It's week two of the 2026 January Challenge, and this week's Wednesday group run took 12 GoodGymers to the Prince Phillip Maritime Collection Centre in Kidbrooke. This is one of our regular missions, often involving moving pallets, ceiling panels & boats, but tonight's task was an adventure in winter gardening.

We got to the task ready for anything after a run from Charlton House, where we were briefed on our tasks, including some weeding of the raised beds, a spot of litterpicking, and turning of the compost heap - you could say we were met with a worm welcome...! The compost project involved removing the top layer of vegetation, spreading the soil beneath on the plant beds, and replacing that plant matter back - a quick biogeography lesson in practice for us, and a great growing environment for the fresh plants come spring!

As usual, time slipped through our gardening gloved fingers, so it was time for a group photo and back to our roots. Great work all & see you soon 😊

Ps. check out our insta video to see an overview of the session!

Coming up...

As well as our regular Parkruns volunteering, on Saturday we have leafleting for the White Swan and Sunday is our 10th birthday celebration when we'll be renovating the pond at Brooklands and heading to Sapori's for pizza afterwards!

Next wednesday we're painting at Charlton Manor Primary School.!

Due to frozen ground we'd had a change around of tasks and it was another week of finding those abandoned Christmas Tree's around the borough.

We split into groups and tackled the longer roads around Hilly Fields which my logic thought the far end people might not have wanted to drag them all the way to the drop off point but no success.

Then we headed to Ladywell which is usually prime Christmas tree area but not the usual success their either.

We didn't meet the lofty heights of last weeks 30 trees but we did smarten up the streets of Lewisham by finding one tree!! Well done Paul, you saved the task and made sure we didn't go home empty handed.

Welcome Louise to your first group run, hope you enjoyed the session despite the lack of abandoned Christmas trees!

See you all next week!