Ten of us - one of us using pedal power - made our way to Full Cycle, on Kingston Road, on Monday night, to help clean some of the bikes recently donated to non-profit community group, Full Cycle.

With the bikes raised up on stands, we took off their wheels and used rags, brushes and cleaning spray to get into every nook and cranny, in an effort to leave them looking like new ready for affordable resale or donation to local charities.

The other task some of us took on was to prepare old inner tubes for recycling - each one had to have their valve removed, be rolled and stacked in a box.

Giving up a small amount of our time will hopefully enable the team of specialist bike mechanics and volunteers to spend more of their precious energy on the important task of refurbishing the bikes!

This task was especially significant for one devoted GoodGym member - Dave - for whom this was task 201. An incredible achievement. Massive congratulations from us all.

To avoid the trick or treaters going out for Halloween, the run and task this week was moved to Monday - but that didn’t stop some in our group from dressing up! Any excuse! Loved seeing the skeleton onesies Rachel and Dave but Jen wins the award for her devil horns coordinating so beautifully with her red GoodGym top.

It was a funny night and the world wanted to conspire against us but GoodGym had a mission to get to as the walls at Searchlight were not going to paint themselves.

A quick warm up in the park and Rachel, Dave, Saber, Gemma and Claire were off and running up the road towards Searchlight.

Martel had prepped the room for painting when we arrived so we had the best bit left painting and a bit of rubbing down.

Dave rubbed down the windows whilst Gemma, Rachel and Claire started painting the walls and Saber nearly painted the sanded window frames.

After an hour the room looked whiter than white and we enjoyed a quick chocolate treat before running back to the Quaker Centre with our mission accomplished.

A bit of rain was not going to deter the hardy GoodGymers from finishing the GoodGym flowerbed ready for winter.

Tools collected we started off clearing the leaves and weeds with very long roots.

Nearly an hour in we were joined by Sam who volunteers in the garden. Rob then collected some more woodchip whilst Julie and Claire spread it around and Sam finished off the weeding.

The rain had eased off and the sun had come out so Trevor joined us from the Canbury Garden volunteers and helped us put the fence in. It was a team effort feeding the wire through the holes trying to avoid it kinking but we got the job done.

As we finished up and admired the flowerbed the heavens opened again so we all headed off a little soggy for our lunch.

Great work everyone 🌟 the extra time spent on the fence made a great difference.

If we thought we might have been tricked when finding out that the British Heart Foundation were short of Halloween stock to create a window display for our planned task - they had another treat for us instead.

The charity has dozens of packages on their lower floor donated by the likes of Amazon and Apple and we were asked to open, sort through, and hang as many as possible on rails so they can be offered for sale.

We split into two groups with Petra, Rachel, Jana, Hanna, Emma, Sati, Jennie and Nina arranging theirs in organised rows to rival those at Selfridges while Claire, Louise, Pooria and Tom found quite a mixture in their pile including a Cruella Deville costume, a jujitsu gi and one or two others more suitable for an, ahem, special occasion.

The best thing about visits to the BHF is there’s a different type of task whenever we come, plus hobnobs, a warm welcome and a huge amount of gratitude for helping out.

A big shout out to Sati, Hanna and Pooria on their first task. Welcome to GoodGym and thanks for all your help.

A mountain of kindly donated nappies were quickly taken downstairs and sorted into different sizes - just the first of many jobs lined up for eight GoodGymers at Growbaby, which supports local families.

Volunteers at the charity have little time to sort and clear the space in Surbiton Road, as they welcome and support almost 60 in-need families now coming through the doors on a regular basis. Tonight we were able to help them out, including putting up a clothes rail to display the autumn and winter coats, clearing and tidying the art and craft cupboards and boxes, sorting books and games and building a table to store and display the variety of car seats.

The evening’s highlight though was the crowning and cape-wearing of Petra, as she completed her 100th task for GoodGym Kingston. A fantastic achievement - which we celebrated with some yummy cakes!

The unseasonably hot weather has made the plants in the GoodGym flower bed rather thirsty so I convinced my colleague that a lunchtime run to Canbury Gardens was required. We didn’t go as far up the river as usual and stopped at the tool shed for the watering cans and buckets and jogged to the river. We filled them up a couple of times and gave the plants a good drink. Once finished we had a quick jog back to the shed and a run back to the office, returning feeling nice and refreshed for the afternoon.

Hopefully the plants might get a top up from some rain later in the week.