It's hard to measure the impact GoodGym has had, but nine years and 6217 is a good place to start! Not only that, but we have had 9 people reach 50 good deeds, a massive 17 people soar over 100 good deeds, and one person is well on their way to a giant 1000 good deeds. A special shout out to all the lovely faces that have joined in the last year and are well on their way to reaching their first milestone. If you've come to one session or 500, you've all been part of something really meaningful. Here's to the next year of doing good and getting fit!

We kicked off the night of celebrations with a warm up and thanks to Ariane, a beautiful selection of party hats! In our best party wear we ran up Chiswick High Rd for the first of two weeks of sessions there to first clear, then plant. This is a busy area which often gets lots of rubbish chucked into the raised beds. It has been taken over by Abundance London, a local charity, who want to make it more environmentally friendly. The hope is that if it is filled with spring flowers and cleared of leaves, it will stop people littering, create better air quality and look beautiful too.

We got straight on with the work, clearing the space and packing up leaves into bags. In just a short window of time we managed to get no fewer than 50 bags, which is amazing. The area looks so much better, has reduced the chances of slips and is all ready for our planting session next week.

Everybody knows that no party is complete without a fitness element, so it was on to Turnham Green for our birthday themed session. First up was a balloon relay - everyone got their own balloon and the challenge was to transport it between our knees using lateral jumps. The first team to complete the sprint and then pop their balloon between their knees (squeeze those quads!) wins. The ladies achieved the first victory, so it was on to the next game to decided who took home the prize. This involved keeping a balloon in the air, and involved quick wits, fast reflexes and even faster twitch muscles. Again, it was the ladies that emerged victorious and snagged themselves an early Christmas selection box!

On Saturday we have a lovely mission planting bulbs at Chiswick House -why not join in the fun!

Happy Birthday GoodGym Hounslow - here's to all the litter picked, trees planted, community hubs planted, gardens created and mulch shifted so far!

It was all about the wildlife in Chiswick tonight as we delivered information locally about hedgehogs underneath the beaver moon!

Wild Chiswick is an organisation which works to protect vulnerable animals in the area. There have been recent sightings of hedgehogs for the first time in years at Strand on the Green and Jo, who runs the project, wanted to make sure the population continues to grow. Our job for the night was to deliver information leaflets to houses in the area so they knew how to care for hedgehogs, improve their habitats and help them thrive!

We divided up into teams and, like the well oiled machine we are, started delivering the leaflets at impressive speed.

We were done before we knew it, so meeting back up with Jo, we posed for some photos under Justin Beaver. (thanks for the punspiration!)

Then it was back to the town hall for a short but sweet tabata session working our major muscle groups.

The good news? The task was very effective - Jo got an enquiry about creating a habitat before the evening was out! Amazing work.

We have a couple of weekend missions coming up. Fancy taking part in a huge bulb planting task at Chiswick House??

Or maybe some hedge care in Heston is up your street.

Either way you'll be kicking off the weekend doing something positive for your community and getting in a great work out!

Last night we were back at Strand on the Green school to help out with a huge wood staining job. There were huts to treat, there were sheds, there were tables and chairs - who wooden want to help out?

Headtorches on, we divided up into a leaf clearing and wood staining teams and got straight to work. With so many hands making light work, it didn't take too long to get all the structures done. So while the sweeping team carried on scooping up every last leaf, the staining teams moved over to the sensory garden to work on the weeds.

Thistles, bind weed and dandelions dispatched, the end of the session was signalled by....was that a donkey? Not a sound we expected to hear in the middle of Chiswick, but given our recent animal sightings nothing surprises us anymore.

We downed tools and went round the corner for our fitness session which last night was speed based. Learning what it feels like to run at different paces between 60 and 100 % effort helps us control our running, maximise efficiency and stamina and helps us understand just how much we have left to give at the end of a run, race or parkrun! We started off at 50% effort and slowly built up, trying to increase our speed by 10% each time. There was some impressively controlled running from the team last night, and some even more impressive turns of speed. Great work everybody!

