What a fun filled, mud filled, pun filled Wednesday evening we had this week! *Stay tuned for as many oarsome boat/ sailor puns as we could come up with in this report.

For those of us who met for the run from Charlton House, this week's icebreaker was deceptively thought provoking:

"If you could relive one moment in your life, what would it be?"

What I failed to anticipate was the immediate descent into philosophy:

What actually counts as a 'moment'? Are you reliving it, or changing it? Which self gets to choose? Your current self or your younger self? 🙄

After several minutes adrift in a sea of existential pondering, I found myself pleading, "No more questions!"

To be fair, that's something I say at least five times a day to my son, Arthur. Poor boy. But hey, someone has to stamp the curiosity out of children, right?

Responses ranged from the birth of children, to choosing that dream career that our pesky parents forbade, to extra cheesy points for Sarah for picking the moment she came along to a GoodGym session! 🧀🥳

Anyway, before we drift too far off course...

A huge welcome to Rhena and Candida on your first Good Deeds with us! And an extra shout-out to Rhena for completing her first run. We hope you're both hooked and don't immediately jump ship!

Our task for the evening was at the lovely community garden at the Prince Philip Maritime Collections Centre, where our much-loved rowing boat had finally reached the end of its voyage. And so, with a heavy heart it was time to break up the old and make way for a younger model.

The steps were as follows:

1) Remove all the soil from the old boat

2) Smash it up with shovels (One member of the group might have enjoyed smashing the boat up a little bit too much...he certainly made his Mark.)

3) Break up the wood to wheelbarrow to the bins

4) Debate exactly how on earth we were going to get the new, bigger boat into position (this took a while)

5) Shovel out more soil and grass

6) Tow Tow Tow the boat into position and attempt to secure it with blocks of wood

At times our plans felt a little rudderless, but somehow we kept things afloat and while we may need to come back to fully anchor the boat in place, that was a job well done in the pelting rain - hardened sailors that we are!

After that, it was time to run, walk, or otherwise navigate our way home.

Thanks everyone for another oar-some evening!

Coming up This weekend we have:

Parkrun volunteering

Helping at the Family Fun Day in Hornfair Park

Clean up Charlton

Leafleting for Prince Philip's Community Day

GoodGym Picnic!

Until next time, lovely people!

Rachel

It was time to revisit The Albany and we were following in the footsteps of a group of corporate volunteers who had been helping in the garden during the day.

Our tasks for the eve were either litter picking or digging up the soil around the compost bay to make it more defined area and more level.

We quickly split into teams and once we had all our tools we set off to tackle our tasks for the evening.

There was a lot of shoveling happening around the compost bay and then wheeling the excess soil away. It wasn't long before the brickwork edges of the path were revealed. We're not sure when they were last seen but with GoodGym's help they're now on show.

The rest of the group did a thorough litter pick of the garden. As always, we found a random assortment of items including a glove, a saw, a blanket and plenty of cans and bottles.

Great work everyone!! Next week we are heading to Luxmore Garden to continue weeding the flower beds.

After a busy morning, this was the third task of the day for some of the group with several runners heading straight over from our session at Maryon Wilson Community Garden to lend a hand at Halstow Primary School.

Amongst the hive of activity with staff, parents and children busy painting, sanding and creating play equipment, our mission was to help transform the playground by building some little cabins for the children. AND we managed to create 2.5 little cabins. They may not have all passed a building inspector's scrutiny, but thanks to the collective ingenuity of the group they were successfully cobbled together and beginning to take shape. Thankfully there were no crate expectations of the quality of the craftsmanship.

A welcome BBQ provided some much-needed fuel and made this a particularly palatable task. The weather tried its best to spoil proceedings, and the rain arrived in force, but it didn't dampen our spirits although we did get a little cold and some may have developed cabin fever.

Well done everyone. We'll likely be back at Halstow Primary School before long to help with further fun construction projects based on what the children want build in their playground!