Two happy Goodgymmers went to Walthamstow Toy Library for a lovely outdoor task on this (slightly breezy) spring evening, to weed, hedge trim and sweep as part of the efforts to get everything looking extra spick and span ready for the Toy Library's 50th anniversary celebrations! Yes, half a century of this amazing resource for families in the Waltham Forrest community! This is definitely something worth celebrating! As always, Helen was very grateful for the help, especially as she's got a very long "to do" list for the coming days. There's another task listed next Thursday for anyone who'd like to contribute. A street party will be held on Somers Road on Saturday 17 May, for which volunteers will be much needed. Anyone interested in helping out can sign up to the Goodgym mission and come and lend a hand to make the Toy Library's 50th birthday a day to remember!

Four happy Goodgymmers made their way once more to Walthamstow Toy Library this evening to give the ever-dedicated Helen a helping hand. To say that the Toy Library has no shortage of craft supplies would be quite the understatement and today's task involved emptying, sorting and re-stocking the art cabinet, which was absolutely bursting with paper, cardboard and felt of all colours of the rainbow, along with templates for drawing every animal and object under the sun! We all got stuck in and made short work of the task, organising all the supplies and neatly refilling the cupboard. From chaos to calm, the result of our efforts was extremely satisfying! An extra big thank you goes to new GGWF member Lily, who was attending her first mission.

As always, the Toy Library continues to do fabulous work in our local community. It will be celebrating its 50th anniversary next month with a wonderful street party! Keep your eyes peeled for some extra Toy Library tasks in the next couple of weeks in the run-up to the party. Let's do our best to give Helen some support and help make the Toy Library spick and span for its half century celebrations!

A small but productive session with Ruby showing up and staying for two hours helping sort out all the donations with the shop's other volunteers and staff. It's a shame that another sign up didn't show up.

Well done Ruby!

no photos from the session so using a poster!

Six jolly Goodgymmers, plus GGWF’s youngest recruit, 3-month old Max, convened at Walthamstow Toy Library for our monthly task, where the ever-brilliant Helen set us up with a gentle activity, giving a significant number of tin cans a good coat of white paint. These are going to be used for an Easter celebration, where they will be decorated with ears befitting of the very best Easter bunnies, and will be used to store Easter goodies, or as pots for spring plants. With lovely enthusiastic Goodgymmers visiting from various boroughs we had many hands to make exceptionally light work and our task was accomplished in record time!

The Toy Library continues to do excellent work, both in Walthamstow and at its sister location in Leytonstone, and will soon be celebrating its 50th anniversary. As always, it was a joy to be there, lending a helping hand to this pillar of the Waltham Forrest community. Keep your eyes peeled for the April visit to the Toy Library, which will be listed here on the Goodgym website soon!

it doesn't look like anyone from goodgym made it to the session:(

Next time!

... sadly miscommunication and circumstances beyond our control prevailed this evening, and the Toy Library task did not come to pass. Visitors John and Jaqueline from Camden and Gabriela from Hackney came to join, but unfortunately our mission wasn't accomplished. We did, however, have a lovely chat for 20 minutes, and I thoroughly enjoyed making some new GG contacts. I feel terrible for not properly confirming the task with Helen this week; Helen feels terrible for being on leave this week and forgetting that the Goodgym elves were due to visit. So we've decided to put it down to "six of one and half a dozen of the other" and both sleep easy. Lessons have been learned and the next mission in March will be a mighty fine one, probably with multiple emails of confirmation from both sides ;-)