Shaking off a chill in the air with a jog up the hill led by Jack and back down into Petersham Common to meet Ken with his high-vis vests, bags and litter pickers.

We set to work collecting sadly discarded rubbish. Bags and bags were collected from the roadside, most likely thrown from passing vehicles. Amongst it all, many cans, wrappers, a shoe, a BMW badge, a parking penalty notice and a random number 27!

Our run came in at 5km with one member opting to walk and another cycling: there are always options for those who want to run less, walk, cycle or meet at the task.

This run marked 50 good deeds for Rebecca who wore the sash with pride and enjoyed legendary celebration brownies by Salwa in the pub after.

Jack led a run over the Thames to visit lovely St Christopher's Children's Home. We visit once a month and our input is so valued. Today we were trimming back hedges to tidy up the appearance and stop them from growing over stairs and paths.

A good mix of chopping, sweeping and bagging up from the group of ten made fast work of it all and we were kindly rewarded with cupcakes from the St Christopher's team.

The run totalled just shy of 5km by the time we returned to Richmond Town Centre.

If you would like to join us there next month, or at any of our tasks, you can sign up ahead now.

An action-packed task today to celebrate Salwa reaching her momentous 200th task!

The group ran, walked and cycled approx 2km to the Three Pigeons plot to tend to our sponsored space there. Anita took us through all of the tasks needed: path cutting, manual lawnmowing, extensive weeding, dead-heading, sweeping and subsequent tidying up! The light faded fast but the team worked quickly to fill up a hefty bag to take to the compost heap.

The task ended with a more direct route back to the Tap Tavern to avoid the river path in the dark which was a bit slippery after the tide had come in high. The Tap was a welcoming sight at the end to celebrate Salwa's milestone with a beautiful cake made with love by Lucy Read, and brownies baked by Salwa herself for Luis to celebrate his birthday.

We will be at the Three Pigeons plot again next month, a perfect starter task for any new members. We are also meeting at Richmond Furniture Scheme this Saturday for our Community Mission - everyone is welcome!

Saturday morning's mission was moved to the Bank Holiday Monday to allow more people to make it and we gathered a solid group of 5 Richmond GoodGymers on the hill beside the Roebuck on a lovely morning - including Victoria who hadn't been on a mission in Richmond for a while and seized the opportunity when she was off duty!

Our task for the morning was on Hill Common just below the top of the hill and part of the famous Turner vista. Ken led the task and explained our duties, which involved tree haloing, ivy and bramble control to help create more space around a couple of trees which were planted in memory of big contributors to a local nature society.

Having parked up the bikes we grabbed various tools and beat a path through the brambles to where we would start the major work on the trees, whose branches were overshadowing and obscuring our key trees. Chris and JP clambered up to reach the higher branches growing from one trunk, taking turns with the bowsaw and pruning saw to cut off a branch, making sure everyone was well out of the way below before the final felling moment. Nearby Salwa was attacking a hefty branch on a lower tree, where Chris went to help her cut out a bowsaw which got stuck deep into the cut and couldn't be freed, while Victoria and Ken worked on the memorial trees, removing the ivy which had grown up its trunk and pruning the lower branches.

Having arrived to see quite an overgrown area and thinking we would not be able to manage much of a change with only a small group, when we stepped back we were delighted to see that we had made a big difference and the memorial trees were again taking pride of place at the edge of the common. A very satisfying task indeed.