A Classic GoodGym Worthing Welcome

This evening we were back at one of our favourite tasks at Heene Cemetery. With Sue on her holidays in France we were greeted by Rob and Jane who are also volunteers of the 'Friends of Heene Cemetery' We had been asked to go along and do our annual raking of the strimming activity that the council had carried out last week.

It was so nice to meet another Mr Robinson today.
John brought along his brother Kevin who had first registered interest in GG back in 2018 when support was being gauged for a new area in Carlisle - unfortunately this didn't happen meaning it was, in fact, Kevin's first task today! 👏 ( hopefully not his last!! )

it was great to see Sarah and Ryan tonight who arrived early and had already filled at least half a bag of strimmings by the time I arrived !

Paula Belinda and Ricky immediately got stuck into the raking and the whole team finished relatively quickly.

This left time for Rob, who photographs and logs all the different 660 species of wildlife etc that has been found in the cemetery, to give us a short talk on the cemetery. Ge particularly focused on the trees including the very old Yew Tree that was there before the walls of the cemetery were put in place.

If you want to take a deeper dive into the history of the cemetery click on the link below.

https://www.heenecemetery.org.uk/

Thanks everyone and have a great week!

Julia x

Better than a BOGOF - Today was a triple! It was a great turn out this evening and we had a very prompt start.

Head teacher Helen asked to do 3 things

*Dig over the flower beds at the front of the school and line it with wood chips.

*Continue painting the fence surrounding the play area.

*Dig out a massive plant in the play area.

Daisy andPaul elected to get started on the digging and were joined byJohn and Duncan. Gillybean did her usual great job on pruning and tidying the bushes on the flowerbed which made a huge difference to the visual finish ( Daisy helped with this too )

Ryan, Sarah and Roxy headed out to continue where we left off last time with the painting of the fence in a forest green colour. They were joined by Sue and Belinda Everyone tried to avoid Sarah's paint flicking skills but some of us didn't manage to swerve this ' talent ' 🤣

The flowerbed team soon achieved fantastic results and came and joined the team at the back of the school. Daisy pitched in with the fence whilst John and Paul decided to attack the huge plant/ bush that needed removing in the play area.

Given the time we had left , this was an optimistic and challenging and involved a fair amount of brute force and determination plus some cardiovascular strength too ! They were joined by Duncan who brought some muscle and also Gill who offered some useful technique tips 🤣

Despite all odds the task was completed meaning we had achieved 2 / 3 of our goals tonight - Bravo team 👏

Next week we will return to continue painting the ( eternal ) fence!

The final question is, why is this report entitled ' What lies beneath ' ? There are 2 answers to this - both fairly confidential. One relates to what is underneath the wood chips and the other is what Belinda is concealing underneath her hoodie! Ssssshhhh - nobody knows 😁😁😁

Turning Tides

With the bank holiday being on our regular Monday meet up day we moved the session until Wednesday this week and what a good decision this proved to be!

It has been lovely to have Roxy back at GG in recent weeks and we were delighted that she chose to celebrate her birthday with us today.

Before the birthday celebrations began, we had a new task at a Turning Tides hostel In Queens Road. We had been asked to give a helping hand clearing the garden. One of the residents called Lisa, who had had been living there since March and had taken a keen interest in the back garden and we were only too happy to assist. She directed us to all the jobs she politely asked us to do.

It was a really good turnout tonight with guest appearances from Duncan, Stephen together with Jay Katharine and the gorgeous baby Olivia who is ( unbelievably ) almost 1 year old.

Joining these celebrities were my regular teamRyan [John](/v3/profile/john-robinson-3fd25dec-75bb-4e8d-9799-f66af7474b63 GillybeanBarbara Roxy and Sarah Thank you all ! We achieved an amazing amount in just one hour with extensive pruning, weeding, raking and moving pots. Lisa couldn't have been more grateful.

After we had called time we headed to the beach where Roxy produced a huge bag of drinks and snacks from her boot. She then headed off to the Fish factory to pick up the most posh food we had ever had outside at a task! Fish and chips with a vegan alternative of halloumi and falafel with a gorgeous greek salad for Barbara and I. Following this , Roxy produced the most amazing gluten free honey cake baked to her mothers traditional recipe. Having been stuffed with our starter snacks and main course we all politely asked for a small slice. Within minutes we were all asking for second helpings and takeaway slices to take home for our loved ones- it was absolutely delicious. The question is did the extra slices make it home ?! What a very generous gesture it was of Roxy to provide all the food and drink for us all to join in and celebrate her special day. Thank you lovely lady :)

Apologies for the lateness of this report - no real excuses - just an extremely full few days !

Hope to see lots of you tomorrow evening at Haviland House.

Happy Sunday evening to you all

Julia xx

Summer is finally here

With the warmest day of the year so far we all eagerly arrived in our painting gear as we had been asked to paint some fencing separating the play area from the field.

After a bit of a delayed start we were welcomed by head teacher, Helen, who showed s what needed doing. With a great 9 strong GG turnout, it was a shame that we only had 4 paint brushes provided. However we made the best of it split the task into some gardening too. Many thanks to Sarah who inspired the strap line for the report -she nicely splattered both my legs with green paint! HoweverRyan and Sarah did some quality work and the fence looked very professionally painted. At the other end of the fence Roxy and Barbara were in the shade of the trees working their magic with their painting skills whilst having a good old catch up chat!

Daisy Belinda John and Sue headed over armed with spades to finish digging over and weeding two of the raised flowerbeds that we had worked hard on during the last few visits. They achieved great results in a short and unexpected amount of time.

What a lovely evening it was ! Good luck to Barbara on her 25 km walk this Sunday :)

No one is raining on our parade

On one of the wettest bank holidays since the last one we were blessed with a short window in the weather to do a combined task of a tidy up of our seafront flowerbed together with a litter pick.

It was great to warmly welcome back Roxy to the group and we all hope to see her again very soon!

Sue and Belinda quickly got stuck in to pulling up the spring bulbs together with some general weeding. The bulbs will be safely stored until we replant them again in November.

Ryan and Sarah together with GillybeanandRoxy headed off on a litter treasure hunt on the beach. Apologies I didn't get a photo of Gill and Roxy tonight. The rain started again and the group dispersed pretty rapidly!

We were also joined by Paul and John who helped carry the bag of bulbs and equipment back to Belinda and John's house where we were treated to a wonderful GG social together withnshelter from the torrential rain that followed!

Belinda had been hard at work making two chillies, one of which was vegan ( this was my personal favourite) There was also superb choice of side dishes including delicious salsa's and guacamole together with tortillas, rice and warm wraps to accompany the chillies. John took us on a tour of his incredible, must see, Dr Who collection in the tardis room. An absolutely outstanding labyrinth of stunning memorabilia. If you havent seen it then I recommend you book a tour with John!

We were joined by Natacha and Steve who shared news of a GG baby boy on its way in October - wonderful news to share on such a happy evening!

Thank you to our amazing and generous hosts - we were truly treated tonight!

See you all next week

Julia