Bank Holiday new faces!

We gathered for this evening’s run welcoming a flurry of new runners. What a treat!

14 of us then headed around the corner, half a mile away on leafy Sewardstone Road to meet Catherine, our task owner and Parkview Estate power house, leading the initiative to get the estate greener and full of food.

Two trees - and plants for the bees!

Runners were quickly despatched to all areas of the estate: Team Tree headed out to the front gardens, onto Old Ford Road with barrows full of compost to plant new apple trees in some stubborn soil.

The rest of the runners quickly filled buckets with compost and plants, grabbed a watering can and made their way to the estate's Sydney House to see if residents wanted balcony planters filling with geraniums and other small plants that bees love! Plenty of residents took us up on our offer to tend to their planters, with one resident even opting for the new Resident Association plants over what she currently had in her planter! The runners worked tirelessly, both on their seedling sales pitch, and on ferrying new compost back and forth from the garden to the balonies.

Meanwhile, the apple tree crew had their work cut out. Digging deep in that soil was no mean feat. And even with some useful tools at their disposal, the runners still broke a sweat on what was a chilly Monday evening. But they did it. GoodGymers don’t give up. Never mind not giving up easily, they don’t give up full stop. And so with the apple trees in, they set about replacing the grass, watering, and planting water tubes. Job done.

Going full pelt in the park

And so with minutes to spare, we raced ‘round the corner to neighbouring Victoria Park and played two rounds of the greyhound-and-hare game, with every runner speeding across the grass going full pelt. Impressive. And then they were met by me, and the burp-free burpee to a soundtrack of the Backstreet Boys. Monday motivation or WHAT.

Then we stretched, and made our way back to the hotel, animated and over the moon at what we’d helped to achieve.

Big shout out’s

A big warm welcome to our new runners Hester, Alice, Annie and, absolutely not new to GG but new to TH, Hannah. Thank you all for so much hard work and laughter on your first run.

Thanks to David for fabulous backmarking, Charlotte and Sarah for some wicked pics, and to Hannah for this week’s wonderful pun.

And a really huge shout out this week to our very own Hass, who recently hit 300 good deeds, and who has been a consistently active member of GG Tower Hamlets since January 2014.

Coming up...

Okay, we’ve got some biggies coming up…

• This Thursday it’s the GoodGym Social, hosted by our splendid Southwark crew. Details can be found here.

• And don’t forget, you can still bag a free place at the Asics London 10K, or the Oxford Half, or next year’s Hackney Half, by joining us on Sunday 19th May for volunteering at this year’s Hackney Half. Details and sign up are here.

Right, that’s it. Have a wonderful week, and hope to see you soon!