Three GoodGymers, Steph, Sevan and Kash, after a morning of volunteering, decided to attend an ancient wellness ritual taking its roots from the Himalayas. The therapeutic qualities of "balsam bashing" were known to Sevan and Kash. Steph had yet to experience them in his soul and - little had he known - on his skin too!

The trio met Fiona from Ealing Wildlife Group at the North bank of the River Brent in Pear Tree Park. Fiona gave them a brief for the task and rushed back to see her family for a Sunday meal. Minutes later, seasoned Balsam Bashers Rachel and Robert strengthened the team with their expertise and long sleeves and bottoms. GoodGymers (at least some of them) had read the task description and brought some protection for their bare arms and legs. Everyone quickly found out that no one's outfit was impenetrable to the stinging nettles. Nettles were enormous and as ubiquitous - if not more - as the Himalayan balsam, which was the main target for the group. The balsam bash quickly transformed into a nettle & balsam bash!

The team members went in different directions, each on their own way to find nirvana. Seeking the ultimate liberation from suffering, the GoodGymers initially suffered plenty of nettle stings, yet later on, their journey transformed into a transcendental experience. When removing the balsam by pulling it right near the ground, exposing the shallow roots, and breaking and trampling the stems that made the cracking watery sounds, all three felt a connection to something greater than themselves. While destroying the Himalayan plants, they were restoring the balance of nature that had not intended to have balsam spreading in England.

Despite the nettle stings, Steph, Sevan and Kash went into a meditative state, pulling one balsam plant after another. They could do that with no end - but they stuck with the two-and-a-half-hour task slot. Can you imagine such a long GoodGym session to remove invasive plants? Now, you have an idea about how satisfying a balsam bash could be!

After achieving so much for themselves and the biodiversity of the River Brent banks, the GoodGymers were ready to end their spiritual journey with a jog home. But Rachel had one secret to reveal: the Himalayan balsam worked well as a soothing balm for nettle stings - just like aloe vera! Enriched with that piece of transformative knowledge, everyone rubbed broken balsam stalks on their nettle-stung skin and felt immediate relief and a sense of relaxation. What a way to finish the day of Sunday missions!

Four explorers Kash, Sevan, Harvey and Steph Ducat set off and jogged after a coffee break to meet Professor Richard from Ealing Greenwayers in Greenford near the Jungle of Gurnell. Explorer Andrew was already there and we also had another French explorer Maxime who decided to adventure outside of his borough. The explorers braved the jungle of Gurnell in search of the fabled land Professor Richard mentioned at the beginning of the meeting: Eldorado aka the Balsam Field. The field was a treasure for the explorers, but it could not be seen from the trail path. Was this just a myth or would the intrepid explorers find their way to the holy Balsam Field? Armed with loppers, shears and slashers the adventurers battled their way through the impenetrable jungle to find their first treasure...a lime bike!! The jungle opened up to an open space with rocks, flowing water of the river and the famous Balsam Field that Professor Richard notoriously spoke about to the GG explorers. While part of the explorers kept clearing the highway to Eldorado, the others started removing the Balsam from the field. Another successful expedition for Professor Richard and his explorers - welcome to Eldorado!! Impact was gi-ga-normous : words from Richard

On a December Sunday morning, GoodGymers Mohamed, Steph and Kash met Greenwayers Richard, Sue and Alex near Brent Viaduct to continue their quest of shaping the Pear Tree Park paths. To say that the recent storms and floods spared the riverside trail that our teams had been working on would be too optimistic. Luckily, the woodchip we had spread last month survived, after being covered by water, so today we had to walk through only a few muddy sections.

Further down the path, the situation didn't look so well as part of the trail suffered from what is bread and butter for the White Cliffs of Dover: erosion. There was also a large fallen tree arching over the walkway, which didn't look particularly safe. Richard brought us to that location so that we could fix that. Removing the fallen tree didn't seem like a job for six people with saws and loppers. Our options were:

• creating a diversion closer to the water and hoping that the river would not swallow it anytime soon
• creating a diversion towards the park, additionally allowing visitors to enter the pathway at that spot

The second choice was more sensible and we immediately set off for lopping, sawing, breaking, hacking, pulling and forking. Richard, as usual, gave us a very comprehensive health and safety briefing ahead of time, so everyone was careful when performing all the feats of strength and wit required to remove dead trees and brambles on the way. Minute after minute, the visionary path was becoming a reality and we saw the light at the end of our way towards the park.

It took us only an hour to create a passage, so we spent the rest of the allocated time making it wider and safer. We said goodbye to a few extra rotten trunks at the sides of the new route and cut off all the overhanging branches we could reach. If someone tells me that the activity was not satisfying, then they may as well repeat after Mick Jagger that they can't get no satisfaction.

Key achievements:

• The dangerous path under the fallen tree has been blocked
• A new, safe path towards the park has been created
• No one lost an eye

The Autumn season of GoodGymming is certainly open! On an October Sunday morning, it brought us rain, mud and a kaleidoscopic display of leaves in Pear Tree Park. Three GoodGymers: Sevan, Steph Ducat and Kash met Greenwayers: Richard, Sue and Phillip to plunge into the depths of the park's overgrowth. The group had the pleasure of entering Pear Tree Park using the new path they had created in August.

At the safety briefing, Richard treated us to a new three-letter acronym, rather than recycling EYE he had taught us in June. The new acronym spelled AHA:

A-bove - watch out for overhanging branches
H-ernia - don't lift ridiculously heavy things
A-ss over tits - you'll end up in this configuration if you won't look for trip hazards

Today's objective was to create another path - alongside River Brent. Apart from the usual brambles and nettles to chop down, the obstacles included trees. For those specimens, we needed a larger calibre - what about a saw? Richard and Sevan wielded those comfortably, while Steph and Kash found their happy place in hacking the stingy and prickly plants with slashers. Sue did a bit of litter picking and lopping at the start, then uncovered her calling: hauling the cut-down tree branches (or shall I say: logs!) to the side of the path. Phillip, the new Greenwayers recruit, made the pathway spotless by collecting all the litter found under the summer growth.

