Last night saw the return of the GoodGym Newham crew to Care4Calais’s East London storage facility, with a fresh batch of instructions and some fresh faces too!

Our mission this time was to tackle the racks of winter coats, transferring them into some large bags, presumably ready for longer-term storage, and also to sort through some newly donated clothing by both size and type. Among the usual suspects of jeans, jumpers and jackets, we uncovered some absolutely stunning larger-sized dresses – so elegant, in fact, that a new pile reserved for ceremonial dresswear had to be created. A wonderful reminder of the generosity of these donations.

It was especially great to welcome Nadirah, who joined her first Newham task – a warm welcome to you! And a face familiar to some in the form of Camden Town John, who made the trip over for the first time in a while. Always lovely to see runners crossing borough borders for a good cause.

Well done to everyone for spending your Tuesday evening to pitch in with such good spirits.

Next week, we’re switching gears with a flyering session for Cody Dock’s Summer Open Day. Sunshine (hopefully), community vibes, and a chance to get our steps in while spreading the word – hope to see you there!

Wednesday saw 5 Good Gymers arrive at a surprisingly sunny Charlton House for our weekly group run. Tonight, we were off to Brooklands Primary School, a lovely little school with a big pile of soil to move. It was a long run so after some short formalities off we set, through Charlton and Kidbrooke and over the edge of the heath to the school. On arriving we made sure we all showed our best sides as Nadirah and her team were patiently waiting for us to continue creating their Good Gym documentary opus.

And so to the task, having moved a huge quantity of woodchip the last time, tonight it was time to move a large quantity of soil to the raised beds. Wheelbarrows and tools, both adult and child size, were assigned and most of the group started on the soil, with one person taking a bit of time to remove the weeds from the bed. The production line was hyper-efficient and, before you could say “I’m ready for my close-up”, the pile was soon shrinking. And despite the hard work some of us still had time to answer questions from the film team relating to our Good Gym experiences. After half an hour we were all done, we said our goodbyes to the file crew and ran off into the sunset.

Wednesday was no ordinary session. Firstly we had two newbies join us, big welcome to Ibrahim and Bobby - it was great to have you along!

Nadirah brought her team of students to film their documentary on an interesting run club- thanks for picking us!

After a quick interview, we introduced ourselves and shared our best binge worthy shows (books for those who don't watch much telly) and then did a little warm up and headed off for our run. We did feel rather important, with Nadirah sprinting ahead to get some action shots of us all. Now we know what it's like to be chased by paparazzi.

At the garden, Annie got us to task, with Robert and Ibrahim watering the trees. Shout out to Sarah for managing to open the padlock, we wouldn't have got far without the hose! The rest of us got to work weeding and cutting back the grass while chatting away and the crew filmed the lot. A lovely evening in nature and a good reminder of the positive impact of exercise, community and doing good- it does us so much good too!

After a group pic, Bobby headed back with Annie to take the wheely bin back and the rest of us headed back to Charlton House for a little stretch and a few shots of us walking away at the end of the session.

Well done team. It makes such a difference for 10 of us to do a load of work at the garden and Annie's always so grateful.

Next weds we're back at Charlton house for a run to Brooklands to do more soil shifting!

Until next time,

Rachel