Everyone loves a new venue for a Goodgym adventure, and tonight's did not disappoint. Wednesday 17th July gave us a balmy summer evening for 7 GoodGym-ers to met outside Charlton House to share childhood memories and a few warm up games before a short run to Charlton Manor Primary School.

We were shown to the beautiful Secret Garden at the school, which has recently lost its gardener so needs a few extra hands on deck to get the weeds under control and the growing areas ready for the children to start planting flowers and crops. Much digging and cutting down of unwanted vegetation ensued, being careful to avoid the good stuff like potatoes, leeks & wildflowers. We were joined by the chickens from the school's coop who had a great time pecking around for worms, along with several villages of snails. Before long we'd run out of space in the huge bin we were using for what we cleared and it was time to jog back to Charlton House for some cool down stretches.

There's still lots of work to be done, so we'll be back to this lovely hidden garden with its beehives, chatty chickens, fruit trees and so much else.

Next week we're at Glyndon Community Centre. Thanks all & see you soon!

On a cool, but thankfully dry, July morning, five GoodGym-ers volunteered at the Beats, Boards and BBQ festival. This ​is a great community event held annually in Charlton Park, with loads of activities including a skatejam competition, Afrofusion market, rap workshops, bouncy castles, T-shirt decorating, live graffiti mural and even a spot of dog skateboarding!

We joined the friendly team of volunteers to help them out with a range of set-up tasks. We started by putting up three gazebos of various shapes and sizes, then built a fence around the dog agility area, and finally we arranged the deckchairs around the site. Great effort everyone!

Football? What football?! On Wednesday evening the sun finally shone again as four GoodGymers met at Charlton House. After a nice lap of the park, we headed off to Hervey Road sports ground to help Richie with some tasks in the community garden. We were delighted to see the wildflower seeds recently planted were begin to grow, so one group was given the task of weeding the grass from this area. Richie told us the plan to germinate Yellow Rattle here (he’d traveled all the way to Scotland for the seeds!) which will help the wildflower meadow thrive. The second group was given the task of turning the compost, creating ‘lasagna layers’ of compost and dried grass. After a final fight with some determined brambles, we headed off (after solving the issue of having been locked in the grounds for the night!).

Well done team!

A wet blustery Autumn day in July saw 3 GoodGym-ers meet Tim and Edna at the community garden in Charlton's Maryon Park. Our first task was to clear some worn out rugs from the Art Therapy green room, much to the annoyance of some resident spiders(!) We then moved onto turning over the compost bin - which is more of a mixing up process so the dryer, stringier plant material gets mixed in to the compost. Something essential to keeping the variety of plants including flowers and fresh veggies in good growing conditions. Finally, a cuppa and a chat at the end of the task left us ready for the rest of the weekend.. Thanks to all & see you soon!

On a lovely balmy summers evening, an intrepid group of GoodGymers assembled at the regular meeting point on the front steps of Charlton House, which looked particularly resplendent in the summer sunshine ☀️

Special welcome to Mo who joined us from Lewisham - great to have you with us Mo and look forward to running with you again soon!

After a brief into and warm-up (only figuratively speaking as we were already very warm! 😆) we made our way to the lovely Hervey Road Sports Field community gardens.

There we were greeted by the lovely Annie and Richard who were quick to designate out the tasks between us. As there were 6 GoodGymers for this task we divided up into three groups.

One group were cutting grass and inverting the soil around for some more wildflower meadows. Another group was weeding the newly planted lavender at the side of the carpark. This was because they were wanting to erect a small wooden fence there to prevent the cars from driving over the soil and ruining the lavender when they parked.

The third group were given the task of separating wood and unwanted elements from the compost in some large plastic sieves. This task included a lot of shaking the sieves to get the soil out with the wood chip removed. It was a lot of fun and paid off in the end when we were able to produce some beautiful soil for the garden.

As the work finished, we all felt very pleased with ourselves for what we had achieved. It is especially lovely to be outdoors on a warm summers evening. Annie and Richard are always grateful for the work that we do, and we had a quick group photo and before we knew it was time to head back to Charlton House.

The warm evenings often mean the pace is a bit slower, but the upside is we get to chat a bit more and enjoy the lovely area of London that we live in. Roll on summer and roll on the next GoodGym task!