It was GoodGym Richmond's monthly signature task: heading to our sponsored riverside plot to look after the grounds. We started with a warm-up stretch in Richmond town centre before setting off to the task, celebrating our progress so far in the January challenge. From there, some jogged, some walked and some cycled down the high street and along the riverside to our tool lock-up where we split into two groups: those getting straight into the task and those joining in a 15 minute fitness session. This involved squats, press-ups, standing ab crunches, lunges and some shadow boxing, all carried out by the light of headtorches and the music from Lucy's phone! The actual doing good bit was lively and energetic with a thorough sweeping of the arcade area, hefty turnover of the compost, litter picking, weeding and saving a willow support that had toppled over. The task finished with an annual tradition: making the year number ourselves. Previous versions have been hilariously illegible but it turns out headtorches make much better pens than bodies! Ken and Lucy even had an extra go at the GoodGym logo too! One final stop for the night: a nice sit down and a chat at the lovely White Cross, just along the riverside. All-round a lovely GoodGym evening that had it all - exercise, volunteering, socialising and feel good!

Two GoodGymers turned up to cut halos around a feature tree. Ken explained what this meant which was to remove the scrub around the tree to make it more prominent and reduce the competition from the adjacent trees. So in effect you are making a ring around the tree or cutting a halo around the tree… One GoodGymer on his first task (welcome Rowan!) was initiated into GoodGym by cutting angels features (halos) around a white popular tree. We tackled the magnificent white popular tree to the drip line taking all the scrub out in quick time and stacked it up for the Friends of Hatherop Park and Richmond Council to send in their woodchipper to finish the job. Task done, halos earned and one more step closer to earning our wings but Rowan already earned his halo.