The mission at Raleigh House was short but seriously satisfying. With the sun shining and spirits high, our team Jana, Charlotte, Adam, and Emily rolled up their sleeves to tackle the front entrance and give it a well-deserved refresh. Armed with some impressive pick-axe style tools (which definitely made us feel more hardcore than your average gardeners), Adam got straight to work on the stubborn weeds around the entrance sign. He powered through and cleared the whole area an absolute transformation and a job brilliantly done. Charlotte turned her attention to the rose bed, which had been completely taken over by weeds. With patience and determination, she brought it back to life, leaving the roses with space to shine again. Jana took on the long bed under the bush no small task but made great progress clearing it out. Adam jumped back in towards the end to lend a hand, and together they finished off the front section, leaving it neat and tidy. Meanwhile, Emily worked her magic on the driveway, clearing all the weeds and making the whole entrance look instantly more welcoming. As if the satisfying results weren't enough, we were rewarded with some lovely chocolate treats from the Staywell staff, very well received! And to top it all off, Jana brought along homemade chocolate brownies, which went down an absolute treat as we wrapped up. A beautiful morning, great teamwork, and a front entrance that now looks so much better what more could you want?

It was time to get in the festival spirit with a record number of GoodGymers running, walking and cycling to the British Heart Foundation.

With 18 GoodGymers we split into two teams; one on a festival themed window display and another on dining room tables.

The festival team were all about colour and fun. Shelving units were shifted and filled with tents and sleeping bags, a guitar wall was created, a pink BBQ was assembled and a swinging chair was given a good swing test. A few animals even found their way to the party to complete the display.

The second squad was the ultimate dream team of practical pros! Featuring the powerhouse lineup of Laura, Marcos, Manasa, Jonathan, Anna, JP and Sam. This group turned 'flat-pack frustration' into a total breeze.

The team channeled their inner engineers to fix and assemble table legs with surgical precision. Using pure Goodgym muscle, they hauled a fleet of tables and chairs out of storage and onto the shop floor. In record time, the empty floor space went from 'blank canvas' to 'ready for business' thanks to their hustle.

And as every festival needs a crowd we all squeezed into our mini festival for a group pic.

A small but mighty GoodGym crew of Farzeen, Emily, Saber and Jana headed to Staywell New Malden for an hour of gardening. The task was to tackle the weeds around the Staywell information sign and along the hedge at the front of the driveway. Farzeen and Saber got stuck in near the sign, while Emily and Jana started working along the long flowerbed under the hedge. After all the recent rain the soil was very wet and sticky, and the beds were full of wriggly earthworms – great for the soil but a bit messy for us! With time running out, the whole team joined forces to finish the flowerbed and were proud to clear the whole stretch together. Along the way Jana unearthed an unusual find buried in the soil, what looked like an old nappy pin! To top it all off, Staywell kindly left us some Ferrero Rocher chocolates, which were very gratefully received after a muddy but satisfying hour of weeding. Great teamwork all round!

Today goodgymers from several different areas brought and dropped items for the food bank.

It was lovely to visit a new venue in Kingston for Tuesday's week's task, for all that we've all walked past Hestia's office without knowing it was there. Hestia has an enormous site up a few flights of stairs on Eden Street where it runs the Good Energy Club, a community project created to help people with mental illness or issues with low levels of mental wellbeing through physical and social activities.

There were acres of surfaces to wipe, around table tennis tables, music rooms, conference rooms and offices, dealt with by cloth from Anna, Tom, Rachel, Jana, Emily, Laurel, Sabir, Sekar and Jonathan.

Meanwhile Luke and Marcos performed heroics with a hoover across never-ending carpets as Dave, Louise and Levita refused to allow the thorough cleaning of the kitchen to beat them.

Perhaps the highlight of the whole evening was our host John, who supplied us not only with good humour but Pepsi Max, sweets and biscuits, and might even become our newest GoodGym recruit. While some of the gang headed off for a well-deserved drink for our monthly social at The Albion, we'll all look forward to coming back to a great spot very soon.