Tuesday’s group run took us to Hestia’s Good Energy Club, a fantastic community space supporting people experiencing mental health challenges. Their mission is to improve physical wellbeing, support mental health and reduce social isolation - values very much aligned with GoodGym’s own.

We arrived in force and were welcomed by John, who gave us a tour before offering the ultimate volunteer incentive: snacks in exchange for our cleaning efforts. Armed with hoovers, cloths, spray bottles and plastic gloves, we got straight to work.

We were also joined by special guests Ivo and Hannah. Rather than rolling out the red carpet, we rolled out the hoovers and put them straight to work alongside the rest of the team. After deciding who was tackling which room, John put on a soundtrack of 90s classics that kept spirits high and energy levels up throughout the evening.

The hour flew by, and before long it was time for a final snack break and the journey home. John was hugely appreciative of the help, explaining that the club doesn’t have a dedicated cleaning budget and that maintaining such a large space can be a real challenge.

It was lovely to meet Hannah on her first task, and congratulations again on your new role as CEO of GoodGym.

Rachel, Laura and Jana spent an hour helping spruce up the pathway leading to the MILAAP day centre, which was covered in leaves, seeds, weeds and general debris along the edges.

After a bit of improvisation with the tools — including a snow shovel that turned out to be surprisingly excellent at scooping seeds — the team quickly got to work. Laura tackled the weeds, Rachel led the sweeping operation, while Jana helped gather debris, empty buckets and keep everything moving smoothly as the bin bags steadily piled up.

There were a few dramatic moments when overloaded bags split open, scattering seeds everywhere, but the team recovered quickly and kept spirits high.

By the end of the session, around six bin bags had been filled and the pathway was looking far clearer and more welcoming. Hopefully the residents at MILAAP will enjoy the refreshed entrance!

Another great evening with GoodGym at Grow Baby, supporting families in need.

Led by Rachel, our team — Jana, Manasa, Jonathan, Luke and Saber — got straight to work forming a human chain, quickly moving bags upstairs and building an impressive pile by the door (with Luke keeping spirits high with marathon stories along the way!).

With that done in record time, we moved downstairs where tasks were expertly assigned:

• Shoes sorted by Manasa

• Coats and dresses organised by Jonathan

• Toys checked by Luke

• Essentials stocked by Jana

• Saber helping wherever needed

We then tackled sorting winter clothes, blankets and grow bags into storage, making great progress in just an hour. With time for one final push, the teddy bear box turned into a fun finale — with Luke and Jonathan in goal as Jana launched toys over a wall of bags!

We finished with a group selfie among the piles — tired, happy, and having achieved loads in a short time. A brilliant effort all round 👏

Over at Refugee action having run, cycled and walked over we split in to teams to sort donations.

Men’s and women’s clothing as well as new donations required sorting and categorising whilst shoes needed pairing up. As always there were a few rouge items in the wrong section that needed rehoming and a few rainbow and sparkly numbers discovered for photos.

An hour after starting John and Tom had created an incredibly neat menswear department, Emma, Anna and Ellie had got women’s wear in order, Marcus had ensured that every shoe had a partner and Adam and Claire had filtered and put away all the donations.

After few snacks (we couldn’t resist) and a group photo we said our goodbyes with the runners heading off for a lovely run along the river.

Wow. What an absolute privilege to have been a Tailwalker at Sunday's London Marathon. For those who don't know, we're a band of (very organised) volunteers who start walking at the 12-mile point, to offer support and companionship to those runners struggling (they'll finish between 7:30pm and midnight, if they make it, taking 8 to 12.5 hours to complete the course).

I finished my own marathon years ago. So to go out and help others do the same, in for them much harder conditions - it felt really good. Thanks to all the volunteers. We didn't break the 2-hour record (or any record). But it was a special day.

Best-laid plans often go awry... and tonight was one of these times. Our resilient leader Rachel had organised two tasks for the evening (as our little group is not so little anymore!) but alas one fell through at the last minute so all 13 of us ended up together at Claremont Gardens in Surbiton. Fortunately the task here was big enough to take us all and then some.

We all congregated by the dried up pond in Claremont Gardens and task owner Georgina explained that the pond needed to be stripped back of rubbish, sticks, logs and dead/unnecessary reeds so that it could be filled up again. The liner had unfortunately failed which meant, even after all the rain fall of 2026 so far, the pond was mostly dry.

Many hands really were needed for this task as there was a whole load to do. Sticks and logs were collected from the pond bed and turned into a bug hotel up on the bank; reeds were pulled up from the driest parts; Dead vegetation was removed; huge clumps of reed roots were extracted and swathes of grass were dug up, roots and all. We found a few of our amphibious friends along the way and made sure that they hopped off to a safe spot.

The hour flew by and we made great progress. The next step is to fill the pond and hope that our work means that the water holds this time! There's plenty more work to do in and around the pond so hopefully we'll be back to check it out again sometime soon.