A dark, dark night in November didn’t deter GoodGym Richmond on their monthly Group Run task in Buccleuch Gardens, Richmond.

Star of the session was T (Teresa) , celebrating her 100th deed and qualifying for her GoodGym wings . As well as cenTury celebrations in Buccleuch Gardens and the Tap Tavern for T, the team also built willow withy plant supports, top-dressed the plots with home-made compost and cleared weeds from the footpath in front of The Three Pigeons.

And no bollards were defamed in the making of this Group run.

Meeting at the Tap Tavern, the group donned layers and headtorches to head down to the river for a run along to Petersham Common. The layers were soon tied around waists and put in bags as we all know life is warmer when you run! Headtorches however were very much the necessary accessory for the evening as we reached the dark paths of the common.

Task owner Ken was delighted to have many helping hands which meant we could set about even more tasks than originally planned:

• Planting and bedding down (stamping on!) wildflower seed beds.
• Litter-picking along the road and path edges where there is always a saddening amount of junk thrown.
• Completing the tree pollarding work started last week.
• Clearing the drain ditches of leaf clogs that prevented the water flowing away from the footpaths to keep them bog-free.

With 15 people working for 45 minutes each, that's over 11 hours of work put in on just one evening, the miracle of GoodGym! And there was still enough energy left to run back to Richmond town centre at the end.

This terrible dark Monday night, we met at the lair/Tap Tavern to run for our lives along the river and across Richmond Bridge to St Christopher's Fellowship to get involved in a gourd time and some hair-raising activities:

Jason/Chris took to the hedges with vigour, creating a Chainsaw Massacre of branches on the driveway. With cunning speed, the evidence was quickly hidden by Top Hat/Adam where noone would discover it (in the garden waste bins).

Stealth-like cats Night/Pippa and Shade/Liz, pruned and shaped bushes into purrfection.

The Butcher/Jp sharpened his blades and took whole flanks off the overgrown bushes.

Haunted Hunter and his owner Teresa scared off intruders and kept the team safe.

The Mobiliser/Lucy had to join late after gruesome delays (the less asked the better), but dialled straight into the action.

Mario/Rosie jumped into action to make the driveway look pretty peachy.

Drusilla/Nina got her teeth stuck into raking leaves and Jack Skellington/Sam made no bones about joining her to get the job done.

The job was done quickly and efficiently and we could have slipped away under the darkness of night, if it wasn't for those pesky kids (Pumpkin Beth and T-Rex Monika) who caused curtain-twitchers and local zombie walkers to look on in fear/confusion!

Liz rewarded the team with bloody marshmallows before leading the exorcise back over the bridge to the safety of the lair.

This week's group run saw us get truly down and dirty as we descended to the basement at AFC Heatham House to tidy out the cellar!

Starting with a welcome for first-timer Ellen, and a 3km run from the Tap, we arrived at the impressive Heatham House front door to find out what the evening held in store. Heading down to the cellar we discovered others who had arrived just before already hard at work pulling crates, equipment and a myriad of different objects out of the cavernous rooms to the corridor. The room has been used as a dumping ground for a long time, with the best of intentions, and was too much of a job for anyone to get done alongside working with the kids who make the most of the AFC facilities.

Objects found included a banana pen, disco balls, a dead mouse, an old sports quiz and two crates of collapsible cups!

In an excellent example of how GoodGym can work at its best, just 50mins later our work amounted to nearly 11 hours of combined manpower and the room had a lot more order and space by the time we left to run back to the Tap.