What a fun filled, mud filled, pun filled Wednesday evening we had this week! *Stay tuned for as many oarsome boat/ sailor puns as we could come up with in this report.

For those of us who met for the run from Charlton House, this week's icebreaker was deceptively thought provoking:

"If you could relive one moment in your life, what would it be?"

What I failed to anticipate was the immediate descent into philosophy:

What actually counts as a 'moment'? Are you reliving it, or changing it? Which self gets to choose? Your current self or your younger self? 🙄

After several minutes adrift in a sea of existential pondering, I found myself pleading, "No more questions!"

To be fair, that's something I say at least five times a day to my son, Arthur. Poor boy. But hey, someone has to stamp the curiosity out of children, right?

Responses ranged from the birth of children, to choosing that dream career that our pesky parents forbade, to extra cheesy points for Sarah for picking the moment she came along to a GoodGym session! 🧀🥳

Anyway, before we drift too far off course...

A huge welcome to Rhena and Candida on your first Good Deeds with us! And an extra shout-out to Rhena for completing her first run. We hope you're both hooked and don't immediately jump ship!

Our task for the evening was at the lovely community garden at the Prince Philip Maritime Collections Centre, where our much-loved rowing boat had finally reached the end of its voyage. And so, with a heavy heart it was time to break up the old and make way for a younger model.

The steps were as follows:

1) Remove all the soil from the old boat

2) Smash it up with shovels (One member of the group might have enjoyed smashing the boat up a little bit too much...he certainly made his Mark.)

3) Break up the wood to wheelbarrow to the bins

4) Debate exactly how on earth we were going to get the new, bigger boat into position (this took a while)

5) Shovel out more soil and grass

6) Tow Tow Tow the boat into position and attempt to secure it with blocks of wood

At times our plans felt a little rudderless, but somehow we kept things afloat and while we may need to come back to fully anchor the boat in place, that was a job well done in the pelting rain - hardened sailors that we are!

After that, it was time to run, walk, or otherwise navigate our way home.

Thanks everyone for another oar-some evening!

Coming up This weekend we have:

Parkrun volunteering

Helping at the Family Fun Day in Hornfair Park

Clean up Charlton

Leafleting for Prince Philip's Community Day

GoodGym Picnic!

Until next time, lovely people!

Rachel

It was time to revisit The Albany and we were following in the footsteps of a group of corporate volunteers who had been helping in the garden during the day.

Our tasks for the eve were either litter picking or digging up the soil around the compost bay to make it more defined area and more level.

We quickly split into teams and once we had all our tools we set off to tackle our tasks for the evening.

There was a lot of shoveling happening around the compost bay and then wheeling the excess soil away. It wasn't long before the brickwork edges of the path were revealed. We're not sure when they were last seen but with GoodGym's help they're now on show.

The rest of the group did a thorough litter pick of the garden. As always, we found a random assortment of items including a glove, a saw, a blanket and plenty of cans and bottles.

Great work everyone!! Next week we are heading to Luxmore Garden to continue weeding the flower beds.

Today we put the Gym in GoodGym at Maryon Park Community Garden in Charlton, where 9 of us met for today's community mission. Group one cleared various piles of broken wood & debris, including everything from doors & trellis to broken plant pots & grubby toys...What a load of rubbish...? Maybe not. Whilst a lot of the debris is due for collection & disposal on Monday, some of the toys were cleanable, hopefully for future use or donation to the local Toy Library.

Group two proved they were hard as snails, tackling some troublesome weed growth in various areas of the garden & helped cleaning the toys that had been found.

Good-gym rains supreme, as did the sky today, although gratefully waiting until our tasks were finished this morning ☔️

Thanks all, until next time!