Tonight's task for GoodGym Greenwich brought us back to St Richard's Church in Charlton, where we're working on a ongoing project to make the outside area, formerly a weeded wilderness, a more user-friendly, comfortable area for the community.

For anyone following this project, we've battled rebellious plant life, embraced our inner cave people by fashioning our own tools for staple administration, and turned mountains (of woodchip) into molehills.

So on a lovely rainy breezy sunny evening in June, 7 goodgym-ers got to work continuing with this process. First the cardboard had to come up, which has helped restrict weed growth, then it was back to our routine we've got going now of digging, membraning and spreading the pine-scented woodchip, and with lots of chatter, the task time flew by. Time for a quick group photo and update on plans for the area, before our ways parted until next time! Thanks all & have a good week 😊

On a chipper Saturday morning in May, 3 goodgym-ers made their way to St Richard's Church in Charlton. Good Gym Greenwich have been working on a project here, and today's task involved the next step, which proved both slightly daunting at the start (that was a big pile of woodchip!) and rewarding to see the progress we had made.

St Richard's is a local community church, with a very weeded outside area, which the team are keen to turn into a more usable community space. During past tasks, we've cleared weeds & laid down a membrane base. Today we were greeted by a freshly delivered hill, made up of pine tree wood and leaf chippings (which smelled amazingly like Christmas trees...!) and it was our mission today to spread this over the membrane layer. Spades, rakes, and buckets at the ready, we dug straight in to move that mulch mountain from A to B, C and D. Our time flew by with much chatter, some helpful supervision from honorary Good-gym member, local cat Freya, and the path really looks like it's taking shape now. Thanks to all involved & have a great weekend! 😊

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

A beautiful day saw 7 of us help out a the lovely family fun day at Roots4Life today. Justine, Johnny, Sarah, Ashton and myself helped in the first shift, Justine and Ashton manning the smoothy bike (a great hit with kids and grown ups alike!), Johnny and Sarah on the bouncy castle, me on the raffle stall and as if it was all perfectly planned, Khai and Sarah arrived to take over after their respective tasks of building a train set and litter picking in the morning! You've gotta give extra kudos to the double deeders any day!

Great to see you all and thank you for helping the event go smoothly! The session next week at Roots has been cancelled but we'll be back to help with their growing day on the 7th June!

Until next time 🥰

A fired up team from GoodGym joined Clean Up Charlton members for an hour on the circuit around the retail park in SE7. Half the group tackled the usual debris in Anchor & Hope Lane and Bugsby's Way, and the rest Woolwich Road and a 'grot-spot' at the car-charging station. Now, as well as clean energy, we have a clean pavement there. Then it was a brief call to 'Frankie & Benny's Alley' which we will have to rechristen 'Popeye Lane' now - doesn't mean it has any less litter!

Thanks for a great effort to everyone who attended - you light up our life!