GoodGym Kingston attended one of our favourite local charity shops this evening - the Kingston branch of the British Heart Foundation.

After running, walking and cycling to the task, we were met by our BHF task leader, the ever-joking Christine. Before the task even began she decided to give us a quick behind-the-scenes tour of their massive charity shop. BHF Kingston is housed in what was once a huge BHS store and is set over three floors. Christine took us upstairs, through a couple of locked doors and into what used to be the old BHS cafe and kitchens... now looking more like a post-apocalyptic zombie movie set! Slightly glad that I wasn't alone in the space but fascinating all the same.

And so on to the task. We initially thought we would be setting up a fitness window display this evening but a delivery of sports equipment and tennis racquets had failed to arrive in time. Our attention was hence turned to checking if a load of donated exercise machines were functional. This involved running, cycling, rowing and crunching on a few dozen different machines. Quality control completed we moved a few of the machines from the storage room to the main shop floor and made a mini fitness area ready for the customers to peruse when the store opens tomorrow. Mission accomplished.

This week’s task saw us making the most of the lighter evenings with a lovely outdoor gardening session. Some of us ran, others walked or cycled, but we all met for a productive evening in two local green spaces: Canbury Community Garden and our nearby GoodGym garden.

With a big group on hand, we got loads done. One of the main jobs was reinforcing the sides of some well-worn raised beds that were bursting with growing vegetables - Marie-Noelle and Emily took on this key task.

With water levels in the Community Garden’s rain butts already dropping, Luke, Dave, Yana, Sabir and Emma wheeled barrels over to the Thames, collecting water in buckets to fill the barrels which were then wheeled back and stored in the flower beds for future use.

Meanwhile, Ana, Emily and Jana tackled the massive compost heap, giving it a good turning over. Sabir, Yana and Dave got stuck into weeding duties.

Over at the GoodGym garden, Claire, Luke and Emma checked on this flourishing space—full of tulips, daffodils, and established shrubs—taking care of deadheading, weeding, and with Claire making plans for future planting.

This was a Workout for Nature, a physical volunteering task supporting local green spaces in celebration of Earth Day, as part of a collaboration with WWF.

Great work, team!

Today 4 of us met to sort out and hang clothes ready to be brought to raise funds for this branch and ultimately funds for the British Heart Foundations Research. We even got to pretend to be models for the day, Did we succeed?