Two hours of sawing, lopping, slashing and rolling the chunkiest logs aside made a stunning difference. The 70 metres (according to Richard and Phillip's estimations) of the overgrown track has been restored to a stage where it resembles a path again.

Richard and Ben from Clean Up River Brent have grand plans to restore the riverside trail to its former glory and ordered woodchip to spread on the path. We will be back to Pear Tree Park again next month to woodchip the new path with the Greenwayers.

When the funnel of the Pitshanger junior parkrun wrapped up, the Four GoodGymeers already had another mission on the horizon: making a different kind of funnel: a funnel in a jungle to provide the members of CURB access to a colony of invasive Himalayan balsam!

Having rewarded themselves for the early Sunday start with a coffee in the park, Harvey, Kash, Sevan and Steph walked 2 km to their next task. They met Richard of Ealing Greenwayers at Brentside School gates to march towards the south bank of River Brent, where Richard gave them a safety briefing, listing the hazards at the task.

The general rule is EYE: Examine - Yell - Exterminate.

The GoodGymers were ready to face the plant-based dangers of the riverbank, equipped with thick gloves and weapons from Richard. For a few volunteers, it was the first opportunity to use a new tool: slashers! Various GoodGymers had different interpretations of that device. For Steph, who kept finding golf balls projected months ago from the other side of the river, it was a golf club. For Kash, it was a fearsome machete to penetrate through the jungle as she enthusiastically put herself in the vanguard of the group. The nettles or brambles stems she left behind, were razed with deadly precision by Harvey and Steph with shears. Sevan's job was on a higher level: cutting the overhanging branches of crack willow and other trees. He managed to take down an impressive oak branch using just loppers! As everyone was so absorbed with hacking and slashing, Richard decided to do a quick litterpick on the path the GoodGymers created for the CURB balsam bashers team.

In an hour, the team of human brush cutters created not a funnel but a highway to their Eldorado: the Himalayan balsam! Ben's team from CURB will deal with those plants in no time before they flower and spread their seeds. For the GoodGymers and Richard, the day was not over - one more job awaited at the other side of the river.

Join us for another session like this one in July - sign up here. The tasks are short, rewarding and in a friendly atmosphere - and running is not a requirement!

After their debut as funnel managers at Pitshanger junior parkrun, Sevan and Kash, rather than running back home, hung out at the cafe in Pitshanger Park, as they had other fish to fry in the park. But the fish had to be first fished out from the River Brent!

The GoodGymers met in front of the Pitshanger Bowls Pavilion with Ben - the founder of Clean Up River Brent, Cathy - the leader of LAGER Can, Ranger Jamie and volunteers eager to have a dip in Brent and collect some souvenirs from the Sunday out in the river: the rubbish!

They also met Richard, a volunteer gardener from Walpole Park, who recognised the GoodGymers as the helpers doing the jobs his small group of volunteers wouldn't be able to cover: filling the raised bed and planting and mulching ahead of filming the Antiques Roadshow. Richard was extremely grateful for all the GoodGymers who made impossible jobs possible and reminded Sevan and Kash that the BBC filming takes place today!

Back to Pitshanger Park! After a couple of unsuccessful attempts to get into the river in Pitshanger this year, all volunteers jumped into waders. Ben gave everyone the usual health & safety briefing, mentioning the treacherous depths, current, bacteria and...

"And remember to watch out for that hogweed!" - a passerby.
"Exactly! It is coming..." - Ben.

After viewing some pictures of giant hogweed, the squad of rubbery mermaids and tritons armed with wading poles marched through the park and found a place to descend into the water. This time, it was Jamie's turn to talk about safety rules after entering the river.

"Cathy, how deep are we allowed to go? Was it waist level?"
"Mid-thigh level. Some of us have holes in their bums!"

In case you wondered what kind of people don't have that anatomical feature, you need to know that Cathy's waders had a puncture, well, below the waist level.

The volunteers got into the water in pairs. The GoodGym explorers decided to go in the opposite direction than the mainstream litter pickers and discovered land on the other bank of the river with jungles of hogweed, and litter islands made primarily of carrier bags tangled around tree roots.

Sevan was a bit underwhelmed by the size of the objects he was finding in the water, hoping for a bigger catch, but agreed with Kash that maybe it was a sign that CURB's efforts to keep the river clean were paying off. Later, they found out that the other volunteers excavated a mattress buried in the riverbed.

The GoodGymers could stay only 90 minutes on the task but collected three bags of aquatic litter before running off to prepare for their next gig, with a stop in Walpole Park to check out whether Antiques Roadshow was really there as Richard said.

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Appendix A - Creative process behind report writing

Kash: "I need a pun. And I want something related to that bum quote. And water. Like 'watering bum-hole'. Or, you know there is a phrase: 'water below the bridge'..."
Sevan: "Water under the bridge?"
Kash: "Yeah, that one! 'Water under the bum'!"
Sevan: "There was an MTV show in the nineties called 'Beavis and Butt-Head'. They had this phrase: 'Cornholio'! Maybe 'Bumholio!'? But I don't think it will be accepted."
Kash: "Yes, I think bums are only accepted in the body. Hahaha! Report body, I mean! My quote is almost as good as Cathy's original!"
Sevan: "Maybe we should record this whole conversation in the appendix?"