May the forks be with you

11 Goodgymers helped their local community in Islington
Paul Bown
James Gilbert
Julia Vila
Graham Atkins
Harry Lloyd
Ellie Austin
Antony Stubbs
Alix Guerber
Claire C
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Islington

Monday 26th February 2018

Credits
Paul Bown
Paul Bown

SESSION ORGANISER

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Report written by Paul Bown

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11 brave Goodgymers put a fork in the beast from the east by running 6km & helping Waterside Adventure Playground

Thank you all for coming last night, it was a great one despite the weather. Welcome along to newbies Meredith, Harry and Anthony - very impressed you came for your first GG last night.

In the news this week:

  1. Next Thursday (8th March) is GG Monthly Drinks in Greenwich, come along for puns, fun and drinks!
  2. Next Wednesday at GG Camden there is the biggest task of the year at Southbank Centre helping Grounded Ecotherapy lift a lot of crushed concrete. If you are free please come along!

After a quick warm up we headed south via Liverpool Road and arriving after 3km to Waterside Adventure Playground to meet Dawn to do some GOOD! She explained that the Playground is used by children from all of the area from different backgrounds, some of them with special needs.

Can I fork it? (Yes you can!)

Our main task for the evening was to turn over the soil and bark around the playground so to make it more child friendly. Essentially children are going to fall over all the time while playing, we all did it and it's part of the fun, but it's important for the ground to be soft so their landings are softer!

We split into teams of 2 spreading out across the play area and forking the soil - a great workout that kept everyone warm. Parts of the ground were really frozen so needed extra work and time!

Meanwhile James and Claire cleared debris, weeds and sticks from the canal side - filling up 4 bags! They also folded up a HUGE mat that would have been hard for anyone to do on there own. Next it was biscuit time - hobnobs - yum!

All the biscuits!

Finishing off the work together in the most frozen area we'd essentially done 5 hours work (10 people x 30 mins!). With a glorious group picture taken we said our goodbyes to Dawn and headed for home via Essex Road & Highbury Fields.

The lovely Meg met us when we were stretching with the gift of freshly baked cookies - thank you :)

Well done all, lots of forking and 6km done!

Sign up next week where we are off to help Frelighters Farm and St Lukes Community Centre - gonna be good and warmer.

PB out.


This task supported
Waterside Adventure Playground
Providing safe, free play areas for children in Islington
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Discuss this report
Antony Stubbs

Wed 28th Feb 2018 at 12:59pm

Hi Paul! Is it possible to get the original versions of the photos?

Join us on our next session

Islington

The Garden Classroom, Market Road Gardens - Friday Volunteer Morning
🗓Tomorrow 12:00pm

Friday morning drop-in community gardening sessions with The Garden Classroom