*“You’re keen?“

“Well, I’ve never dug before!”*

Having run Gale Street Organic Community Garden in Becontree for over 20 years, Bridget has had less time to look after this beautiful greenspace recently. Fruit trees, vegetable beds and the shed have all been calling out for some TLC….

… a call that was answered by 8 GoodGymmers last night who were celebrating GoodGym Barking & Dagenham’s very first ever session!

Huge kudos to all GoodGymmers in attendance:

🏃 De, and Claire and Steven get a special well done for coming to their first ever GoodGym session 🏃 Louise came in from Islington especially to help, 🏃 Cecilia's regular weekly running club was cancelled so we were lucky enough to them her come in from Greenwich, 🏃 Peter loved their first time digging 🏃 Emdad cycled in from Barking (watch out for his article about this session in the Barking & Dagenham Post coming soon), 🏃 Jack was on content creator duty (excited to see their first attempt at a TikTok video).

So much was achieved in just 45 minutes – check this out: 3 vegetable beds were measured and marked out and 2 trenches dug, from which 20 feet cubed of soil was removed. Very dry, hard and dusty soil. This is a huge achievement!

“I thought you were all going to chicken out and not come as it is so hot, but you didn’t! You came; you worked with good humour; I’m so impressed” (Garden owner Bridget)

“You’re a powerhouse… fun, and great energy having you guys here” (Task owner Nassaba)

Everybody really enjoyed themselves, experiencing first hand the benefits of spending time doing physical activity in nature. Soooooo much more fun than the gym. And we learnt lots about soil science from Bridget who has degrees (yes, plural) in the subject (urine does actually improve compost - this article was nearly titled "don't take the pi**")

And we’re in demand – Nassaba is working with me to plan many more sessions soon, so keep an eye out on the B&D area page of the website!

See you soon

Steven (B&D Area Activator)

NB – if you are a local not-for-profit organisation that would benefit from GoodGym volunteers to complete practical tasks in outdoor greenspaces, please contact me on steven.champion@goodgym.org

After a busy away day discussing all things Goodgym, such as how Ed got so good at clipart, why Notion is the most controversial tool ever, and what exactly is a shrink ray, it was time to get to work in the garden.

Calthorpe community garden is a beautiful space where everyone is welcome. Originally destined to become an office block in the 80s, local residents gathered together to save it. Happily, they succeeded and it was turned into a beautiful thriving space which supports people's physical and mental well-being as a sustainable urban oasis.

We zipped up our spanking new jackets, and feeling more on brand than ever before, we got to work.

Nada, Jack and Dave made a clean sweep of it with the help of some enormous brushes, making sure the pathways were sparkling. Jacob and Darren covered litter-ally the whole site ensuring it was rubbish free, while Ed and Kim shifted a table we can only presume was made out of osmium. Meanhile Chalomi was making sure everything was running smoothly while also keeping tabs on all the cats in the King's Cross area and Ivo project managed the mission.

Maybe it was all the GG muscle, maybe the jackets gave us superpowers, but just half an hour later the place was tidy and welcoming.The only way to celebrate a job well done on a drizzly June day? With ice cream of course!

We made our way over to a very fancy ice cream parlour, and that's where the hard work really began. How to choose? Luckily Jacob subtly dropped into conversation that he'd recently returned from Italy so was able to advise, and Ed, Kim and Jacob kindly decided to order all the flavours for us to try. They also came up with an amazing new ice-cream based TV concept, so this time next year we're going to be millionaires.

Great work everybody!