We started under clouds on Wednesday. Big - and grey - and looming - and groaning.

I remember looking up actually - on my way over - I really do remember doing that - looking up and frowning - and I remember saying - "look at them clouds".

It's not every day you get treated to that kind of insight, folks. Oh no it isn't!!!!

Quite proud of myself, I was. And so I wandered the rest of the way to our starting point, and honest as honest can be, if it hadn't already started pouring and pouring by the time I arrived, I'd have said - "eh, watch out, folks, just look at them clouds".

Anyway! Enough of this silliness!

We started under clouds and under cover on Wednesday, huddled for our catch-up-musings and evening-tide greetings. Before we headed out and into a quite blissfully serene post-downpour Greenwich Park, up some hills, down some roads, and over to the Bridge in East Greenwich.

Met by Ruth, we were there to dig. A soil bed - home to much colour and life over the past few summers - is in need of a little repair and revitalising - and we were there to empty it for that to happen.

Our group weeded and raked and dug and shifted, and we ended our 40 minutes a good chunk of the way into the bed.

And it was a special evening for marking on Wednesday, because the wonderful Andy, who has been splashing his kindness and intelligence around the GoodGym and Greenwich communities since 2017, was here for his last (if only for a little while!) session before his adventure moving North to Rossington. Andy, thank you for all you've given - you've become a friend to so many in our group and we're going to be waiting excitedly for your updates, news, and photos over the coming weeks and months :)

Thanks everyone - thanks to Ruth for welcoming us so warmly (as she always does) to the Bridge - and see you all soon :)

Running Through That Rain (to the tunes of Kate Bush and her running up that hill....)

Verse 1

The rain doesn't hurt us (Yeah, yeah, yo)

Do you wanna feel how it feels? (Yeah, yeah, yo)

Do you wanna know, know that the rain doesn't hurt us? (Yeah, yeah, yo)

Do you wanna hear about the deal we’re makin'? (Yeah, yeah, yo)

Pre-Chorus

Goo-oo-ood

Gy-yy-ym

Chorus

And if we only could

We'd make a deal with Rain

And we'd get them to fall on a Tuesday

Be runnin' up Traf Road

Be runnin' up Maze Hill

Be runnin' up Queen Anne Buildin’

Say, if we only could, oh-ohh

Verse 2

You don't wanna hurt us (Yeah, yeah, yo)

But see how deep the water goes (Yeah, yeah, yo)

Passers-by, they look at us with wonder (Yeah, yeah, yo)

Oh, there is thunder in your eyes (Yeah, yeah, yo)

Is there so much hate for the good deeds we do? (Yeah, yeah, yo)

Oh, tell me, we both matter, don't we? (Yeah, yeah, yo)

Pre-Chorus

Goo-oo-ood

Gy-yy-ym

Gree-en-wichy-ichy

Chorus

And if we only could

We'd make a deal with Rain

And we'd get them to fall on a Tuesday

Be runnin' up Traf Road

Be runnin' up Maze Hill

Be runnin' up Queen Anne Buildin’

Say, if we only could, oh-ohh

Bridge

Oh, come on, Rainy (Yeah)

Oh, come on, Cloudy (Yo)

Let’s seal these raincoats for us now

Oh, come on, r-angel

Come on, come on, Stormy

Let's exchange the GoodGym experience (Yo, ooh, ooh)

Chorus

And if we only could

We'd make a deal with Rain

And we'd get them to fall on a Tuesday

We'd be runnin' up Traf Road

Be runnin' up Maze Hill

With no problems

Say, if we only could

We'd make a deal with Cloud

And we'd get them to break on a Tuesday

We'd be runnin' through your rain

Be runnin' through your mist

With no problems

Say, if we only could

We'd make a deal with Storm

And we'd get them to roar on a Tuesday

We'd be runnin' through good deeds

We'd be runnin' through that rain

With no problems

Outro

Say, if we only could

We'd be runnin' through that rain

With no problems

(If we only could, be runnin' through that rain)

(If we only could, be runnin' through that rain)

---

Sorry about that, folks, I got rather carried away with all this... A very lovely evening this week – 10 of us met under cover at the Naval Colleges, and we welcomed Kit) and Phil to the group, welcome both!

Alex did his welcoming spiel, and we each said our ultimate Pot Noodle flavour, which varied from Classic Vegetable to Thai Green Curry to ‘Anything That Masks The Awful Pot Noodle Flavour’.

Then, after a quick game warm-up, we headed into the positively torrential downpour, and we jogged through the park and onto the lovely residential streets that can be found close by. And then, seriously sodden, we arrived at the wonderful community-focused (and not for profit) Bridge Community Centre, which is found nestled in the corner of a perfect green space called the East Greenwich Pleasaunce. But, very unfortunately, as our tasks were outdoors, it was decided that it would be best to postpone our help till another, sunnier day – I think we all, weather-beaten, breathed a collective sigh of relief at this news, and instead we headed into Greenwich. And here, some of us disembarked into the welcoming warmth of Rosa Thai for a social – thanks for organising, Sarah!

A lovely and memorable evening with you all, and I hope you had a great time too! Perhaps next time, we should sing to Rain, asking for it to fall on a Tuesday…

Two things: 1) Last night was lovely 2) Aren’t GoodGym group runs better with sunshine and history?

Happily, we had both…

History Part #1 The evening started at Greenwich’s Old Royal Naval College buildings. And if you don’t already know, these originally housed the old Greenwich Hospital, which as far as I can tell (Wikipedia), cost £30k to build. Which ain’t bad going really.

