This was a task of two halves in the Pantry at the Salvation Army Hall in Welling.

After improvising with a broom-handle to mark out some straight borders, then some careful application of masking tape, Lisa and Martin got busy painting a blackboard on one of the walls. This will be used for messages to visitors at the Pantry.

Meanwhile, across the room, Sue and Sarah applied transfers to liven up the wall on one side of the hall. Those sticky letters were tricky little things and it was more of a dexterity- workout and test of patience than our usual physical activities!

Thank you for having us Katy, and kindly providing cups of tea as we worked and chatted.

One of the joys of GoodGym is the many different things that we get to do. Next week it's something completely different... check out the task listing to see what's coming up.

We made quite a difference to the grounds at Welling Library today.

'Make mine a vodka and Coke.' With nearly fifty empty glass bottles there had clearly been a drinking party at some point! They all went into the recycling bin ♻️.

Then we tackled the weeds and brambles, not easy in the frozen ground 🌱 .

Luckily we were working around the sunny sides of the building and all our activity kept us warm despite the minus temperatures in the shade 🌡.

A little over an hour - and nine bin bags-ful later - we headed to a nearby café for hot drinks and more chatting. The hot chocolate was a well-earned winner!

Elsewhere, GoodGym tourism saw Ashton's litterpicking, and Peter's volunteering at junior parkrun take us to 25 good deeds this month. This means we've already reached our target for the January Challenge 💥!

That's amazing, and great work Team GG Bexley! Can we make it to 50 by the end of the month do you think?

The Community Larder wanted our help to re-organise a couple of their storage cupboards and put away lots of donated provisions.

'Team Unpack' set about grouping the cans and packets while taking them out of the crates, then over to 'Team Stack' who loaded them into the cupboards, making sure the shortest shelf-lives were at the front.

We got loads done in the hour, proving that many hands really do make light work. And it was great exercise with all that squatting and lifting from the floor to the shelves.

We even have a new member now, with our youngest helper naming their soft toy after us. Welcome to the team, Teddy GoodGym! 🧸 ❤️

What a lovely treat to be met by Santa as we arrived at our task last night 🎅 !

We were helping Julie and Alex from Discover Welling to take down the lamp post stickers promoting last weekend's Sparkle event and replace them with stickers thanking local organisations that had donated towards funding for the town's Christmas lights.

We got into a great routine:

• Peel off the old.

• Stick up the new.

• Power walk to next lamp post.

• Repeat.

All the while with Santa giving cheery greetings to passers-by.

Great exercise and very satisfying!

And it was lovely to see our logo featured, as a thank you for the help we've given time-wise (rather than pecuniary!).

Another fun task under under belts, and even the GoodGym Bexley name up in lights (well, technically 'on' lights, but close enough!)

Next Wednesday we're indoors, stuffing bags to be given away at the Sidcup Christmas Extravaganza. If you've been wondering about giving GoodGym a go, this is a great task to start with!

Time to take down the remembrance poppies that we'd put up on lamp posts along Welling high street a few weeks ago.

The plan was to release the cable ties so they can be re-used next year. We each had a go, using screwdrivers to ease the grippy-bit but, despite our best efforts, no-one could master the trick.

So to plan B: cutting the ties instead. Even that was easier said than done - those thick plastic straps were super-tough to cut through! ✂️

GoodGym persistence prevailed and we walked-and-talked our way between lamp posts to get the job done.

With poppies safely stored away we headed home.

Next week's task sees us back in Welling, putting up stickers that thank sponsors of the town's Christmas lights. Why not come along and have some fun with us!