This was our first time at Holy Trinity Lamorbey Church where the parish administrator, Pat, and parishioners Annie and Rosie (with her children), gave us a warm welcome and explained the task: clear a tangle of brambles and weeds from a flowerbed, and pull up the underlying plastic membrane, if possible.

With the church summer fayre taking place in just a few days, the pressure was on to make things look neater and tidier!

We were a hive of activity as we jumped to it: cutting back the growth, digging out roots, heaving up the membrane, and barrowing the cuttings to a compost area.

We downed tools at one point to rescue a toad and carefully move it to a new home in nearby bushes 🐸.

We think we also disturbed a bumble bee nest as there were lots of them buzzing around our legs. Simon got stung through his socks twice, ouch! 🐝🐝🐝

Several passers by stopped to comment on our work - the red GG tshirts certainly make us stand out!

And what a difference between before and after! We cleared the whole area and we could hardly bee-lieve how much we got done in just an hour.

We'll bee back again across the summer to help with more tasks in the garden. Hop along and join us.

This was our first session at Hook Lane Primary School after they contacted us to ask for some help.

Our group runners (starting from Crook Log Leisure Centre in Welling, and Costa Coffee in Blackfen), along with those arriving directly, met at the school gates where teacher Dan gave us a warm welcome.

The task: put up bamboo screening around the perimeter fence of the school field.

After sawing through a few pesky branches that were in our way, we fell into a good rhythm working in pairs; unrolling the screening between us, then one person holding it with the other fixing it in place. Meanwhile another pair started on the next length.

Threading the cable ties through the canes was a tricky business but after a while we found the knack 👌.

We nearly came a cropper putting up one roll back-to-front, but eagle-eyed Dan spotted our rookie error just in time!

Along with Dan and his brother Sam, we covered a long stretch in our alloted hour.

After a photo opportunity at the fairytale castle, we headed home, some of us running and some walking 🏃🏻‍♀️🏃‍♂️🚶‍♀️🚶‍♂️.

It was great having Simon with us for his first GoodGym good deed 🥳.

The school has lots more tasks lined up for our future visits, so why not come along and help make good things happen!

Hope to see you next time.