10 Goodgymmers braved a cold, wet and windy evening last night to help the Awesome CIC crew with a big task at Barnard Park Adventure Playground. The team on the site have been very busy maintaining the space for the return of school children and after-school groups, and have requested our assistance over the next few weeks.

Continuing our progress for a few weeks ago, our crew grabbed shovels, spades, forks and rakes, and made their way to the massive zip line. We then started piling woodchip into the crash pad, to form a nice soft landing for the playground users. The tricky part of the task involved moving the woodchip evenly across the area, rather than dumping it in just one spot, so we were required to walk the bark chippings to the top of the crash pad to allow Aidan, Abi and Dom to rake and shift the chippings across the space (the wheelbarrow owned by Awesome CIC was sadly vandalised).

As we came to the end of our task, the massive pile of woodchip started to look tantalisingly manageable, and there was a definite unspoken push to complete the task within the hour! Our team suddenly sped up, and chippings seemed to disappear into the crash pad at an alarming rate! By the time we finished, the woodchip pile was almost completely gone, with just a few bits of debris remaining. A stunning effort- well done everyone!

Goodgym Islington returned to Thornhill Square Gardens for a second week, and 7 local Goodgym folks joined us tonight. We met up with Anna, a resident of Thornhill Square at the entrance of the park, and got straight to work before the sun started setting.

Steve and Marie Laure worked together to clip away loads of foliage from flower beds, and deposited the clippings in a hidden compost bin. Mukund and Ellie were tasked with pulling and chopping down a large cluster of teasel plants (spiky plants, popular with gold fiches!). Kike and Sarah used hoes to clear away lots of weeds and greenery from the closest flower beds to the entrance too.

It started to get dark about half way through our task, so we brought out the head torches and portable floodlights so we could keep working.

Excellent work everyone. Really making great progress on this big task!

11 Goodgymmers joined us last night for our first group-run style community mission from a new start location. We had a great mix of GG Islington regulars, and plenty of new participants (welcome to Alicia, Hana and Florence).

Six runners started at The Packington Gallery near the Arc Centre, Islington- a food bank project which GG Islington have assisted in developing over the lockdown. This new location allows us to safely drop off bags and belongings before embarking on a social run to our task. Our crew set off towards Market Road Gardens (2 miles out, 2 miles back) on residential streets, with Ellie and John back marking to make sure we maintain social distancing on our journey.

Upon our arrival, we met up with Frannie from Octopus Communities Network, who had already set the rest of our team to work. Our objective was to make the final preparations for the wild gardens, public access pathways and vehicle entrance for the Heyward Adventure Centre, ready for groups of school children to visit next week. Plenty of weeding, cutting back overgrown foliage, collecting green waste for the hugelgarden bed and litter picking completed by our crew.

Please note that it might be time to consider bringing headtorches to tasks again, as this task did start to get quite dark. Trainer Simon will start running with the portable bat lights again to help with this!

Fantastic work everyone, the space looked absolutely smashing, especially after the months of work that GG Islington had contributed to this project. Keep an eye out on the community mission listings for future Octopus Communities tasks at Highbury Quadrant and Shepard's Hill Allotments!