Last night we welcomed Dovile to her first group run, by the time she arrived at solutions she had already completed 3km as she went to Park Hill to meet us, but then realised that our meeting point was at Solutions. Bet she will never forget her first group run!!

Our task was in Park HIll, on contacting Josi to confirm and checked everything was still on she excitedly told me yes all systems are a go:

We have challenge for you guys to prep the herb garden for the new NHS therapeutic mental health gardening classes. We have 2 tonne bags 1 for each team to fill and then carry up to the rangers station. We have volunteers to help tonight as well. Tea coffee & juices will be there too💚💚💚 we’re calling it the tonne bag challenge.

We originally had 14 sign ups to tonights task but in the end there was only 8 of us who turned out, that did not deter us and we all ran to Park Hill, excited about the task and looking forward to the tonne bag challenge.

We arrived at Park Hill were Josi, Norman and Erica two of their regular volunteers had already began weeding while awaiting our arrival. Josi explained the us the task and challenege including telling us the Friends of Park Hill Park volunteers have won a ‘One Croydon’ prescriptive (GP & self referral) grant to run therapeutic gardening in the Walled garden. The classes will be for those with both physical & mental heath issues such as arthritis, MS, dementia or anxiety. The classes will be run by their co-chair who is a qualified therapeutic garden practitioner with the help of volunteers. The classes will be run in the herb & medical gardens that was to be cleared by us in the tonne bag challenge making space for new plants to be planted for the classes.

Instructions received we headed over to the bigger of the two patches with an empty tonne bag, amongst the laughter and chatter within 15 minutes we had already filled a bag. Not only were we racing against time but also racing against the light, of course we were all still feeling summery so none of us thought to take head torches. By 8pm darkness descended upon us but by then we had filled 3 tonne bags and cleared the area we were in. Josi was excited as ever and with it being too dark to continue on the next area declared we downed our tools and join her for tea and biscuits. For those who are used to doing task at Park Hill knows all too well that there is no chance of doing a task there and just running off, Josi and her volunteers are always very appreciative of the work we help them with and always ensure that there is a little treat for us at the end of any task we complete.

photos on the night were taken by various members of the group, have you noticed the ghost of Park Hill in any of the shots?

Next week our task will be another 3km run as we head to Park Hill Junior School to help in their forest school area. Sign up here!

Upcoming events

Saturday 21st September aka #GGSuperSaturday is hotting up and we’ve got so many community missions listed that day already. We will be colaborating with with friends of Parkhill as 21 September is World Peace Day

Saturday 28th September Parkrun Takeover - Bethlem Royal Parkrun