Four GoodGymmers – Jana, Emily, Charles, and Wani – gathered today to bring some extra cheer and colour to Staywell New Malden. We were lucky to have Charles (a volunteer at Staywell) and Wani (a full-time staff member) joining in, so it really felt like a team effort with both sides working together. Armed with a list from Clair, the manager, we set to work: •The tall sunflowers came down to make way for fresh, bright yellow plants to welcome visitors at the entrance. • The hanging baskets were refreshed with a splash of colour. • The front flower beds got some TLC, including a good feed for the beautiful white rose. • Jana tackled some bindweed along the side passage. • Emily and Wani used their eye for colour to coordinate the planting. • And Charles even had time to mow the lawn, leaving everything looking neat and cared for. This was no ordinary task-it was part of the Mayor’s Community Weekend! We joined in the celebrations by putting up bunting and flags, adding a festive touch that advertised the event to passers-by. In just two hours, everything was spruced up and looking welcoming. We left the bunting and flags up for the day centre users to enjoy during the week (weather permitting-fingers crossed the wind and rain play nicely!). A wonderful way to show how teamwork really makes Staywell stay well.

This morning I rose to meet up with Dani at Jubilee Square, where we started tackling the bindweed problem, cutting down the Budlia in order to make more room for the hot lips flowers and other vegetation. This was followed up by a litter pick.

Emily and I spent 1.5 hours walking around Kingston, picking up litter, from used cans to paper and plastic bottles. By the end of our mission, not only were our bags full, but our hearts were too, thanks to the great conversations we shared along the way. We wrapped things up at Fairfield Park, where we took some great photos to celebrate completing our task.

We've been to Kingston Voluntary Action's new project redistributing surplus food this summer and seen how it's been coming on.

Organiser Emma had a load of different tasks for us to do, from crushing boxes, sweeping, cleaning out their fridge as well as their van.

Anna, Amreet, Claire (expert power washer), Tom, Emma, Emily Luke, Levita, John (top leaf-blowing), Dave (skilful van driving), Rachel and first-timer Jonathan got involved in a bit of everything and we'd made a big difference by the end.

We didn't leave empty-handed, either. The great thing about a food hub is…food…and we got some water kefir and cacao bars for our trouble.

Nice to be back helping a very worthy cause.

Brought and dropped some items for the food bank on my way around.

Kingston River Culture festival needed some help with setting up some gazebos, stalls and exhibition stands. So I met Levita and Saber there at Canbury Gardens and we managed to put 8-9 gazebos up together in our session time.

None of knew how to set up a gazebo so we needed to look it up by watching a short Youtube video which helped! We also needed to watch another video on how to close a broken gazebo which took us longer than to open and set it up.. However, when we needed to set up a replacement, we did it very swiftly within 10 minutes (a record!)

We also had 1-2 people helping us in some parts but we mostly did it all.

Organiser was pleased and thanked for our help!