It was lovely to see so many GoodGymers join us for another trip to the Crystal Palace Water Tower 🗼 this week 😁

At the Bridge House we introduced ourselves and answered this week's question - "Where would you like to run a marathon?". A wonderfully diverse range of suggestions came up, from the self-indulgent ("Edinburgh, because it's a flat course and I'm lazy" - your report author) to the far away (Tokyo), the safe bets (London and Boston) to the classical (Vienna and Athens).

We then headed out to Crystal Palace Park for some warming up, before splitting off into long distance and shorter distance run groups 🏃. Cat, Clare and James headed round the perimeter of the park with their group, while Hannah and I took advantage of the light to cut through the middle with all its steepness leading our group to get to the Water Tower.

There we met John, impressed with our number, and got to work inside. Having removed much soil and foliage over the last couple of years, we're now into the detailed work of removing stones and small rocks 🪨, as well as carefully uncovering the remaining pipework that sits around the edge of the tower, alongside the last bit of soil removal.

Hannah found the old furnace 🔥 and confirmed she'd fit inside (thankfully it's been turned off for a very long time), while James did a sterling job of cutting out the shifting of soil into our makeshift soil sorter (a supermarket trolley) using a shovel by simply lifting the wheelbarrow the soil was in over the trolley. Fast work, if not light!

At 8pm we still had good light, but it was time to say goodbye to John and head back down the west side of the park and back to Bridge House for our cool down stretches.

Great contributions from all - see you next time! 👋

GoodGym X Coopah's Refugee Run Club

For today's session GoodGym teamed up with Coopah's Refugee Run Club - and what a team we made!

After Crystal Palace Parkrun (and a coffee for some!), we made our way to Crystal Palace Museum which sits beside the base of an old water tower (designed by Brunel!). There's a plan for the tower to be accessible to the public to learn about the history of the old Crystal Palace, but first it needs to be cleared of 90 years worth of soil, vegetation and rubble.

Shovel, shovel, soil and rubble...

David provided tools for us and we cracked on:

🌱 Pulling up weeds and shoveling and rubble soil into buckets

🛒 ↔️ The soil was shaken through a huge sieve (a supermarket trolley!)

🍂 The good soil was then wheelbarrowed out of the tower

🪵 We also pulled down a load of vegetation and chopped through some thick roots.

People Power! 💪

It's incredible what an enthusiastic bunch of people can get done in an hour and a half.

Nice work everyone! And we hope to see you again soon. 👍

With Mark enjoying a well deserved holiday, five GoodGymers went for an adventure of our own to a new task at Crystal Palace Museum. The Museum building stands next to a surviving base of one of Isambard Kingdom Brunel's large water towers that fed water to the park, and they'd like to restore it so that it can join the trunk the museum experience. There was a lot of foliage inside that needed clearing, which is where our branch of GoodGym came in.

We set off on a planned ~2km run around the northeast side of the park, but, wood you believe it, the tear down from the Wireless Festival at the weekend was still ongoing, requiring us to loop back down to the bottom and up the south side of the park to get to the museum. Our question of the week was "Have you walked up a hill worse than Anerley Hill?", and Claire told us about her childhood home up a very, very steep hill!

Once we arrived, we got to work moving all from logs to twigs out of the overgrown tower and into the yard, building our production line with Alex inside the tower moving plant matter out to the entrance tunnel, and myself, Nick and Claire moving it out and down the narrow path. Claire's driving skills with the excess loads on the wheelbarrow were top notch, whilst Nick brought out his inner lumberjack, carrying some seriously heavy looking timber without a sweat!

After a solid 40 minutes of clearing the space out, we said our goodbyes to the Museum, hoping that our work would help them turn another new leaf in the restoration, and took a much more direct route down the Park back to the Bridge House.

Well done, team!

A toad-ally awesome 11 of us met up last night for a jog and some good deeding.

We were joined for the first time by Tim and Adam - welcome! 🙌

After a naming and fave biscuit loop, we hit the road. Hannah and Molly took the shorter, direct route, whilst the rest of us opted for the longest hill ever.

We arrived to meet John who was fully prepared with tools.

The water tower base at Crystal Palace Museum is an amazing historic structure and the museum team are keen to clear it out of soil, weeds and rubble so that it can be safely accessed as part of visitors’ museum experiences.

We focussed on a couple of specific areas, aiming to reach down to the concrete and pipes below.

John found a massive toad, hence the pun! 🐸

10+ bucket-loads of soil sieved later, we called it a day and headed back down the hill for some stretches.

Great stuff everyone 🥳

For tonight's sesh we were up at the Crystal Palace Museum, spending a little more time digging out soil in the old Water Tower base. It's Grade 2 listed so I guess we're kind of like archaeologists? The plan is for it to be open to the public occasionally and one day, maybe even an actual working part of the museum?!

GoodGym Gives You Wiiiiiiings!

100 good deeds not out. Incredible pub quizzer, top TaskForcer and a rock solid pair of hands, Stephen is now the owner of a winged GoodGym t-shirt. 100 good deeds for community projects and older people is a serious achievement. 👏👏👏 💯

Totally foursome!

Not sure that’s okay to put in big bold letters but whatever.

We had 4 new GoodGymers tonight! - shoutout to Renier, James, Andy and Emily - So pleased you could join us!

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We split into two groups for separate runs through/around the park. Stephen and Clare led the longer run round, which left Hannah, Richard and I heading up through the middle. Lots of talk about GoodGyming over the years in our group...

We met John who gave us tools and we cracked on:

🌱 Removing little weeds

🛒 Sifting soil through a trolley (as you do)

🧱 Moving bricks and rubble to the side

The aim was to dig down until we hit concrete, which we achieved in several places! 🥳

It’s all downhill from here!

We had a short jog back to base with some wallsits and squats en route.

Great job everyone - See you next time!

Another exquisite pun courtesy of Hannah ✌️😜

Another post-covid attendance record smashed.

And another session making some serious progress at the Water Tower. 🔥🔥🔥💦💦💦🚒🚒🚒

Shout out to Molly, Dani and Emma for attending their first GG sesh. So nice to have you join us.

We kicked off in the Bridge House with names and board games - some classics and some clearly quite complex choices. And then we did a brisk warm up before splitting in 3.

Cat and the speeders sped out and round the park. Hannah and Angela formed the walking contingent and the rest of us took the winding route through the park.

We arrived almost in sync, met history genius John, and headed into the tower. As usual, our tasks were varied:

🌱 Pulling out many wee weeds

🛒 Shovelling in and shaking soil through the trolley

💰 Bagging up the good stuff (which we'll use for our GoodGym garden in Betts Park) 😉

📷 I was trying to take some nice profile pics for people. I'm no photographer though, so they suck, sorry.

After 30 minutes, we called it a day, having made another massive dent in the project, which will one day mean that the public can access the tower during their museum experience. We posed for some peace-ing and then hit the road, back to the pub for some stretching and beverages.

Massive props to everyone 👏👏👏👏