St Patrick’s Day gave us the perfect excuse for a festive GoodGym outing — and this week came with an extra celebration: Nick’s birthday. We gathered at Freaks & Geeks, wished him a very happy St Patnick’s Day, and set off towards The Greenway Orchard with a strong crew and even stronger energy.

The 4km run took us into the dusk, head torches flicking on as we approached the Orchard. Waiting for us: tools, gloves, and a meadow that had long since stopped behaving like a meadow. Our mission was to help clear the overgrowth so the Orchard team can sow new seeds and bring the space back to life.

Tackling the Meadow (and the Meadow Tackling Us) The brambles were particularly scratchy — the kind that seem to reach out and grab you even when you’re sure you’re nowhere near them. But the team got stuck in: - Cutting back thick tangles of bramble and long grass. - Pulling up stubborn roots that did not want to leave. - Using head torches to illuminate the darkest corners, where the brambles were definitely plotting. Despite the scratch factor, the transformation was clear by the end. What started as an impenetrable thicket now looked like a space with real potential again.

A Birthday Bramble Blow‑Out In honour of the occasion, Nick celebrated by blowing out… well, not candles, but a satisfying number of brambles. Not quite as glamorous, but arguably more useful — and definitely more GoodGym.

Wrapping Up We snapped a group photo, jogged back to Freaks & Geeks, and rounded off the evening with a well‑earned St Patrick’s Day drink and chips. A perfect blend of doing good, running well, and celebrating St Patnick in style. Had some really nice feedback from the task afterwards too, to cap it all off - well done all.

Shout‑outs - To Nick, birthday hero and bramble‑vanquisher. - To everyone who braved the scratchiest vegetation we’ve faced in a while. - To the whole team for bringing such great energy to a brand‑new task.

A brill evening all round

With no task lined up for the evening, we instead headed out for a social 5k jog around the Olympic Park. What a place to stretch the legs – we're always grateful to have such an inspiring backdrop on our doorstep.

A big welcome to Rue, top Tower Hamlets GoodGymmer and legend of London Fields junior parkrun. GoodGymmers help out at this event pretty much every Sunday, and if you’re lucky enough to be there when Rue is RD, it’s worth it just to witness his Hackney Haka – a life-affirming experience and a warm-up routine.

Also great to see Rosie back again. This usually happens when she’s training for something big… and it’s no different this time – the London Landmarks Half!

It was a pretty simple evening really, much like many of our Tuesday evening gatherings that usually follow the classic “little jog out, help a bit, little jog back” format. But of course it adds up to much more than that – building connections with our community and with each other until the collective becomes something genuinely important to us.

Which made it especially lovely to hear that top Newham GoodGymmers and all-round wonderful humans Rosa and Graham got engaged last week. Their numerous tasks together chronicled through our run reports, what a joy it’s been to watch their story unfold. Their relationship has been forged through weeding, digging, mulch-moving, sanding, painting, furniture shifting, donations sorting, vaccine centre operations, parkrunning, marathon running, and much, much more. A true GoodGym love story. We love you both!

Just a thought – could you set the wedding up as a community mission? Would help us fill a Saturday slot.

Sign up next week for more of the same - well, maybe not another engagement announcement, but a run, a good deed and a celebratory drink if you missed it this week!

Seven GoodGymmers set out today to wage war on one of the less glamorous foes of East London: rubbish. And wow… there was a lot of it.

The Journey

A few of us kicked things off with a run from the London Aquatics Centre, warming up nicely before the main event. The air at the Aquatics Centre: fresh. The air under the bridge between Drapers Fields and Chobham Manor School: not so much.

The Task

The area around the bridge turned out to be extremely heavily littered — the kind of spot where you look around and instantly know:

“Yes, this is why GoodGym exists.”

Broken glass? tick

Mystery smells? tick

Random items that really shouldn’t be outdoors? tick

Enough rubbish to fill the Olympic pool? Maybe not, but we did manage to fill around 20 bags, which isn’t bad for a Saturday mission.

The Team

All seven of us got stuck in, spreading out across the site like a well‑coordinated litter‑picking strike force. The teamwork was top tier — grabbers grabbing, bags filling, jokes flying.

The Impact

By the end, the path looked cleaner, safer, and significantly less like a post‑festival campsite. It was one of those tasks where the difference was instantly noticeable — exactly the kind of satisfying GoodGym magic that reminds you why we do this.

Today GoodGym Newham were back at CleanGreen E15 - an area in Maryland that the local community are working hard to brighten up and add planting to discourage fly tipping.

After our first mission in January, clearing old soil and weeds from two of the planters and adding new compost, today we planted two cherry trees in there along several spring bulbs. We had to experiment a bit with the tent rope style system, designed to protect the new trees from strong winds, but got the hang of it in the end and even added them to a couple of the existing trees!

Thanks to everyone who came along today, shout out to Ash and Rob for their first ever GoodGym mission, hope to see you both back soon!

We’ll be back at CleanGreen in mid-March, so look out for the next listing 💪🌳

First up, a big welcome to Amy, who joined us for her first GoodGym task — great to have you along. And welcome back to Fuad for the second time in as many weeks. Brilliant to have you with us again, and great to share the task with you both.

We were back helping Care4Calais, this time at their new location just off Wick Lane. A group of four of us jogged over from the Aquatics Centre, meeting Amy at the gate to the storage building. On first impressions, this felt less like a task and more like an escape room in reverse, with a series of entry codes, room numbers to find and combination locks standing between us and the mission. Thankfully, only a small amount of wandering aimlessly was required before finding the right place, where Nick was ready and waiting for us.

Once inside, we had clear instructions: sorting baby and toddlers' clothes into age brackets. Simple, focused, we got stuck in - with the occasional query over significant differences in Australian vs UK or European sizes, whether ages were expressed in months or years, and taking delight in high-quality pieces originating in Bangladesh. Several boxes were sorted in around 40 minutes, and then we were on our way, now escaping in the correct order.

We’ll be back there again in about a month to help out some more.

What else is coming up?

This Saturday we’ve got our second visit to help Clean Green E15, revitalising some planters in Maryland. Join us there — and/or come along to parkrun first. It’s likely to be local, either Hackney Marshes or Wanstead; we’ll update the listing page once confirmed.

London Fields Junior parkrun - there are GoodGym volunteers here most Sundays and it's always great fun.

No Newham task lined up for next Tuesday, but Tower Hamlets are at Ocean Youth Connexions on Monday if you need a weekday GoodGym fix. Otherwise, we’re expecting to be back the following week (17th) at Hackney Marshes Adventure Playground. Keep an eye on the listings for updates.

See you soon 👋