15 GoodGymers ran 4K to Hackney Downes to cut back 150 metres of boarder hedging!

Great to have some new faces along for their first GoodGym and Hackney run!! Hope you enjoyed the ride and will Be back for more next week!!

Saturday sees a great Community Mission with the Tree Musketeers be great if you were able to come along and even better if you combined it with a Hackney Marshes parkrun!!

After a nice chilled run over to Hackney Downes in the amazing late summer sun we met Park Ranger Bruce who got us tooled up and stomping towards the extensive hedge park boarder.

Gloves, shears and loppers to hand we got to work cutting back the over growing hedge! Taking it down to the height of the railings and managing the width with some fine cutting we had a lovely cutting rhythm down pat!

Working both sides of the fence we make top progress and were able to beat our efforts of last year in terms of quality and quantity of our cutting work!

Wanting to get as much done as possible we slightly over run time but not sure anyone was too heartbroken about missing the 1k effort!! Next time we are over that way for sure!!

A quick run back brought us in nicely to time before we headed home with a very active 90 minutes under our belts!

Next week we are off to a community garden in Broadway market now run by the amazing Ground Works. Short run, longer run or walking options available! Be great to see you there!!

Joel

17 Hackney GoodGymers ran 4k to the Literacy Pirates to help them with a heavy duty office move.

Great to have such a great squad along for the evenings activities! Welcoming in Ellen for her maiden GG voyage!!

Nipping off to Dalston through some of Hackney backstreets and the through the vibrant and amazingly encouraging Ridley Road market!! Making our way to the Literacy Pirates home ship!

Meeting Phoenix who showed up what had to be done around the various levels of the ship while explaining the amazing work the charity does for Hackney’s young people!

Each year 100 primary school children and 100 secondary school children from 20 Hackney schools become Pirates for the school year and aim to conquer their Literacy adventures!! With the new recruits coming in a few weeks it’s about getting ship ready for them.

We had to move cabinets, shelves, huge tables and many other things to a new home. From the Deep to the Bridge and way up to the mast!

Taking the table apart to allow it to fit down the lift before masterfully assembling a new Flat pack tall book case in a magical 18 minutes!!

Washing down the walls of the chalk boards ready to get repainted in the morning both on the Bridge and on the stage in the Deep we completed all tasks to perfection!

A quick debrief on the Ship where we found the secret passage and collected a prize for our efforts!

2k back to base on the double rounded off a great evening!!

See you next week for a park adventure!!

Joel

20 amazing GoodGymers ran 3k to Wilton Estate Community Garden to dig, weed, water and untangle the ever expanding gardens.

After Super Saturday at the GG Olympics everyone was on a GoodGym high! Great to have our first timers and intrepid tourists along for a sweet session in one of the longest running tasks in GoodGym history!

With only a short distance to cover we took the long loop around to get in a well constructed 2k of running into our legs so we were warm and mobile for some big time gardening!

With the garden under a new committee there was lots to do and we split up into crack units to take on each task.

Weeding long flower beds, dead heading, replanting, epic amounts of watering, chopping back and digging over and the unbelievable levels of untangling the binding that had been growing around the fences!

Brown big after brown bin was filled and we were 6 deep by the end with a push to clear up we left the site clear, tidy and much smarter!

With time tight we zipped back on the short route to make sure we grabbed our stuff before the Bakehouse closed for the evening!!

Thanks for coming along and hope you are able to join next week where Peter is leading the squad to Abney!

See you in 2

Joel

15 Sun soaked GoodGymers ran 6k to the River Lea to litter pick and cut bat prickly over hanging vegetation!

A beautiful summers evening with a picturesque inner city running route took us through Well Street Common, Victoria Park and along the River path of the River Lea.

3k down and we picked up our grabbers, bin liners and cutters then headed out in both directions to reduced the waste getting into the waterways!

Clearing tins, cigarette butts, plastic bottles while printing back any invading overhanging prickly branches from Hackney Wick to the Limehouse Cut.

With everything we could see swept, picked and trimmed we dumped it off fir recycling and headed off back to base taking in the sights and sounds of London Town!

6k all complete with a little stretch out to make sure we are all good to go.

We headed off to relax and refuel!!

See you next week for our Hackney Parks visit

Joel