Bright and early at Cody Dock for the first activity in a smorgasbord of Saturday GoodGymming in Newham. We welcomed Hannah on her first outing with the team – great to meet you, we hope you enjoyed and that it’ll be the first of many! Plus regulars Sharon, Kev, Helen and Graham (in order of arrival) brought us up to 6. We’ve been down in Cody Dock a fair bit over the last few weeks doing some pontoon restoration, but today we were joining them for a massive clean-up along the canal. This is the sort of thing Cody Dock is so good at – engaging with their local community and inspiring people to take positive action, in this case clearing up all the rubbish that had accumulated along the River Lea from Abbey Mills down to Cody Dock, hugely improving the environment for wildlife, towpath users and residents. Running two sessions today, they probably had about 80 volunteers in total, fantastic stuff and a pleasure to take part in.

Splitting people into teams to tackle sections of the towpath, Helen and Hannah joined one of these teams, whilst me, Graham, Sharon and Kev were designated “runners” – filling up big carts with the rubbish bagged up at each section and taking them up and over the bridge at Twelvetrees Crescent to a collection point. When they said “runners”, they didn’t literally mean that, but it’s possible Graham wasn’t paying attention during the briefing… so we ran with our cart, which was pretty fun and only one near-miss.

One of the best things about these community events is having an opportunity to tell members of the public about GoodGym, sometimes getting some new recruits. We were certainly able to do that today as quite a few people asked about us, notably, one person had initially mistaken us for employees of an actual gym. Of course, we set them straight, but I think that’s a compliment?! Once our morning work-out was up, we had a relaxing stop for lunch at Cody Dock’s Riverside Café – particularly renowned for its cake selection, comes highly recommended. After that, some of us were off to Harley Grove and the “Get Out” gardens for part two of our epic day of GoodGymming.

We’re back at Cody Dock on Tuesday for what will hopefully see the final instalment of the Pochee Pontoon (one more coat of paint!), so look forward to seeing everyone there.