Possibly the last (?) hot day of the year was also time for Pengefest - a small food and beer festival to fundraise for St Christopher's Hospice. GoodGym offered to help set up the stalls in front of the Blenheim Centre (RIP Wilko) in Penge so that the event could start on time and the ale lovers weren't kept waiting.

The team was a nice mix of Group Run regulars, Community Mission pros, and a brand new face - Robert. Welcome!

First task was unloading everything into Empire Square. We got the BBQ out, tables and chairs, and even hay bales! Bromley GoodGym are now experts at gazebo construction, so when those were ready to go up it didn't take us long. The gazebos even had wheels to get them into position fast 🛞

Finally we headed over to The Goldsmiths pub nearby to borrow some pub benches for the crowds to sit on. Mark and Stephen already had history with these big pieces of timber, but with more hands this time (and less incline to the destination!) we got them moved into the square to complete the setup.

We celebrated our work with a group photo 📷 in the square before heading off to enjoy the weekend.

Well done everyone 🙌

It was apple-solutely delightful to have 11 A* weeders and mulchers this evening for a brand new task at Mayow Park. Some new faces (welcome Karl!) and some old faces (no offence, Shauna).

We met at the Bridge House, shared our favourite genres of music - OMG we have an eclectic bunch - and then hit the road.

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Alona was there to meet us with tools at the ready. We split into two groups:

🍂 Ria, Shauna, David and Harry were on team mulch - shoveling the good stuff into wheelbarrows and running it across the park.

🍎 On team orchard were Sandra, Kat, Michelle, Millie, Karl and Clare - yanking up the grass and weeds around the apple trees so the mulch could be put down (which stops the weeds taking the water and goodness in the soil and provides extra nutrients to the soil).

It turns out Alona is full of knowledge when it comes to fruit trees, explaining all about the fungus in the soil, the comfrey surrounding the trees (which is a nitrogen fixer!?) and the different types of apples. Very interesting!

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Way to grow!

The Friends of Mayow Park help to maintain the park and they don't often have big teams like GoodGym, so even in the 45 minutes we were there, we made a big difference to 6 trees and Alona was very grateful for our help. Hopefully we'll be back!

Nice one team! 💪

5ive?! No, there were 7 of us actually.

Tonight's run was to St John's Meadow, a nice green patch which is tended to by some church volunteers. It's just been a long weekend so instead of our usual Monday, we went for a Tuesday!

Just like old times.

5 of us met at the Bridge House, discussed what we'd been up to over Easter and then hit the road. We met Hannah and Kat at the church as well as Jenny who showed us our task.

A huge pile of woodchip (made up of branches from nearby plane trees so low carbon footprint...kinda 🙄) sat at the top of the slope and at the bottom there were some paths between the veg beds which were looking a bit weedy and muddy. Our job was to get the paths covered and clearly defined.

We split into little groups, grabbed shovels and filled up 2 wheel barrows and a big bucket and transported it down to the vegetable patch. Nick mastered manoeuvring the particularly weird wheelbarrow which was apparently just left at the church one time. 🤷‍♂️

We were particularly nippy and got even more path covered and raked than we originally planned.

Team work makes the dream work ☁️

Nice one, gang. ✌️