11 helpful elves, reindeer and santa fans, hit the pavements of Richmond for a festive feast of good deeds! Delivering Christmas cards for not one, but two organisations - Richmond Good Neighbours and St John the Divine Church.

Starting at the Tap Tavern, cards were divided up for runners to deliver and walkers headed straight to St John the Divine to collect some of their cards and complete delivery to some of the streets in the parish.

One pair racked up nearly 4.5km of zooming about while walkers got at least 4000 steps in, a great chance for members to get involved in their own way.

There are more streets to deliver to for the church, have a look at our upcoming tasks if you think you can help.

Full of festive cheer, Goodgymers from Kingston and Richmond joined the marshalling crew at the Princess Alice Hospice to guide and encourage runners and walkers along the 5km route.

Armed with florescent arrows, maps and loud voices, we spread some GoodGym positivity to each and every person who took part in the event, making sure they were going the right way and giving them a big red boost as they passed! It was inspiring to see so many people, including young children, dogs, buggies and older runners, take on the challenge, many running in memory of people the Hospice has supported through end-of-life care.

The temperatures in Bushy Park were probably close to the North Pole environment by the end but there were still smiles on faces as we all left to seek hot drinks and warm seats.

A beautiful autumnal morning to spend out in Old Deer Park in Richmond taking on marshalling duties for ParkRun. Excitingly, five members from GoodGym Oxford joined in the running fun too as part of their ParkRun tour. It made for a lot of GoodGymers in one place!

The team showed up ready to encourage runners and walkers around the route, taking on timing duties, way pointing, walking, tail marking and enthusiastic encouragement!

Rebecca is a regular there and kindly helped to organise the task, ensuring Area Activator Liz had chance to speak to the group about GoodGym before they set off. Hopefully we will be able to welcome some regular ParkRunners for a session with us soon too.

Three stunning laps around the park later, including some musical accompaniment from a man practicing the saxophone in the park, everyone had finished.

After the run, everyone headed for coffee, cake and chat, a perfect end to the start of the weekend!

Nine GoodGymers met in Richmond with Sam who led us on a warmup and an easy run along the River Thames to Petersham Common on Monday night the 21 November. We met Ken on the Common to put a bulb in….1,000 bulbs! We were given quick directions on what the task was and got stuck in digging a trench before we planted the 1,000 daffodil bulbs called tete-a-tete. These are very early dainty yellow daffodil bulbs that will mark the return of Spring. In no time we had dug the trench and set about planting the 1,000 bulbs screwing them gently into their new sockets to prepare them to come on full in a with a vibrant splash of yellow in early spring. We backfilled the trench and stomped the soil to ensure the bulbs were in full contact with the soil to grow. With a quick cheer we soon packed up the tools and departed running back into the night to Richmond with Jack leading the way home.

Monday’s Richmond Group Run took off from the Tap Tavern, speeding out along the Thames Path towards Buccleuch Gardens, Richmond for our monthly task at The Three Pigeons Plot and The Arcade Rockery. With tools and equipment ready to go, Anita was standing outside the Arcade. Ken and Adam had already woken up a leaf blower to say good-bye to the blanket of leaves, dropped by the towering London Plane trees surrounding the Arcade.

A bollard downed was put back in place by Salwa and Liz.

And Sam, Katie, Susan, Jp and Lucy pitched in to weed, sweep and prune.

A struggling Christmas box was given a new home by Rosie.

And pretty soon the Arcade was looking awesome and spry.

Everyone pitched in, sweeping up leaf debris, Composting weeds, bagging up leaves, everyone a community hero. With all our equipment packed, we were ready to leave, jetting back to the Tap Tavern for our monthly social. We do know when we’ll be back again (at Buccleuch Gardens): Monday 12th December for a festive gardening session. Enough said, I have to go. Anita (with apologies to John Denver).

A true honour to deputise for JP at leading this popular monthly task on Ham Lands. Welcome to Rachel and Rob who joined for their first GoodGym session after a 5k at Kingston parkrun.

Some of the jobs we completed were moving a pile of finely cut branches into one of the volunteers' cars and cutting back brambles to make the paths more accessible to walkers. Then as is tradition we headed to 'Flam Lands' for a well earned coffee and a bite to eat at the Swiss bakery. Unfortunately, we couldn't introduce the newcomers to the delights of Flammkuchen because the bakery had a machinery issue - but we'll be sure to put in an order in time for the next task at Ham Lands on Saturday 10th December.

Three GoodGymers donned hoods and set out on the beautiful residential streets of Richmond to deliver leaflets for CVS, the Richmond Volunteer Service. The leaflets detail their trustee recruitment evening this week and are an essential part of the success of local volunteering.

Stunning doorways, epic stairways and confusing postboxes are the norm in Richmond and a door drop is always a good workout! Sam sprinted between properties and covered a lot of ground!

Hoping that our good work this evening will help CVS find new trustees to continue their own good work.

This Saturday we are at Ham Lands and next Monday at the Riverside Three Pigeons plot, lots of getting our hands in the soil and giving nature a helping hand.