What an absolute scorcher! Nothing like spending a hot sunny day under the plastic wrapping of gazebos. The scout fair is tomorrow so we put up the gazebos, moved equipment around and labelled up the raffle prizes. Hot, sweaty work but very satisfying.

At Canbury Community Gardens...

A warm welcome to Levita and Caro who joined us at Canbury Community Garden for their first mission. Our tasks included stocking up the water containers with river water ahead of what will be another hot weekend, clearing the overgrown garden paths ready to welcome a local group and harvesting 1.6 kg of baby new potatoes.

Whilst some cutting tools are in need of sharpening to ease clipping long grass and nettles, one of the pruning tools turned out to be quite the opposite! To close the mission head gardener Marilyn offered the team a few 2025 garlic heads and baby potatoes, what a treat 🥔🥔

At the GoodGym plot...

Back at the GoodGym flowerbed a team of Dave, Levita, Sabir and Claire got to work.

Levita and Dave did 3 runs to the river for water to feed the plants whilst Claire cleared the rubbish and leaves and tried to revive some heather’s that had caught the sun.

Then Sabir joined to help fill about 7 wheelbarrows with woodchip to keep the flowerbeds well mulched. With the woodchip spread and the plants fed and watered it was time to leave them to grow. 🌱

Welcome to Levita and Caro and congratulations on completing your on first good deed.

Another great session at Growbaby sorting the toys, clothes and donations.

Tonight we had three missions in one! How did we do it? Four of our volunteers went to Refugee Action Kingston to sort the kid's clothes, another went to another RAK office to hang a blind and the rest of us went to Elm Road... phew! Here's the run report about our amazing volunteers...

Nettled but Not Defeated at Elm Road!

In sweltering heat, the GoodGym crew took on the nettle jungle at Elm Road playground, working with the local community group to help reclaim the space for local kids. Armed with spades, forks, and a few poorly chosen gloves (ouch!), we tackled the stubborn roots - some so long they felt like they were heading for Narnia.

Marcos and Tom kept spirits high with sports facts while litter picking, and Rachel captured the action on camera. Newbie John gave it his all but ran out of water - thankfully, local residents came to the rescue with bottles of the good stuff!

Despite roots hiding under the fence, we cleared a massive stretch and even uncovered some old mosaic tiles. One hot, sweaty hour later, the bed was clear and the team absolutely smashed it. Great work all round!

Such a sort out at Refugee Action Kingston

Claire, Anna, Laurel and Sabir ran and walked their way to Refugee Action tonight.

We were greeted by air conditioning which was a welcome relief plus lots of children’s clothes that required sorting. Having made signs for different age categories we sorted the clothes by size for boys and girls and boxed them up so that they could be easily selected by the customers. The area is now much more organised and I’m sure we will be back to tackle the coats another day.

Driller thriller

Dave went to a RAK office to help fix a blind. In his own words has a hot sweaty mess but at least the charity workers won't be now.

GoodGym Kingston - you are simply tri-mendous!