The railings of the Meath Gardens changing rooms proved to be a useful little multi-gym this evening.

As the number of GoodGymers grew for tonight’s task, we rattled through this evening’s workout, including tricep dips and even a chest press or two on this handy surface.

At shortly before 6:45 we finished with a few stretches, before being joined by the first of the Friends of Meath Gardens team!

Why were we here?

Meath Gardens is one of our longstanding tasks: we’ve formed a close relationship with the brilliant Friends of Meath Gardens over the years.

From canalside tree-watering to exciting planting projects, we’ve been lucky enough to join the team for some fabulous garden activities.

The park is a much-loved local green space, and pockets of rubbish often make their way under well-used footbridges or become sandwiched between the park’s borders and fences.

So tonight’s task was a big old litter-pick, covering as much of the park as we could, tackling those trash hotspots.

Task owner Tunde kicked us off with a fantastic briefing: information about the current litter hotspots; our priorities this evening, and clear instructions on everything from the size of our groups to the health and safety basics was covered.

Divided into three teams, we proceeded to tackle three areas:

1. The borders between the shrubs and the fences.
2. The footbridge towards the back of the park.
3. The ‘big green bit’ in the middle of the park.

All three teams filled rubbish sacks very quickly (tonight’s stash included a suitcase, a bicycle wheel and a gazillion bottles and cans) - this certainly felt like a satisfying and sociable way to spend a Monday evening. From clambering down banks to carting bags to bins, this proved a good little workout too.

At just before 8 we piled the last bag outside the Changing Room block, ready to be taken to the bins.

After posing for a couple of fab group photos, our final upper body exercise of the night consisted of the last trip to the big bins.

Saying our cheerios, we dispersed into different directions: some straight home, some to the lock-up to collect valuables.

A fantastic night.

Shout-outs to the whole team, especially to Fiona who got some good action pics!

Next Monday, we’re heading back to Columbia Road for a variety of gardening tasks.

Until then.

11 GoodGymers met at the iconic Limehouse Town Hall last night to help Rosie and Jay with some urgent painting!

The corridors of the entrance hallway of this beautiful building needed a few coats of paint in time for their Open Day this coming Sunday.

Housed in a Grade II listed building, Limehouse Town Hall is,

a resource for artists and cultural producers, audiences and communities from Tower Hamlets and beyond to share ideas, celebrate, organise, and imagine a better here and now.

After a thorough briefing, Rosie dispatched GoodGymers to all corners and ends of the corridor, armed either with a roller (to deal with the big areas) or a brush (to go over those pesky corners and doorways). Working in teams of two, with an absence of spillages, Rosie agreed after 40 minutes a lot was getting done.

With Oliver and Neena tackling the higher areas, the remaining GoodGymers zipped from corner to corner with paint trays, ensuring our contribution this evening was as thorough as possible.

And guess what? As usual, the time flew and before we knew it, it was after 8 and time to carefully stack rollers, brushes and trays, ready for Rosie to continue tomorrow.

A thoroughly fun evening, culminating in a run down of our exciting announcements, including:

• This Thursday’s late summer social

• …Our new Sunday sessions with the Bethnal Green Foodbank

• …and not forgetting an important reminder of The Big London Social, next week.

Meanwhile, next Monday’s task sees us heading back to Bow to join Kieran in the lovely GET OUT Garden.

Until then.

With a very last minute change of task we headed to Stoke Newington common to help the friends of group with their amazing efforts to grow tge baby trees!!

filling up water container after container from the secret water tap then using a trolling to pull the gallons of H2O around the common to the trees that are less than 3 years old. We then hydrated them to the max with 4 full containers each before carrying on with the route.

4 trips back to the tap and we had won!!

Big shout out to Lucie fir making her way over from the playground to smash the task!!

hope to see you at Clissold next week!!

The Fitness

As we lined up around the vegetable planters for tonight’s workout, slowly our little group grew, until there were no fewer than six GoodGymers performing seated leg lowers, Bulgarian split squats and incline push-ups on the edge of these miniature gardens.

As we completed a few post-workout stretches, our remaining members for tonight’s task appeared, ready to be briefed by Larry, our task owner, on the big task ahead for tonight.

Why were we here?

The St Leonard’s Priory Park is a park in Bow that has been ‘a place of prayer and gardening for 900 years’. The St Leonard’s team garden here every week to continue this legacy. Over the last year, we’ve loved joining Larry from the Bow Church team in this picturesque spot in the middle of a busy, bustling, well-connected area of our Borough.

The park is well supported by the local community: residents attend weekly gardening sessions, monthly feasts and - very soon – the Forest School!

Yep, tonight our task was to head back to the pretty, overgrown area at the back of the park to help clear some tall weeds and bundles of nettles for a new outdoor classroom for the neighbouring primary school.

The Task

The team wasted no time in getting stuck in to the task of clearing a mass of nettles, bindweed and other pesky plants (many of whom had long, well established roots). Spread out into all four corners of the area, they pulled, raked and bagged at a very fast pace.

We saw spiders, snails, plants of many types… (St Leonards Fascinating Fact #13: The park is now home to the Stag Beetle...).

Yes, this area is now Biodiversity Central.

What IS biodiversity?

In a nutshell (forgive the pun), it’s variety. We learned more this evening about the increasing amount of flora and fauna in this space, and the way boosting the ecology of the site helps attract more wildlife (more insects = more food for birds, more pollination of plants…).

Put simply, maintaining biodiversity helps to preserve quality of air, soil and water, so every little really does help.

The final lap

Back to the team: the bags were now getting full; Sree had mown the lawn, and it was after 8…Time to call it a day.

As the last bag was hauled to the side of the tool shed, we stood and marvelled at the before and after site. Posing for one final picture in the area where 4ft nettles had previously stood, we concluded that it was a Monday evening well spent.

We’ll be returning to this lovely spot next month to help clear…yep, the other side!

(…While next week we head to the Royal London to join Nancy and the Barts Volunteers Team for some more hospital tasks).

Until then.