We've been doing quite a bit of flyering recently, so much so that we must be pretty much experts at it... This evening's session came earlier than expected courtesy of cancellation from Newham Hospital. It probably is a tad chilly for gardening at the moment, so hopefully we can pick up with them again in the New Year. And at least with flyering, you get to keep moving! It also meant we were able to accommodate Mabel the dog in her last session with us for now, but hope it's not too long before she might be able to join us again.

Said flyers were to promote local volunteering opportunities with Food Cycle in case you missed it - they've got a new location just down the road from us in Plaistow and are looking for folks to help with their community dining experiences. Read more about them here.

Shout out to Hitesh for making it - it's been a while, so it was great to see you again. We do hopefully have at least one indoor festive task lined up this side of the Christmas, details to be confirmed as soon as we have them and next week we're back up the canal to Hackney Marsh Adventure Playground - sign up here.

So, Tuesday 19th Nov. And it’s cold. The blizzard earlier in the day is not going to cool the burning passion of these goodgymers to aid the community. Not only braving the cold, but also the unknown! A new task! Chandos road gardens. The community group that looks after the gardens asked for some help clearing the streets around the gardens from litter and leaves. Turned out the latter was in greater abundance!

It was in fact an absolute classic goodgym task, with about a 2 mile run to get there, no specialists skills required (just a willingness to graft), lots of bending, lifting, raking and sweeping, an enthusiastic host helping to steer us in the right direction, and best of all, an output at the end of it that could be neatly measured in bags! (The council even came out to collect them!).

Special mention also goes out to Mabel (the dog) for her first task, she wasn’t so hot at raking, but made up for it by giving all the leaves a good sniff.

Also big thanks to the Friends of Chandos Road Gardens community group who hosted and were also out in force leading by example and providing equipment and tips.

Random weekly question was “if you could keep any species of animal as a pet (that you wouldn’t normally keep as a pet … and danger was not a limiting factor) what would you choose?!”

I can’t say I got a complete set of answers, but some examples were polar bear, panda bear, silver back gorilla, badger, shark.. various bits of logic for those, big warm cuddles, protectiveness/protection, help with workouts, for scaring people (I’ll let you imagine which reason goes with which animal!). All good answers.

Next week’s Tue evening task still to be confirmed, likely to be flyering or furniture building, but if you’re free and fancy being an absolute local legend then sign up here!

Saturday morning - perfect time for a parkrun goodgym combo! Wanstead flats the meeting point. For some of us the first time parkrunning at Wanstead flats! Great morning for it. One of the few occasions I haven’t seen someone taken down by the muddy section. Good warm up for a couple of Sunday morning half marathon heroes in the group.

Then on to Emmanuel church. Anticipating the big crowds of Sunday morning, the church were keen to get the leaves that had fallen on the paths around the church cleared - avoid some potentially hazardous situations. Initially, we divvied the task, boys to bag the leaves, girls to rake (hence “bag boys for life”) but ultimately everyone was chipping in with everything. We counted up and think it was probably around a squillion leaves that we cleared between us and the other volunteers at the church so all in all, job well done.

Watch out for more Saturday parkrun goodgym combos in the coming weeks as we’re trying to work out when our next instalment is gonna be and we’re definitely thinking this side of Xmas!

Last night saw round 2 of GoodGym Newham's fast flyering for Cody Dock's Frost Fair, coming up on 30th November.

Firstly though, a congratulations to the Princes, Kev and Sharon, respectively our figurative patriarch and matriarch, on their 30th wedding anniversay! And they would have chosen our group run to celebrate it too, had work and illness not gotten in the way. We'll have to save the OJ & Lemonades till next time...

Back to the task - great to have a few more of us this week, which certainly helped with the pretty substantial stack of flyers we were to post through letterboxes to promote the Frost Fair in the local community. Apparently flyering does make a difference to the number of people attending Cody Dock's events, and we even had a special request to go a bit further north of Star Lane, getting the word out to even more folks than we would usually cover. I think we distributed about 700 flyers between the two weeks, so well done everyone!

Just a plug for the event though if anyone is tempted to go (and we've been to past iterations - they are highly recommended) - the Frost Fair is a free community event with craft stalls, outdoor games, live music, fire sculpture, choir singing, food & drink, a free cycle maintenance workshop and other activities. More details on the Cody Dock website

For anyone tempted by gardening and excellent post-task snacks, we're at Emanuel Church this Saturday, and then off to the Adventure Playground next Tues - deets to follow on the WhatsApp.

A pleasantly warm evening for the team of four

A quick catch up at The Print house before we headed down the River Lea to Cody Dock

Hilary had thankfully collected the leaflets earlier in the day as when we arrived the Dock was i darkness and locked up...so a slight detour before we headed towards Star Lane

We decided to stay as one group and managed to post most of the leaflets and gentle walk back to the Print House and decided to deliver a few more leaflets.

Still plenty of streets to let know about the Frost Fair so will be returning towards Star Lane to deliver the last of the flyers.

This week 10 intrepid GoodGymers in Newham returned to Hackney Adventure Playground. For 6 of us meeting at Jim & Tonic, we enjoyed a nice run through the Olympic Park and up the River Lea,

On arrival we found our remaining 4 GoodGymers to complete the team, along with two big tasks ahead of us - a mountain of crushed bark to move, and a forest of weeds to clear. The crushed bark was headed for a play area to help make it safer for the children using it, while the team clearing weeds were on a mission to find out what was underneath - with the hope that there might be a suitable (and flat) area for a future shed. It was clear in no time and the results were promising, once some large logs can be cleared.... watch this space, I sense a future GoodGym mission on the horizon.

We finished just as the drizzle started, perfect timing, and headed back towards Stratford, with a few of the group making a tactical social stop along Here East. Great work everyone, and special mention to Jess who joined us for her first mission - great to have you and we look forward to seeing you back again soon!

Next week we'll potentially have a fitness session as no tasks available currently, but normal service should resume from the week after, with a potential return to Cody Dock on the cards. Keep an eye out for the listings and see you there!