Caroline and I had another three-hour session at the Community Hospice Shop out the back helping with the sorting of donated bags. You just never know what's going to turn up. Sometimes its beautiful, unworn, still labeled, designer gems. Sometimes its a case of eeeuugh! Some people clearly have a very low bar for what they deem as recyclable. Seems to me the folks running this place could do with a few more of us volunteer sorters as there's quite a big build up of donated stuff as far as I could see. We always keep our eyes out for something unusual or amusing. I found this cuddly crocodile which I rather liked. Caroline couldn't resist donning this blingy Roman helmet. We were both bemused by the shark with three shoes on and wondered at the creative thinking behind that. The joker popped by to monitor progress but apart from that it was just another fun session Goodgymming!

Another fun start to the week, Paul, Gus and I rocking up early. But the Brent Cross traffic had the lovely delivery team from Volunteers on Wheels stuck at a crawl and they only arrived just before 11am. Undeterred, we went at it double time, running trolleys down the ramp, unloading the van and pushing things back up to the shop team to sort. And then we were done, though I stuck around for 15min more to help move some produce into the stores.

This week we saw: leeks, potatoes, butternut soups, smoothies, bottled and canned drinks, mushrooms (inc. mushrooms growing on mushrooms, which had to be discarded but were a nice ecological novelty!), sweet potatoes, soda bread and a lot more I missed in the speed. Some of it will be going in stores for their big first birthday party celebrations this Wednesday, so they can give things away as raffle prizes and have extra on hand for the increased visitors. We'll be popping along around lunchtime!

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!

Wendy at Incredible Edible Barnet organised another amazing beanfeast and Goodgym sent three people over to help out, join in and fill up on beans (if we weren't already). Cherian arrived early enough to help set up tables, so earns an extra-special mention, while Rupesh and I made sure everything was safe to eat.

The event had games with bean bags, bean counting and a range of excellent card games promoting sustainability designed by Dave from Sense Making (who also worked with us on air quality monitoring a year or two ago). And did I mention the beans to eat? There were four dips to try and rate your favourite, plus four or five bean stews and, finally, about eight different bean-based cakes - flans, muffins, balls, flapjacks and cake-cakes - many using chickpea flour.

By the end of it, we were all fairly stuff and there was extra to take home, so we stuffed ourselves some more.