The gorgeous Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park covers 27 acres and is home to a wide range of wildlife and plants.

Volunteers offer support to Park Manager Ken and his team to help manage the site, including the maintenance of its many pathways.

16 GoodGymers gathered this evening to help remove cow parsley from one of the pathways.

We welcomed Jasand Carina to their first Monday night task before Ken greeted us with a short briefing, tonight's pun and some good guidance on the task ahead...

Why cow parsley?

Cow parsley can spread rapidly and dominate open spaces, overshadowing smaller plants. Managing its spread helps keep a balanced and varied landscape.

The team spent a productive hour in the overgrowth, performing many squats to carefully uproot the stems, and taking it in turns to wheel loads around the corner to the green waste pile, before hurling armfuls of greenery onto this great big green mountain.

By the end of the evening, pathway clearings were more visible (see Emma’s before and after pics) showing immediate results of tonight’s effort.

It was gone 8 when we gathered gloves, forks and wheelbarrows and headed to the nearest bench for our final group pic! Ambling back through the park, we concluded it was something of a relief to enjoy a task in the daylight, complete with warm sun.

Until next time.

We met from this task outside the Asda supermarket, which was handy as it gave Asad and Kat the chance to grab a late breakfast to fortify themselves for the task ahead.

We were also joined by new-boy Yagiz, who lives a short walk away, doing his first ever Good Deed. Welcome Yagiz, see you again soon! We made our way to the night shelter, which has worked with the local community to provide support to people experiencing homelessness for over 25 years.

They provide emergency shelter and hot meals with structured individual plans to assist guests to move into longer term accommodation.

However, some areas of the shelter were starting to look a bit shabby, and the fearless foursome soon got to work with stepladders, rags to protect the carpets, and plenty of white paint.

We wanted to finish the job, so spent an extra half an hour over our allotted time to make sure the ceiling of two rooms, the door to another and that difficult bit above the door, were all covered in a shiny new coat of paint.

For the first time ever, I completed a painting task without a trace of paint on my clothes! But Kat walked away with plenty of souvenir white splashes on her shirt...

Andrada met up with Asad, Kat and Louis and Oliver early morning at the farm. The sky was sunny and clear, and everyone was eager to get to work. Pat met us at the gates and given us the task for the session.

During this session, farm enthusiasts Asad, Kat and Louis filled the new raised beds with manure and reused soil from tomatoes pots from the greenhouse.

Oliver and Andrada were busy digging and filling up the space next to the main path around the raised beds with woodchip to prevent the main path from flooding. This involved doing multiple trips with full wheelbarrows and using the freshly removed soil to level up the entrance to the donkeys’ field, which needed a bit of flood prevention measures as well.

It was a busy 90 minutes for all of us, but we got to unwind for 30 minutes at the end by picking up apples from the orchid and feeding them to the lovely Rollo, Pollo and their piglets.

We ended our visit by hanging out with the new baby calves on site 🐄 whose names are still debated by the farm’s staff. All we know is that they will carry names of biscuits!

A fab-sized team gathered in Newell Street this evening for our task with Ocean Youth Connexions and Tower Hamlets Community Transport Hub.

Meeting outside King’s Wharf Park before 7, we caught up on the news from the weekend and discussed the night’s task.

Kamal, from Ocean Youth, came down to greet us as our group size was growing and we slowly made our way into the garage area to be briefed on tonight’s task.

Ocean Youth Connexions offer a range of youth provision across the borough, during term time and the school holidays.

The organisation has recently relocated its offices to Limehouse, to join the Tower Hamlets Community Transport team, a small charity ‘set up to provide transport to voluntary and community groups in Tower Hamlets’.

Gathering in the garage area, surrounded by equipment for tonight’s task, Kamal proceeded to run through the list of tonight’s activities, which included another big leaf-clearing in the outdoor area; a thorough cleaning of all the upstairs windows, and a sugar-soaping of the toilet walls, in preparation for next month’s big painting activity.

The GoodGymers worked fast, moving onto new tasks including radiator-cleaning and jasmine-pruning.

It was now well and truly dark, complete with an Autumn wind, but thankfully, the outside area at the Hub is beautifully (flood)lit.

As always, the time flew and just before 8, Emma, John and Lucinda were heading up the task wrap-up effort, finishing slickly and precisely at 8.

Another great night with Ocean Youth - we return on the 28th October... Save The Date!