A great turn out today of 6 Goodgymers meant that we made great progress on the school garden. Luan and Kirsty started by collecting plants from another area of the school to add to the previous planting which is settling in and looking amazing. Anne and Katie painted the bug hotel with lovely red paint inspired by the Good Gym branding. Stephanie got stuck in to making some concrete mushrooms - we are very excited to see how those turn out. Julie finally got to use some of the massive compost heap to fill a wormery so that the children will be able to see how worms aerate the soil by creating tunnels and pull down leaf litter from the surface to help decompose it and create more lovely soil. A great team effort today - Vikki is planning a grand opening after half term so watch out for the date for this.

Julie and Kirsty supported today’s community mission, continuing Woking GoodGym’s ongoing work with Vikki and Mark from KLS PTA.

The session focused on creating a dedicated wildflower bed, helping to enhance the biodiversity and visual appeal of the garden space behind the newly errected and painted wigwams Alongside this, the team worked with Vikki and Mark to determine the optimal position for the new garden entrance arch, an important feature for the overall design. Mark impressively built the arch on site today, marking a visible step forward in the project.

Additional progress was made on the bug hotel, by Alex, one of the KLS parents with further improvements to support local wildlife habitats.

Julie also discussed future scheduling with Vikki, suggesting a Wednesday evening session. With the project now close to completion, a midweek GoodGym push could help bring everything over the line. A weekday session may also improve turnout, and the 6km distance from WWF to the school offers an ideal opportunity for a sociable canal-side run.

Woking GoodGym has been supporting this PTA-led project most Saturdays since September 2025, and today’s efforts were really appreciated by the PTA. Two hours well spent this morning!

The Phoenix Cultural Centre is an amazing venue! I myself have attended a community music and food/drink festival there outside with a friend; it was my first time inside the building. We found out the huge site used to be the headquarters for KFC but now a community centre new to GoodGym we helped to decorate and transform some of the areas into brighter creative settings. There was a large table to move that Ola, Julie, Stephanie and myself moved together from one part of the building to the other. The rest was mostly decorating with posters and our own creative input. Elaine who met us there was lovely, she made us so welcome! Was happy for us to help her... Looking forward to helping out more at the centre! What a great project for Woking!