By the £30k buildings, we began with a round of introductions and we each said our favourite type of curry. We had dahl, sweet dahl, dahl with garlic naan, chicken madras, dahl, curry with paneer, butter veggie, dahl, and plenty others with sides of saag aloo and dahl. Which is so varied and so appetising that maybe we should all head for a curry soon…?

After this mouth-watering chat, we headed for a warmup and played an old drama game favourite of Alex’s, called Yee-Haw. Basically, we all stood in a circle and someone shouted Yee-Haw!, which created this invisible energy that none of us could see, and this then moved between us until someone didn’t like the energy and they blocked it by shouting Hay-Barn!, and then someone found a snake in their shoe and proceeded to chuck it at another GoodGymmer, and this strangely gave them some new energy and they responded by becoming a bandit and shooting up the whole joint, and we continued like that for some time…

Warmed, we headed to our task via Greenwich Park (and one of the hills), and we arrived at our destination – The Bridge, which is a community hub situated in the wonderful and little-known East Greenwich Pleasaunce…

History Part #2 There’s a meet-cute of histories tonight. The old Greenwich Hospital (now the Old Royal Naval College) purchased the East Greenwich Pleasaunce as a burial ground for retired sailors residing at the old Greenwich Hospital, who were called the Greenwich Pensioners; and incidentally, Greenwich Hospital was once described as the ‘poshest pensioners home that ever was’. The history behind the purchasing of the Pleasaunce in 1857 is really quite fascinating and involves the inspection of several alternative grounds in Deptford and Hither Green (that were ruled out either due to excessive cost or the grounds actually being water-logged clay) by officious sounding Home Office inspectors. Not wanting to bore you any longer, this history is so nicely researched and written up by Pieter van der Merwe on the Friends of East Greenwich Pleasaunce website, and I’ll pop the link to this in the comments below for anyone who wants to read further.

Getting back on track (my apologies), we arrived at the gorgeous green space that The Bridge provides for the community at the top of the Pleasaunce. There, we were met by the lovely Ruth, who wanted us to remove the children’s toys from the shed and give them a good clean and wipe, before re-organising these for the next summer playtime. And so, in GoodGym Greenwich fashion, we organised into teams; some shifted the items in the shed to the entrance, where they were passed to a second team who placed them into neat piles, and then others took wipes and buckets of water to the toys to give them a good clean. And honestly, I’m talking so many toys – scooters, bikes, plastic moats, gymnastics mats… But in really just a few minutes, the toys were already being handed back to the team in the shed for stowing away. I think Ruth’s sentiments at the end of the task summed up our efforts – we’d saved her a whole day’s work – and that just shows what a group of effective altruists can do on a Wednesday evening.

After the task, some headed home, and a few others jaunted back to the old Royal Naval College / the old Greenwich Hospital for a stretch under the sunset. Awesome evening everyone and looking forward to many more with you all 😊

This report is late.

Which is something my teachers always used to say.

Hmmm does that mean they were right...

Anyway, enough of this self-flagellation. And more of this lovely evening.

We met on a hot evening 2 weeks back. Too hot even for the amateur sun seekers amongst us. We sheltered in the shade as we caught up and chattered. And we then warmed up with our very own politically attuned version of British Bulldog. Exercise for the body and the mind.

To the wonderful Greenwich Pleasaunce was where we ventured. Tucked away from the main road in East Greenwich, it is a drop of sanctuary in a busy city. And it's also the home of the rather awesome Bridge Community Centre.

Weeds had amassed. Many weeds of different shapes. But all equally unnecessary. And all easy work for our lovely Greenwich group. They watered, dug, pulled, and shifted until the bed of green looked like fertile soil once again. The Bridge team will be planting away this Summer.

And this group aren't simply destructive. Oh no. Claire and Andy were on the nuturing side that evening, giving the centre's wonderful plants and beds a little healthy water.

Thanks for a lovely one, folks!!

On an autumnal September evening, 6 Good-Gymmers caught a break in the rain to help out at The Bridge in East Greenwich Pleasaunce.

Upon arriving at the community playground the lovely Ruth set us to work cleaning the outdoor toys ready for their 'stay and play' sessions to start up again in October.

We methodically worked our way through the wide selection of toys including ride on cars, scooters, bicycles, prams, and best of all a yellow digger! Each received a good scrub with Dettol followed by a hose down. By the end they were all sparkling clean and ready to be enjoyed by the children!

The evenings are truly starting to draw in earlier recently, but luckily we had every single one of the toys cleaned and put away before darkness fell - great teamwork everyone!

23 runners ran 4km to plant 160 saplings at The Bridge!

Another week and another lovely evening with a summer like temperature as well. The Goodgym Greenwich gang welcomed new runner Matt last night and during our raucous briefing and welcome we were asked to move on as our voices were louder than a choir concert happening inside the Naval College.

After a very quick warm up we were off for another opportunity to run inside Greenwich Park. We were promised that we would do the whole hill, however we certainly managed the mean section of Maze Hill!

We were rewarded for our up hill struggle with a downhill path and swiftly arrived at The Bridge and got to task on planting 16 varieties of trees, weeding and other maintenance. Most of the team began preparing pots for the trees to go in while Claire and Sara carefully wrote out the labels for each variety - a Goodgym task anomaly.

The saplings were planted in their new homes and the labels were assigned to their correct pots. The team weeding had made a massive improvement to the flower beds outside the centre and we were all rewarded with biscuits and squash.

The group set off back to the naval college and finished with a quick leg strength session of squats and lunges - and we were careful to avoid the concert and making a reputation for ourselves as troublemakers.

Great work everyone! Ruth was SO pleased with all the work you managed to do, it would have taken her hours and hours so huge well done to you all for working so hard!!