In case you didn’t know, this week is national volunteers week, where those who give up their time for free to help others are celebrated. Although it might have been a regular Monday group run here in Richmond, we were sure to celebrate and appreciate the work we do here at GoodGym!

After a warm-up which was true to its name, we made our way down to Mortlake to meet Danielle at the Power Station Youth Centre. There are a handful of youth clubs run by Achieving for Children in the Richmond borough, and over the years GoodGym Richmond have supported these brilliant places. The team there are so grateful and appreciative of the help we have given them, and tonight was no exception.

Danielle was currently in the process of updating the gym in the youth centre. She had cleared out the equipment and the next step was to lay down new flooring. Before this could happen, the old worn foam underlay needed removing. This was where we came in…

If it wasn’t a sticky and sweaty enough day already, there was a full body work out to be had in scraping and peeling and pulling the foam flooring off. A task much harder than it looked.

Whilst most of the gang were getting their work out in the gym, a few were helping Danielle with a different exercise - building new equipment racks. A local band were playing in one of the music rooms upstairs, and were soundtracked by Stevie Wonder on the sax, but downstairs was a different kind of groove. Heavy metal, coordination and a steady eye were needed to make sure the new shelves were straight and stable (and would fit in the gym room!).

An hour later (and literal blood, sweat and tears), our time was up and we had all definitely had a real work out. Danielle thanked us as we left the youth centre, and we mustered up any strength left for a bit more cardio - the run back!

Squat a great evening - we certainly lived up to our name tonight putting the good and the gym into GoodGym. Weight to go!

A happy return to Achieving For Children's Heatham House in Twickenham this evening. They asked for our help to repeat a task we had undertaken this time last year to take out the greenery that was encroaching on the AstroTurf football cage to prevent the ball getting burst on it and the kids getting scratched.

The evening started with a run that took us along the river and into Twickenham with a little trot through Moormead park too. 3km there was just right to shake off the cobwebs before getting stuck into the task. Previous learnings meant better preparation with bug repellent and an extra caution to look out for each other as rogue vines shed a lot of debris that makes for itchy work!

Many massive bin bags later, we took them to the wheelie bins before heading back off into the sunset over Richmond Bridge to complete a 6km total run.

Task 1: Lifting a Shipping continar by hand! Who needs Strong men competition when you have Good gym. Ok we did use a large pole, we are still the strongest Goodgymers in the west.

Task 2: Prep for Moving boats, We moved old types ready fo boats to rest on. At this point I was questioning why, we are not preping for to the next 40 day flood.

Task 3: Switching Boats over so the outside boat can get cleaned. As you have guess the rain was getting heavyer and these Boats are not how I image Noah loading animals. By we did lift safely 2 by 2.

Task 4: Sweeding the main building, in doing this task the Kayaks where moved. I think it was a quick once over to confirm we can get into boats ready for the high waters.

Task 5: Sam climbed the stair way to mud, to clean the continars. I docmented the flowers so we have arecord for when the floods come.

We walked away in the Sunny (and not so dry) Richmond