Last night, GoodGym Newham headed out to support the Friends of Chandos Road Gardens, clearing autumn leaves from the streets and litter from the children’s playground.

Nick arrived first and got straight to work on litter picking, setting the pace for the session. Graham walked over despite recovering from a football-related injury — we wish him a swift recovery! Kev arrived after a run, and then Rosa, Eugene, and I did a little group run, taking the scenic route from the Aquatics Centre to join in.

Armed with rakes, bags and shovels, we tackled the leaves lining the street and rubbish scattered around the playground. Among the items collected were stray wrappers, cups, and even a lonely teddy bear!

We were also joined by volunteers and local residents from Chandos Road, who continued the cleanup after we left, finishing the job and collecting all the bagged leaves and rubbish for the council. Great to see the community come together to make the streets and playground cleaner and safer.

📅 Upcoming Tasks

We don't currently have anything lined up next Tuesday, but we do have the following brilliant tasks coming up not long after:

Saturday 8th Nov: Parkrun and then gardening at Emmanuel Church

Tuesday 11th: Hackney Marsh Adventure Playground

Thanks to everyone who came along today — with our combined efforts, Chandos Road is looking brighter, tidier, and ready for everyone to enjoy! 🌿

Our first weekday evening community mission, but at one of our regular tasks.

This week Sybil had over 200 bulbs for us to plant in the long flower bed at the front of the church.

Mark joined us for his 2nd GG good deed while Bianca joined us for her 3rd and Steven joined us for a 2nd tourist visit to Newham.

Sybil had clear instructions
* clear leaves
* dig in compost
* make holes
* plant bulbs (make sure they're the right way up)
* refill holes
* leaves back to act as additional mulch

In less than forty minutes all 200 bulbs were planted and covered.

Some light refreshments as a thank you from the church for our hard work before we headed off home.

It was the Gang of Four who pitched up at the Hackney adventure playground this evening to see what Ange had in store for us. Early arrivers Paul and I were delighted to see that the remaining tree trunks that we had shifted during our last visit had now all been moved, so we thought it was unlikely we were going to be in for another session of heavy lifting…and so it proved, as Ange pointed to yet another large mountain of bark and wood chipping by the entrance and said she’d like it moved to the far corner under one of the A frames to provide a soft landing for any young aspiring circus acrobats.

With each of us armed with wheelbarrow and shovel, we got to work loading, walking, emptying into mounds, and retracing our steps for more of the same, but helpfully accompanied by an eclectic playlist of tunes blasting out from the speaker near the shed, which definitely kept us moving. Whoever was in control of this evening's playlist is definitely missing a trick as a part time DJ at the weekend...or as the next Joe Wicks.

With darkness now fully set in, Team Leader Graham gave us a call of “5 minutes more” (or two more wheelbarrow trips), and once done we parked the ‘barrows, tidied up the spades, leaving just a small pile of woodchip still to be distributed, and bade Ange farewell. A short group run back to the Olympic Park, and another highly satisfying and productive evening at the playground was complete for another week.

Tonight was group run meets community mission with Graham leading a small group from the Aquatic Center while the rest of us made our way from home.

Tonight we has been asked to remove and unsafe fence for one of the allotment community,taking things apart is always fun and we had some extra helping hands from a couple of the other allotment tenants.

This is a wonderful little community and as our friend Sybil from Emmanuel Church also has a plot here she made sure after task refreshments arrived for us.

Sunday we are having a party to celebrate our 11th Birthday

A visit to Emmanuel church for the team on Tuesday.

We started on the preparation for 2 new flower beds in the church ground.

They have a grassed area between some of the tress and the church members decided they need more flowers,which would help the pollinators.

Grass was removed and taken to the compost pile,the ground was a little dry but Adam made light work of loosing it up,a great way to celebrate his 25th good deed

Two new beds are now ready for the bulbs to be planted.

We look forward to seeing them bloom next year.

And again the ladies did us a wonderful post task feast......I didn't get a photo of the chicken...which disappeared very quickly

We are off to St Marys Allotment next week for some fence dismantling....Head torches are a must