Big congratulations for member Susan who hit 100 tasks, a 4km run, a gardening task AND cake, it was a busy Monday evening for GoodGym Richmond!

Starting at the Tap where Susan was adorned with the celebratory wings and presented with the group card, the group went through a warm-up before heading down to the riverside to cross the bridge and head to St Christopher's.

At the home, the task was to give the front area of the large building a cleanup, something we are very familiar with! The group set about trimming hedges, weeding and sweeping leaves, as well as discovering a very dead Christmas tree that was chopped up to fit into the garden recycling bin and give space for Spring growth in the beds.

The task was completed with a lovely range of cakes that Susan kindly brought along to share, so many that we left some for the young people at the home to enjoy too!

A final run back to the Tap finished off the evening well. Congratulations Susan, 100 complete!

Join us next week for our monthly trip to our sponsored riverside plot, as well as more celebrations, this time for Rosie's 100th!

This week marked a special milestone for Susannah who reached 100 GoodGym tasks! 🥳

The group met at Tap Tavern for an intro, warm-up and to adorn Suze with her ceremonial wings (to match the GoodGym 100 t-shirt design) and give her the card signed by the group and showing some of her 100 highlights. Suze joined in summer 2021 and has carried out tasks in an impressive SEVEN GoodGym areas.

The evening's task took us over the river to St Christopher's where the group prepped the vegetable patch ready for growing season. It was overrun with weeds so there was a lot of digging involved, overseen by wonder Rosie who actually knows what we are meant to do with plants!

45 minutes later and the area was transformed, with some potatoes, brocolli, cabbages, carrots and wild garlic found along the way. The group however opted for less green treats as Suze cracked open the cookies and flapjacks she had brought along. Perfect to get the legs moving again to run back to the Tap!

Congratulations Suze and thank you for all the good you do.

This terrible dark Monday night, we met at the lair/Tap Tavern to run for our lives along the river and across Richmond Bridge to St Christopher's Fellowship to get involved in a gourd time and some hair-raising activities:

Jason/Chris took to the hedges with vigour, creating a Chainsaw Massacre of branches on the driveway. With cunning speed, the evidence was quickly hidden by Top Hat/Adam where noone would discover it (in the garden waste bins).

Stealth-like cats Night/Pippa and Shade/Liz, pruned and shaped bushes into purrfection.

The Butcher/Jp sharpened his blades and took whole flanks off the overgrown bushes.

Haunted Hunter and his owner Teresa scared off intruders and kept the team safe.

The Mobiliser/Lucy had to join late after gruesome delays (the less asked the better), but dialled straight into the action.

Mario/Rosie jumped into action to make the driveway look pretty peachy.

Drusilla/Nina got her teeth stuck into raking leaves and Jack Skellington/Sam made no bones about joining her to get the job done.

The job was done quickly and efficiently and we could have slipped away under the darkness of night, if it wasn't for those pesky kids (Pumpkin Beth and T-Rex Monika) who caused curtain-twitchers and local zombie walkers to look on in fear/confusion!

Liz rewarded the team with bloody marshmallows before leading the exorcise back over the bridge to the safety of the lair.

While most of the group headed straight to the task location this evening, three runners met at the Tap Tavern for a quick run over the Bridge to St Christopher's. On arrival, Liz shared information on some of the upcoming tasks, talked about both the end of summer social and Christmas party in the same sentence, and we all welcomed Christy for the first time!

We have helped at St Christopher's so frequently that even though the person on duty didn't have specific instructions, we set about giving the garden a bit of 'the usual'! Cutting back the bushes, taking out brambles, sweeping the driveway of leaves and giving the front hedge a trim. Many hands make light work, even as the dark descended on us and there was just time for a giggling group picture before everyone headed home.

It was a cool Saturday morning as 9 GoodGymers (including John who was visiting from Camden) took on the mission of tidying up the front garden of St Christopher’s Fellowship in East Twickenham, a charity which aims to create brighter futures for children and young people in care.

We raided the shed for tools and headed out front. We’ve helped St Christopher’s frequently before so the tasks were familiar - trimming the hedges, litter picking and sweeping up leaves (um, it’s not Autumn yet, what’s going on there?) - but there was additional work this time to tidy up the rubbish and recycling bins which were in a very poor state.

We divided up the tools we had found and got to work. Monika led on litter picking and Chris had the hedge trimmer and got to work on the front hedge. Others grabbed shears to cut back the hedges alongside the driveway and brooms to sweep up the leaves.

The green bins were pretty full and we were struggling for space before Anita - who had taken charge of bins tidy up - managed to compress the contents further, and we also had black bags for the rest.

Reinforcements arrived in the form of Kash and Sevan from Ealing who had helped out at Parkrun beforehand. They got to work on an area of overgrown weeds and leaf matter beside the main building, and tackled a huge creeper growing up the side, Kash even jumping on Sevan’s shoulders to try to reach the highest parts.

Teas and waters were brought out for refreshments but most of the group kept working and by the end we were all proud of our efforts. As usual the staff were enormously grateful and we look forward to helping them out again soon!

A surprisingly sunny morning greeted 6 of us as we gathered at St Christopher’s for a task in their garden.

The brief was to sort out the vegetable plot in the corner of the grounds, which we have tended over the years in GoodGym Richmond but which had seen better days.

Before heading out to the back garden we were delighted to open a card left for us, from all at Rosslyn Road (ETNA is next door) congratulating us on the Richmond Heroes award we won for all the work done in the local community. Thank you everyone!!

We set to with rakes and spades, digging over the soil and removing the weeds and bluebells. The small wooden wall had also lost its footing, so Chris took charge of resetting it around the edge of the vegetable plot.

A lot of the talk was of the women’s Six Nations match at Twickenham which several of this morning’s volunteers were attending after the mission.

Once we had got the plot looking great and filled 2 green bins, we had a bit of spare time so headed to the front garden of the property to do some litter picking and sweep the driveway.

All in all a great mission, helped by the lovely warm sunshine!