Maria arrived slightly earlier, and with the help of Dylan, a new volunteer at SE5 Forum (and fresh Goodgymer), set up the gazebo and tables before Daryl arrived and helped with displaying all the products and freebies.

Another quick setup for the stall!

Waiting outside Old Spike Peckham was Maria and Alex, who had just come back from three weeks out in Australia, Japan and South Korea, so we caught up on his adventures as Lindy, James, Paulin and Josie, who came back for her two GoodGym session since her first back in January as she had other commitments on a Wednesday. However, we welcomed Sarah who came for her first GoodGym session ever! Welcome Sarah!

We knew Emma and Rosalind would meet Paulin and Rose at Denmark Hill Community Gardens and Richard and Jo, who was celebrating her 100th good deed tonight at Thorlands Gardens. However, before all that, Sam had to go through his customary speech and do the full version for newbie, Sarah. Just before leaving for a warm up, everyone introduced themselves and asked the ice breaker snap poll and question for tonight, since its Denim Day as well as Stop Food Waste Day, is it acceptable to wear double denim and what tips would you give for stopping food waste?

It started off mixed for the double denim, but ultimately people would wear double denim. Whether they can rock it is another thing... People gave tips like using scraps for soup, stocks and snacks (batter your vegetable peelings and make it into tempura chips), using Too Good To Go and Olio apps, eating once a day, portioning and freezing food.

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Connected with nature

Since the group had to be split in two for the two tasks we had tonight, Maria and James opted to go with Paulin to Denmark Hill Community Garden whereas the rest went to Thorlands Gardens to meet Simon. Yet, they had to ensure they were nice and warm to avoid injury. With Maria backmarking for Paulin's group and Lindy for Sam's, they went off in different directions.

The Denmark Hill Community Garden group continued with what they started last week by deepening and widening the trench, but they didn't get the chance to plant the hedge saplings. This will be done this weekend.

The Thorlands Garden group arrived to find Simon and Richard in the "Walled" garden getting the tools ready. Jo came shortly afterwards to wear her wings as she hit her 100th good deed tonight! Hooray! We split the team in three: Lindy and Sarah took the wheelbarrows to do the woodchip run as Richard and Josie used the mattock and dutch hoe to turn over the soil and take out the weeds as they pushed to connect the woodchip paths. Finally, Alex, Jo and Sam did some weeding as it had been raining a lot recently. As the wheelbarrows of woodchip came through, these were put on the cardboard that had been laid out after the soil had been turned over and raked to be flat.

We completed the task within the allocated 40 minutes as we were encouraged by the 90s tunes in honour of denim day taking us back through the years. Tune after tune!

After acknowledging our great work with a few group photos and putting the tools away back in the "Walled" garden, off we went back to Old Spike Peckham and made it back for 20:30 to meet the others for a good stretch.

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Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came out last night! Rose and Simon were really pleased with what we got done as per usual. I hope you'd enjoyed your first and second sessions, Sarah and Josie, respectively. Thank you to Maria and Lindy for backmarking their respective runs.

Maria, Sam and Phil, a newbie from Wandsworth came to help GROAD volunteers at St. Faith's.

They first emptied Shed 2 of donations before coming inside to help with the setup. This week, there were more hands to help and so we setup the Open House within just over an hour, so we claimed back about 40 minutes back from the session.

Maria and Sam sorted out three bags that Andrea left at Edward Alleynian. Luckily, one could be sorted out quite quickly as there were a lot of plush toys. The other two were full of clothes, which we used an hour and a bit to hang and then leave in Changing Room 5 for Andrea to collect.

Anna, Maria and Sam came to The Green Nunhead for their first Community session at this community centre. Sally and Jo had called upon GoodGym to help out fill their planters with more topsoil and to split a tonne bag of compost into smaller bags to plant tomatoes and cucumbers.

They also had time to fix a bug hotel and tidy up the place as the Green Community Centre did a spring clean of their garden. After an hour and a half, they were treated to a cuppa and some delicious brownies made by Sally.

We can't wait to come back and help out again.