It was a filthy day as Good Gym returned to Hervey road. Two runners having been blown all over the place at parkrun were undeterred in their desire to help at this lovely little green space. We were soon met by Annie, our lovely task leader for the day, and put to work. And the day’s task was planting grass seeded with wildflowers, taking the plugs of grass and planting them within the existing grassy areas. 40 plugs needed to be planted and 40 plugs were planted before the wind blew us all back to Charlton.

Hervey Road gardens in Blackheath is proving a popular destination for Good Gym and for the second time in two days three of us turned up to help out at this lovely little park. And it was a special occasion as it was the first task for the wonderful Deanna (welcome Deanna, hope you enjoyed it and looking forward to seeing you on many more tasks). The task for the day was a mixture of brute force and artistic skill, with the group taking turns to clear the path, drill holes in the earth, hammer in stakes and, finally, intricately weave branches between the stakes to create a lovely fence, to better segregate the path from planting areas. And we were so efficient, after an hour of so we’d managed a good 10 metres of fencing and we could leave happy in the knowledge of a task well done.

A brisk November evening saw 4 GoodGym-ers on a bracing run up the hill to Dee's Childcare in Woolwich, a lovely children's daycare centre with a huge outdoor space perfect for adventures.

Those adventures include small people learning how to cycle, hence things can get a bit congested...! So the plan is to create a traffic-controlling roundabout, which is where we come in. Our ongoing mission is to level the area for this to happen, separating the stones from the soil, both to be used in other areas. With the help of a pickaxe and some shovels we loaded up several wheelbarrels-worth of material, re-purposing plastic veg boxes as sieves to separate the soil for the vegetable patch and stones for the pathway. A busy evening warmed us up brilliantly, and we made great progress before running out of time - then it was all downhill from here (well, back to Woolwich town centre anyway!)

Thanks & have a great week all 🙂

A chill but dry Wednesday evening in November saw 6 GoodGym-ers meet at Charlton House for a gardening task at Charlton United Reformed Church.

After a quick warm up & a biscuit-related ice breaker we were a-wafer a run to the Church garden to meet our host for the task.

This involved lots of weeding as the beds, grass and gravel pathways had become fairly overgrown; helpfully we were well-prepared with trowels, forks etc so made good progress, leaving the area tidier & ready for winter. We had great advice from the team at the garden who assured we were clearing weeds only and none of the pre-planted flowers in the beds.

Great work team - until next week for making short(bread) work of the next task! (no more biscuit puns I promise....)

We joined other volunteers at the Roots4Life community hub for a litterpick around the local area.

The organisers asked our posse of four GoodGymers to head towards the station where there was a particularly untidy area to tackle.

We nattered and picked up litter along the road as we went, then spotted an area around an overflowing clothes bank that clearly needed some tlc.

There were clothes and shoes strewn all over the place with litter accumulated among them. We tidied all the clothing items into bags and hoped they would be collected before anyone rifled through them. The rubbish went into our litter bags. It looked so much better when we finished.

Meanwhile, Rachel who arrived later, litterpicked nearer to the hub with her little Goodgymer.

As the alloted time drew to a close we all headed back to Roots4Life where delicious homemade cakes and warming hot drinks awaited.

Fancy getting outside and helping out in your local area? Check out all the different activities we have coming up!

On a slightly grey, but thankfully dry, November morning, three keen GoodGym-ers arrived at the lovely community garden at Hervey Road Sports Field. This is one of our regular task locations, and over the last few years we have seen the garden develop and flourish.

Our first task for this morning was to cover the central bed with cardboard sheets, then lay an even layer of mulch over the top. This will break down over time and provide loads of nutrients to the soil below.

We made light work of that, so swiftly moved onto the far more challenging task of continuing the construction of a 'dead hedge' fence - a brilliant way to mark out the flower beds with an organic, maintenance-free, bug-friendly border.

Dividing the work between us, we found the edge of the grown over path, measured out the correct spaces, drilled holes for the stakes, hammered them in to keep them secure, then finally wove thin branches back and forth through them to create the fence.

After an hour we had made great progress, and had a good workout - well done team!