it was the May edition of the social gardening club at St Margarets House and GoodGymmers Chloe and Sam showed up ready to tackle a thick ivy bush out on the front road. We snipped away and had to avoid being showered with dust as we the older inner roots came down. A focussed hour of work saw us fill 10 sacks of green waste! Come along next time for this regular midweek mid-afternoon task.

Here are the dates for the next four months:

Tuesday 23rd June, 4-7pm Wednesday 22nd July, 4-7pm Thursday 20th August, 4-7pm Wednesday 23rd September, 4-7pm

This Monday evening, we headed to Ocean Youth Connexions in Limehouse. Task owner, Kamal greeted us there after we rang the small, but very mighty doorbell. Many thanks to Kamal for hosting us after a last minute cancellation. Before starting, we gathered in a the shape of a digestive which was apt, given that we soon introduced ourselves and our favourite biscuit. Bourbons, jammie dodgers, ritz, ginger nuts, hobnobs, Biscoff, French raspberry jaffa cakes, malted milks, Choco Leibniz, and others were mentioned. Great biscuit preference diversity within the Goodgym demographic.
As usual, there was a range of tasks to occupy us:

• Simon and Kim headed upstairs to tidy the offices there. Tidy seems too small a word as what they accomplished was a changing-rooms-esque transformation (without any tears).
• Darren, gave the front of the building a makeover. A lone worker at first, by the end this was where the party was at and he was joined happily by several others
• Jack, supported by Sam (and a ladder) got to work giving the backyard hedge a trim. This task came naturally to Jack given that his mum is a professional hairdresser.
  
• Kirsti , Ciarán, Chantal and Chloe did a mix of weeding and rubbish clearing in the back yard.
• * John and Jack got to work clearing the back-backyard.

An array of equipment was used to aid clearing: from litter pickers to broomsticks (the latter not just getting a mention here so that the report title makes sense...)

Shout out to Chantal for coming to her first task and getting stuck in the weeds, in a good way!

Congrats to Chloe for recently completing a milestone 10 tasks (this being her 11th)! A keen tennis player, Chloe has quickly established herself as a familiar and valuable member of the team - one could say she has 'set' the bar high for new joiners, always on the 'ball' and 'game' for all goodgym tasks.

This was a productive evening with many bags of rubbish cleared. Group photos taken, and a record number of shout outs and announcements announced, we said our goodbyes and went off in different directions.

Until the next time!

After a hiatus in the GGWF routine over Easter we're back for our monthly task! Four happy Goodgymmers were lucky enough to catch a break in the erratic weather on Thursday for long enough to do some serious clearing up at the Toy Library in Walthamstow, where much progress has been made on the adventure playground renovations. Helen had roped in her entire family, plus Mel from the Toy Library, and was absolutely delighted, as ever, to have some Goodgym helpers too. Many hands made light(er) work of filling a big skip with all the dismantled rotten decking we'd cleared from the playground back in March, laying weed-proof matting and gravel, weeding, sweeping and cleaning. The adventure playground is due to open on 30 May, so time is ticking to get it ready for a big future filled with lots of little adventurers! It's going to be a phenomenal addition to the Toy Library's facilities and an exciting new offering for the little ones in our community. Enormous thanks go to Kevin from Greenwich and Chloe from Tower Hamlets who came all the way to Waltham Forest to help us out, and Lily gets the prize for true dedication, using her early evening work break to come and join in! Well done everyone - the energy was high and Helen was enormously thankful for our help!