Last night, the Wandsworth GoodGym team gathered for our regular monthly visit to Doddington Community Garden. We were thrilled to welcome Nancy on her first group run in Wandsworth. The group loosened up with some light jogging, and dynamic moves, shaking off the day’s stiffness. After a guess at when the first Paralympic Games were held (answer: 1960 in Rome!) we set off, unaware that we were about to be greeted with a very sluggish reaction at the garden!

The run to Doddington Community Garden was a breezy 2km, filled with chatter and upon arrival, Malissa expertly assigned tasks, making sure everyone had a chance to get their hands dirty.

Jordan and Sophie tackled the jungle-like overgrowth, showing those stubborn weeds who was boss. Jasmin, Beth, and Catherine handled the unruly jasmine plant, with Jasmin taming her namesake. Steph and Nancy took on the bindweed, binding it up for good with some serious teamwork. Kevin kept the garden hydrated, ensuring that our leafy friends got a good drink, despite the slugs trying to take them down. Meanwhile Malissa was walking round the garden dispatching every slug and snail she saw with a steely determination. After various jobs, Jason was still on a mission to empty that water butt. The team worked with precision, not letting any slimy distractions slow them down. By the end, Doddington Garden was looking even more tidy and fabulous.

With the main jobs done, the group shifted gears to a fitness session that focused on a intense mountain leg workout designed to replicate a hard hill session. Despite the challenge, everyone pushed through, legs burning but spirits high.

The evening wrapped up with a cool-down jog to the pub, stretching out those hardworking muscles. It was out monthly social featuring our regular pub quiz. Proving that GoodGym Wandsworth isn’t just about physical strength, the team came in a strong 2nd place, showing off their mental muscles too.

Our next Monday session will be at the herb garden in Battersea Park, which will feature even more beautifully scented medicinal plants, and hopefully fewer slugs! You can find out all the details and sign up here.

Breaking news!

Last night, not only did we turn a whole eight years old, our group session pushed us over the 10 000 good deed mark! What an amazing way to celebrate.

And celebrate we did! On the hottest day of the year, a huge 21 of us met to do good and get fit on the anniversary of our very first group run. It seemed right that we should be going to our own GoodGym garden, a space where we've been growing fruit and veg to donate to the kids program at the theatre.

So after a warm up where we did, you guessed it, 8 reps of various exercises, we went round the group and said what we wanted to do when we grew up when we were 8 years old. Answers ranged from footballer, to two dentists and even Xena Warrier princess!

We set off for the garden, and were delighted to find that there were loads of crops ready to be harvested, including potatoes and some delicious looking kale. We also collected loads of the fallen cooking apples, weeded, staked and strung up our runner beans (appropriate for us!).

The produce we grow will be used to donate to the children's sessions at the theatre, which is run as a charity, and to other community food organisations. We are also repurposing what would otherwise be underused land and increasing biodiversity, so it's a win-win-win situation!

Job done we headed over to the common to play some very silly but hopefully fun ball based fitness games. We started off with human hungry hippos, before testing our squat and reflex skills before having a plank off whilst balancing the balls on our backs. There were some interesting tactics on display and luckily we had the VAR courtesy of Paul to go back and watch game play. Shout out to Kevin and Jordan for collecting the most, with Hugo and Suresh in a close second! In the plank off it came down to six of the strongest cores - well done Catherine, Beth, Hugo, Elif, Sophie and Jasmin!

After all that fun and hard work, it was time to head back to the Omnibus bar for some drinks, chats and incredible food. Everybody outdid themselves with the goodies, but it was Catherine's masterpiece of a cake that had us all talking. It was an amazing creation, and what made it more delicious was that is was baked using blackberries forged from Wandsworth common - what could be more GoodGym than that!

We had a wonderful speech from Jordan, who put what GG means to us all into words better than I could hope to here. So to echo him, there are so many memories we've made over the past 8 years. There have been lots of new faces and we love that our group is welcoming and inclusive. We have achieved so much together and made some beautiful friendships. So here's to the next 8 - and beyond.

Apparently 8 years is a bronze wedding anniversary, but I think every single one of you deserves a gold medal!

Next week we'll be back for more doing good and getting active, when we'll be painting playground planters. Hope to see you there!

Four GoodGymers arrived at the Vauxhall Gardens Community Centre to help take in their usual delivery from Felix, but unfortunately the van did not arrive in the time they were there.

Instead, we packed up some bread, donuts, and cabbage, that’s now ready to get picked up!

A last minute change of task yesterday meant that rather than running to help open up a community garden which has been closed for years, we were down at Battersea Park's beautiful Thrive therapy garden. This amazing space is used to promote therapeutic horticultural skills to bring about positive changes in the lives of people living with disabilities or ill health, or those who are isolated, disadvantaged or vulnerable. At GoodGym we truly believe in the power of getting active outside so it was the perfect fit for us!

We started off the night by welcoming some new faces to our group - so great to have you along for your first session Ben, Mike and Helen. Give them a big cheer, GoodGym!

Thankfully it was a lovely warm night compared to last week's washout, so we did a brief warm up to get those muscles firing. Before we set off on our 2km run to the park, we also went round the group to find out what everyday item (aside from our phone) we couldn't live without. Coffee and delicious things to eat came very high up, as did our watches, beds and our trusty kettle!

We made our way into the park, trying not to notice all the picnics and cool drinks at the cafe, and headed into the therapy garden where we had a list of jobs waiting for us. There were plenty of tasks to choose from, from watering, litter picking, weeding and leaf raking. Everybody cracked on with their chosen task, and somehow it was Paul who ended up on the wrong end of the hose again - or perhaps given the warm weather the cooling off was welcome?

At the end of 40 minutes we had got loads done, including collecting a huge ton bag full of leaves and making sure all the plants (and some humans) got a good watering. It was a calm, regenerative place to spend the evening and easy to see what a great resource the garden is for local people. We'll be back across the park at the herb garden in a few weeks, so get those green fingers ready for more Thrive fun!

It was almost time to run back, but not before an intense plank challenge. For four minutes without a break we held various plank positions, working all those ab muscles. If that wasn't enough we finished off with a core triathlon before heading back to base for stretches. Great work everybody.

Next week we will be back at the Rose community centre to finish off a huge painting job. There are plenty of other sessions to get involved with too, from supporting junior parkrun to helping deliver food for vulnerable people.

As always, if you have any questions about any sessions or events coming up don't hesitate to let me know, and if you haven't joined already we have a busy whatsapp group full of all the GG and social news. Happy GoodGyming everybody!