Next week we're back at Chiswick House - hope to see you then!

At GoodGym Hounslow we're very much in touch with our wild side! Last week we had a brush with a hedgehog, and this week our star turn was a very friendly cat who was keen to become our latest member...

We turned up to Harvard Hill to help the Friends organisation there with several gardening jobs. We were greeted by Marie-Claire who had invested in some shiny new tools. We were given instructions on the tasks to be done - mostly weeding and some work on the raised beds. Unfortunately it was about then that the cat made an appearance and we got somewhat distracted!

After a bit of kitten around, we got down to some serious work. While the weeding was being done, and the fox poo mostly avoided, Steph and Michelle shifted the mulch to the raised beds. In a lovely full circle mulch moment, we discovered that the nutrient-dense bags of it we were spreading were actually from Cultivate, a regularly task for us. They were full of the very same mulch we has ourselves packed up over the past two years at Acton School! It was very satisfying to put the end product to good use.

By now we were feline pretty fine with all the work we had got done, so it was time for a fitness session. Meow you're talking! It was all about the glutes last night, and we had several butt-tastic exercises designed to fire up this major muscle group. There was plenty of singing to go along with each move, with the themes from Rocky and Flashdance featuring at full volume.

Don't fur-get to sign up for next week's run to help out at Strand on the green - who knows what our next animal sighting will be!

ps apologies no photos as yet as the website is not letting me upload them - please chack back later!

As Storm Amy approached Ealing, a whirlwind of West London GoodGymers landed at Horsenden Farm. A strong team of seventeen hasn't been seen in Ealing for a long time. It took the joint forces of Ealing, Hounslow and Richmond to build a do-good brigade so large that it surprised even the task owner, Elsa, who scrambled to find more tasks for them.

We welcomed two new joiners, Bernadette and Tom, who chose to kick off their GoodGym adventure dangerously close to the Gruffalo Trail at Horsenden Hill. With such an impressive team, the chances of being eaten by a Gruffalo were close to zero. At the same time, the odds of having fun with good company while getting active in nature before eating carb-heavy, cheesy goodness from a local bakery were very high!

Our regulars from the Hounslow group runs had a chance to welcome back the unstoppable Lucy after the break she had to take in the last couple of weeks. Great to see you again, Lucy!

Two of the tasks given by Elsa had a lot to do with the mysterious disappearance of Horsenden pigs. The first assignment, taken by Steph Ducat, Iram, Kymm and Gus, was to transfer hay from the broken-down hay bales to the former pig quarters and spread it on the ground. I chose to believe it was to secure the traces of a pignapping crime until the arrival of the forensics team. Steph described the effort as hay-way to hell as the gusts of wind kept blowing the hay out of the wheelbarrows. Kymm reported there were as many techniques to spread the hay as GoodGymers: from gleeful tossing, through grumpy kicking to methodical arranging.

Sevan and Bernadette had a task of clearing weeds, mostly nettles, near the Horsenden Loaf pizza oven. Sevan shared that they were setting the stage for the hog roast the following day. That shed some light on the disappearance of the pigs - they must have escaped when they heard about the whole hog roast enterprise!

The largest squad undertook a mammoth job of clearing brambles to expand a meadow where the farm cows could graze to help establish a grassland with plenty of wildlife on the slope of Horsenden Hill. Gaby, Ariane, Tom, Mairaj, Maxime, Afshin, Thaiza, Lucy and Kash were chopping, lopping or slashing the blackberry invaders while Anita and Ash raked away the cuttings.

The cherry on a cake was that all the activity was observed through the lens of photographer Laura, who did a great job of not interrupting our tasks while capturing the spirit of GoodGym and the beauty of Horsenden Hill. We are hoping our part-time modelling gig today will help spread the word about GoodGym in the coming months. It will probably also disclose our soft spot for Horsenden pizza!

Inspired by today's task? Join the Horsenden session next month! Sign up now!