Four years ago today Goodgym Redbridge had its first ever run... and now 208 weeks later still going strong!

To celebrate there was a little get together at Fairlop Waters.... a jog round the lake was followed by some running exercises, expertly led by Julia. And then it was time for a little picnic!

Sharing snacks & bits the conversations flowed through all sorts of topics, not in the least the freshly baked pirozhi that Julia's mum made! Dharmesh running another half marathon in between his 40-runs-in-78-days challenge was mentioned as well. And as traditions go, there was a Colin the Caterpillar cake!!

Great to see you all, including those there in spirit!

P.S.... picture collage is some memories of previous years

What a lovely catch-up! Was great to see everyone who could make it!

Linda and James were very punctual and had to wait a few minutes for everyone to arrive, and arrive they did with Kathryn, Jenny and Julia all running from different sides of the Green to the meeting place at the same time:) Sharon got a little bit delayed but she brought a lovely picnic blanket and as soon as we all saw it, we decided to just sit down and catch-up, leaving the walk for next time :)

Until next time!

On the first Goodgym Redbridge run of a new decade, 10 runners turned up to hunt Christmas trees and ran 5 miles in the process. You gotta love January!

The first run of January is always one of our favourites. Not only do we get to catch up on all the things that have happened over the festive period but we get to do one of our bestest tasks - Christmas tree hunting.

Each January, trees are kicked to the curb, their limbs bare of needles, unloved and unwanted. Unfortunately, they also block pavements and generally make the place a bit untidy. Redbridge Council do, in fact, have a collection service but trees must be left near bins and despite this some still get dumped on roadside.

Armed with gardening gloves, maps of the local area and plenty of Goodgym spirit, pairs and trios headed off into the night to hunt down those pesky Xmas trees and drag them to the recycling centre some 3km away. No one quite knows how many or how big the trees will be but the aim was to transport at least six trees to the centre.

45 minutes later, the team had found seven trees in the local area with Cedric and Kathryn winning the award for two trees and John and Julia collecting a monster of a specimen - it was no mean feat to get that tree all the way there.

All that was left was a run back to base for some easy stretching and some delicious blueberry cake, expertly baked by Sharon! Thank you!

Goodgym is on a drive to do 8,000 tasks and run 100,000km in January. If you fancy helping us crush this goal you can sign up to next week’s run here!

With the day getting brighter by the minute we got started by plogging the main road towards the path. Amongst the usual debris were soft drink bottles with contents looking unlike the original beverage 😳 these were dealt with in usual GG efficient style with pickers at arms length and we moved on to the path. Among the many lager cans, car parts and food wrappers more unusual items included a baby’s hat found by Peter and a Rumanian Leu note found by James we would have used it to buy more GG equipment but when we checked the exchange rate it’s worth 18p😟. Post plog included a short run round the Waters with James trying out some of the activity equipment followed by a nice cup of tea, sat outside the cafe in the sun with a bit of cake supplied by Sharon.

Four of Redbridge’s finest ploggers arrived to help clear litter from the access lane to the local Sports Centres. As we enthusiastically started clearing the litter from what appeared to be a grassy mound it soon became apparent that the mound was layers of garden waste and more litter underneath. Clearly we were not going to clear this in one visit but it didn’t stop us doing our best.

The lovely Liz worked tirelessly clearing all sorts of rubbish and taking on the role of main photographer, particularly of the more interesting pickings among which were number plates-yes we have reported these and the wallet full of ID/credit cards to the police-, a scooter, condom still in its wrapper and a £10 note spotted by the eagle eyed Sharon-this will be going towards more bin bags and litter picks for next visit. It was good to see our Dharmesh after a long absence from Redbridge GG he said we should return to this task with some tools for cutting back the overgrowth too, we will hold you to that Dharmesh 😃

After an hour and a half we had run out of the pack of 20 bin bags we’d taken which were now neatly stacked up by the roadside. Honorary GG Redbridge member Ed kindly assisted with the removal of the bags to the local recycling centre. Unofficial Unofficial GG Redbridge Mascot Max the Dog was unable to assist due to injury but he did manage to make Liz fall in love with him 🐶

It was great to see so many Good Gym members turn up to help out Marian at Wanstead Community Gardeners HQ. There were two jobs so we spit into two groups with one half off to sort out leaf piles and dung at Wanstead Station the other half off to pick up a ladder to assist with pulling down the Ivy from a high wall.

Despite Peter volunteering to ascend the ladder (at his own risk) it was considered too dangerous a task to tackle the Ivy at the top of the wall - always safety first at GG Redbridge 😇. So we set about clearing as much as we could from the bottom up. We discovered that walls do not give up Ivy as easily as the trees that we usually work on but perseverance pays off. Liz worked really hard and then went off to do another mission- such dedication!

In the meantime Sharon, Beth and Julia quickly sorted out suitable tools, worked out a good system where they all had a part to play and were busy scooping up the leaf pile. They were joined by our John who stepped up and kindly dealt with mixing in the dreaded 🐴💩 so the job was soon finished and they came back to assist with the rest of the Ivy pull.

Marian from Wanstead Communtiy Gardeners wants to thank everyone involved for their help. The other members of Marian’s team also expressed how impressed they were with our efforts today. Well done every one for signing up and showing up.