we found it - the daylight will give us a better idea though so if you want to help out set up or pack away the Winter Fair head to the links below and get signed up. Then of course make sure you go to and enjoy the Fair itself! https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/help-make-brixton-windmill-s-winter-market-go-with-a-swing-set-up

https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/help-make-brixton-windmill-s-winter-market-go-with-a-swing-set-up-29fce655-c879-405a-a0cc-3bb5deb7e94b

Lastly a reminder that we have our Lambeth Christmas Social coming up on the 19th December so get signed up for that as well: https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/litter-pick-bingo-tuesday-s-group-run Thanks all and see you at the next one :0)

Today, I had a great time helping the lovely Friends of Windmill Gardens prepare for the family-friendly Brixton Windmill Halloween event. Together in the rain, we set up the outdoor carving area, wheeling pumpkins around, and lopping off pumpkin tops. I also had go at carving my own—his name is Good Jimmy!

Three of us made it to help out the friends of Brixton Windmill. We set up tables, chairs and (a) gazebo. It's grey but fairly mild - so we're not expecting any rain 🤞

We had a first at GG Lambeth last night, for the first time ever with cancellations and no-shows there were no GoodGymers to help out at Windmill Gardens.

Makes a lot of sense, it's July and lots of people are on their holidays and also it was scheduled to pour down with rain all evening so as it stood it was just AA Yianny on his lonesome heading up to help out.

And so in the absence of anyone to do categories with AA headed up the hill in a light drizzle to meet Annick and Nick. As there were only 3 of us it was down to us to clear the verges, bag up the green waste and redistribute the soil. The rain did not disappoint and absolutely bucketed down so you can see all of us looking very soggy but happy by the end! (If I did put a teabag in my pocket I'd have tea for all of Lambeth GG!)

See you next week - yeah??!

And this was my third south London park/garden of the day.

This was a busy session, helping out the Windmill volunteers. It included digging a hole in some pretty hard ground, planting a vine, weeding, watering trees and planting tomatoes!

All a solid day's work in an hour and half!

Tuesday evening and we were off to visit Jean and Annick at Windmill Gardens to start preparations for the Spring opening of the park to the public.

We had a new runner with us this evening and the Cypriot takeover continues as we were joined by Anna, welcome to GoodGym Lambeth - great to have you with us! Well done to Joao for spreading the word and bringing in new volunteers as well.

(This evening's category was 'Things with Wheels' FYI. Some great outside the box answers like pram & meals on wheels!)

A straightforward run up Brixton Hill to the gardens and we were there in good time to see what Jean and team had in store for us. On arrival we divided into 3 groups with one heading out to do litter picking (Tilly), the other clearing the borders of the grassy areas (Clare) and Joao and AA heading over to dig out a dead tree and replant a new one.

Liz awesome work carrying the load (water buckets) ;0) and Sam an excellent selection of tunes despite the lack of nursery rhymes....

It was a freezing evening so well done to all for coming out and putting in a really good amount of work, we managed to do a huge chunk and things are nicely set up for this Saturday's Community Mission coming up, see link below: https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/get-windmill-gardens-ready-for-a-joyful-spring

That's it - see you next week!