There are easier ways to spend a wet November evening. But would they be quite as rewarding?

Some GoodGym evenings run like clockwork. This wasn’t one of them!

Buses were late, plans were changing, people were running, walking or limping, and we hadn’t even started the task. But there was something rather wonderful about everyone’s determination to get there.

Theo appeared at Finchley Central just as I’d assumed nobody was coming. George and Patricia, walking from the Phoenix, somehow managed to arrive shortly after me. Subham sailed past the entrance and had to retrace his steps. Victoria battled the buses and then the locked park gates, but wasn’t going to be defeated. Sadly, Daniel’s earlier commitment overran and he couldn’t join us.

And then the rain started. Perfect!

Meanwhile, Andy, known to GoodGym as simply Savage (a rather misleading name for such an erudite gentleman!), and Richard, another of the wonderful regular volunteers at Stephens House and Gardens, had already been busy preparing our task. Bags and equipment were ready, and the leaf clearing was underway.

Eventually, our scattered GoodGym troops assembled, armed mostly with rakes, and got stuck in.

There was something quite special about working in the park after dark. Some had torches powerful enough to search for lost aircraft, while others made do with the glow of the city sky. The rain kept falling, but strangely nobody seemed particularly bothered. We chatted, raked, gathered leaves and filled bags.

Seven enormous builders’ bags in all! Not bad for an evening when simply getting everyone through the gates had felt like an achievement.

I think there’s something important about evenings like this.

We live in a world where it’s increasingly easy to choose comfort. Stay indoors, keep warm, avoid the rain. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

But occasionally, getting ourselves out into the cold, wet and dark, overcoming a few obstacles and doing something useful for others makes us that little bit stronger.

Not just physically, but mentally too.

Perhaps when we face the challenges of the modern world the following morning, they seem a little less daunting. After all, we’ve already battled the buses, negotiated locked gates, survived the rain and shifted seven bags of leaves!

and you know what? You’re always glad you’ve done it! We turn up. We help out. We go home a little stronger.

A big thank you to everyone who made the effort, and especially to Andy and Richard for welcoming us and preparing the task.

And the lovely thing? Andy had already sent his thanks before the evening was over:

“Many thanks. A great job in not very clement weather. I appreciate it.”

Seven bags of leaves, a few wet jackets and another little GoodGym adventure under our belts.

See you at the next one!

A Night at the Winter Shelter

Daniel and I spent last night supporting the Winter Night Shelter at St Mary’s Church Hall in Finchley.

This is a fantastic initiative run by Homeless Action in Barnet (HAB), bringing together churches, synagogues, mosques and volunteers to provide people experiencing homelessness with a safe, warm place to sleep, an evening meal and breakfast throughout the winter.

We arrived between 9pm and 10pm, taking over from the wonderful St Mary’s volunteers who had provided the evening meal.

Our job was relatively straightforward: staying overnight to ensure someone was on site for safety and insurance purposes. Despite the cold night, we had good bedding and I managed a decent night’s sleep!

A real pleasure to support such a worthwhile cause. We’re hoping to return next month, with other GoodGym members also contributing throughout the winter.

Sometimes doing good simply means being there.

Delayed by the rain last week, Pauline's pickers were at it in fine weather this week, joined by myself and Daniel. Fortunately (I guess??), someone had got to our target streets first, so we had a quick re-routing, heading down the High Road to Summers Lane, then to the back of Summerside School, back up to Sandringham, then as far as Kenver Road then back to the High Road.

One of our trusty pickers had spotted a very bad dump by the Granville Road bus stop on the High Road, so we quickly popped back there so Daniel and I could crawl into the bushes and clear the patch. Then, job done, we head on our merry way with the sunshine still beating down, stopping only briefly to snap some fly-tipped furniture on the corner of Churchfield Avenue.

GoodGym Barnet – Barnet Climate Action Week tiny forest Barnet

A beautiful day to get together at Mutton Brook as part of Barnet Climate Action Week, combining a little practical work, citizen science and a chance to introduce more people to our local Tiny Forests.

Starting at 11am, Richard and Subhamboth local residents, were already on site and quickly got stuck into some litter picking after a chat about the four Tiny Forests.

The original Tiny Forest is now well established, but the three newer forests have endured a brutal summer and are showing signs of stress, with some struggling trees and plenty of weeds.

These three forests are particularly interesting because each has a different soil preparation method. Looking up the slope, the middle plot uses biochar, the right-hand plot follows the standard Miyawaki method, and the left-hand plot uses a simpler, no-dig approach incorporating cardboard. On general inspection, the middle biochar forest appears to be showing the strongest growth, although proper measurements will tell us more. Victoria said Yes lots of fun. Like high school science class again haha!

’innovative approach to growing trees with the help of biochar was recently featured on BBC Countryfile at Blenheim Palace on 1 February 2026. You can find out more on BBC iPlayer.https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002qwy0

Roman & Victoria were both new to the Tiny Forest project and got stuck into our citizen science work, identifying trees, recording their positions along a transect and measuring their diameters. This helps us monitor growth and understand their potential for carbon capture. We’ll share the data with Earthwatch and hopefully continue these measurements over the coming months.

It was also a lovely opportunity to chat about our local community and the wider work GoodGym gets involved with, supporting green spaces, community groups and projects that encourage people to get outdoors and take practical action.

And, as has become something of a GoodGym tradition, we rounded things off with a little frisbee throwing and a runaround for anyone who fancied it!

A big thank you to everyone who came along. A lovely mix of practical volunteering, learning something new and enjoying our local green spaces together. That’s what GoodGym is all about!