Tonight's task was split in two - One team at the Canbury Gardens Community Garden and the other at Kingston GoodGym's plot just a couple of hundred metres away.

Claire, Julie, Marcos and Tom headed to our GoodGym flower bed where we found a big mound of woodchip waiting for us. After clearing away a few pesky weeds that had come up since our last visit, we spread bucketfuls of woodchip around the plants to keep them warm and cosy over winter. We even had some time left over to clear up the surrounding weeds. We left the bed looking lovely and tidy with lots the flowering plants still looking very colourful.

Meanwhile, Luke, Jane, Rachel, Helen & Dave cracked on helping the ever-lovely Marilyn with the Canbury Community Garden. The compost needed turning and a huge pile of vines and plant waste had to be chopped before making it viable for the compost heap. As always, many hands made light work with this task and we were on to the next - pruning some of the larger weeds around the area. It was during this task that we randomly found a massive bag of seafood mix - scallops, fish, octopus, shrimps... One packet, 'sole'ly on it's own - we were all shell-shocked! I'm clamming up about how good these puns are.

A HUGE congrats to Tom on achieving 100 good deeds. You ran with the cape and crown like a champ! King for the day :)

Fifteen GoodGymers dashed through the 'snow' (more like leaves) to the British Heart Foundation charity shop this evening, ready to deck the halls and spread some festive cheer!

The shop was a winter wonderland waiting to happen. Boxes of baubles, piles of presents, and a tons of tinsel were waiting to be carried, sorted and arranged. The GoodGymers, armed with tinsel and tape, transformed the shop into a Christmas cracker. We hung stockings, draped garlands, arranged shelves, created table displays and built Christmas trees... With each ornament hung, the shop’s festive spirit grew. It was a real sleigh ride of an evening!

To add to the festivities, we were lucky enough to be joined by the Mayor of the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, Councillor Liz Green and her assistant, Brian. After a brief welcome and introduction they both got stuck in. With so many hands helping this evening we got so much done - it was a Christmas miracle!

A few milestones were celebrated this evening. Congrats to Ben and Hazel for both achieving 10 good deeds. Claire hit an amazing 150 and our unwavering leader Rachel smashed a staggering 400 good deeds! Excellent work all round and quite conveniently celebrated in the pub afterwards for our monthly social :)

On a lovely Autumn morning Claire, Julie and Sabir welcomed Stephanie to her first GoodGym mission at the GoodGym flowerbed to prepare it for winter.

Sabir got straight on with clearing the leaves whilst Claire, Julie and Stephanie tackled the weeds.

Bed tidied it was time for the fun part of planting all the spring bulbs. We planted lots of daffodils, tulips and alliums as well as a random selection of bulbs left over from Claire’s garden last year.

The last job was the hardcore gym part of our session. It involved 3 people walking along way through the gardens to the woodchip pile where we filled massive buckets up with wood chip and then walked them back. Having completed 3 runs we decided we’d gathered enough and hope to have a wheel barrow for next time.

The bed is looking lovely and should provide lots of Spring colour. 🌷🪻🌷