A wonderful evening to be by the picture-perfect riverside in Richmond as we headed to Petersham & Ham Sea Scouts to continue work on the driveway. The driveway sees a lot of action at this very popular scout base. Over time the cars that pass over it have created holes where puddles form so it was our job to help fill them in!

This was a real all-body workout with shoveling sand mix, wheelbarrowing it around, pick axeing the compacted ground, drilling drainage holes and carrying equipment.

All this was accompanied by a 5km round trip run by the river where our red t-shirts caught the eye of many locals who shared a 'hello' or a 'thank you'. We even had three people run alongside us for a section, in sliders!

We are back at the Sea Scouts this Saturday and next Monday, https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/helping-to-lay-a-path-at-the-sea-scouts-hq-5b739871-f0b8-479d-bd34-2438ea6df5b9

Today at the Petersham and Ham Sea Scouts JP represented GG Richmond to help out with some tasks.

First up, naval manoeuvres. Two of the boats needed to be moved and one of them flipped over onto a trolley. They were heavy and it took all our strength to get them safely into postion.

Then, it was time to tackle the holes appearing in the driveway, a task which will be continued at Monday evening’s group run.

The surface layer had to be removed with picks and shovels, ready for new material to be laid to fill the holes and hopefully remain sound to level the drive.

More hard labour for this one, but satisfying. Looking forward to continuing the efforts on Monday!

Task 1: Lifting a Shipping continar by hand! Who needs Strong men competition when you have Good gym. Ok we did use a large pole, we are still the strongest Goodgymers in the west.

Task 2: Prep for Moving boats, We moved old types ready fo boats to rest on. At this point I was questioning why, we are not preping for to the next 40 day flood.

Task 3: Switching Boats over so the outside boat can get cleaned. As you have guess the rain was getting heavyer and these Boats are not how I image Noah loading animals. By we did lift safely 2 by 2.

Task 4: Sweeding the main building, in doing this task the Kayaks where moved. I think it was a quick once over to confirm we can get into boats ready for the high waters.

Task 5: Sam climbed the stair way to mud, to clean the continars. I docmented the flowers so we have arecord for when the floods come.

We walked away in the Sunny (and not so dry) Richmond

A happy return to Petersham & Ham Sea Scouts last night where scout leader Russell, surely one of the hardest-working scouts ever, had tasks ready and raring to go for us!

The group started with an intro and marathon congratulations for Steph Ducat and Adam, as well as Susan and Sarah who were getting some well-deserved rest in! It wasn't a sunny evening but the Richmond riverside has its own charm for a 2.5km run to the scout base.

Russell introduced us to the cycle of driftwood that comes in on the high tide and rips up the plants and growth in the wooded area. One group collected large pieces to add to the bug houses and get them out of the tide line while the other group emptied the woodshed of last year's dried out driftwood to be used for kindling at campfires. Next time we will be collecting the smaller piece from the grounds to go into the woodshed to dry out for next year!

Bugs aplenty and lots of heavy-lifting action made this a lively workout before a run back into Richmond town centre. Join us on Sunday back at the Scout base to help with the next stage.

It was a dazzlingly sunny Sunday morning which saw 4 Richmond GoodGymers gather at the Petersham & Ham Sea Scouts for our last visit of 2023.

The scouts had a big bonfire on Saturday evening and our tasks this morning were all part of the big clean up. The fire was still smouldering from the previous evening, allowing us to burn the twigs and small branches littering the area around it.

We then swept up the leaves on the lawn and put them on the compost heap, rolled up the plastic fencing, moved and put away the barriers, tidied up litter bins and dismantled and stored tables from the large hall in the scout hut.

A nice satisfying bunch of jobs to help out Russell and the gang. We'll see them again in 2024!

We were greeted on a brisk but sunny autumn morning at Petersham and Ham Sea Scouts by four upturned and very mucky boats, which needed some TLC before they could be put to bed for the winter. No amount of scrubs would be enough as we set about getting these boats ship-shape.

We donned our Marigolds and had a stern word with ourselves before plunging into the icy waters containing the brushes and suds we needed to get the job done. Bowing to pressure (washer), we decided hose turn it was to use the more powerful equipment to jetsam more silt off the boats.

We soon saw a familiar shape on the horizon, shipmate Sam lived up to his ‘Captain Casual’ reputation by joining the task shortly after finishing The Cabbage Patch 10 in a mere 68 minutes.

Buoy, did the extra pair of hands make a difference, we flotsam good shine on those hulls and weighed anchor to warm these brass monkeys back up.

Although this one shivered our timbers, we’d never jib at helping out such a fantastic organisation. We’ll be back on 5 November to help restore the scorched grass after the Scouts’ annual bonfire night celebrations.