Today's task took us to Raleigh House for Stay Well New Malden a wonderful day centre supporting elderly people in the community. Our mission: tackle the mountain of leaves under the giant oak tree… without any rakes. Challenge accepted.

The dream team — Jana, Emily, Eleanor and Sabir arrived ready to take on whatever autumn could throw at us. With no rakes in sight, we got inventive: hands, shovels, scoops, teamwork, determination… you name it, we used it.

The oak tree clearly hadn’t read the memo, because it continued to drop leaves while we were clearing them. It was a bit of a leafy battlefield, but we kept at it and made solid progress.

Not stopping there, we also weeded the plants at the front entrance, clearing out the unwanted visitors and giving the space a much fresher look.

There were plenty of smiles exchanged, lots of teamwork, and a great sense of achievement by the end of our hour. Hopefully our efforts help brighten the surroundings for the Raleigh House community.

Unbe-leaf-able work, team! 🌿💪

It was a dark and chilly evening but that never stops GoodGym Kingston from showing up and getting the job done. Tonight's task we were at Elm Road playground with the task of digging/scraping/sweeping the borders of all weeds and mulch that has accumulated over the years.

As we were readying ourselves for the task we were joined by a local Community Support Officer from the Met Police - she had heard about our work in the area and had come to connect and give a helping hand. No arrests were made but the weeds were guilty of loitering and needed to be removed from the area.

Accompanied by a few local residents, we all donned head-torches and gloves, grabbed our tools of choice and set to it. The hour flew by and we had soon filled several bin bags full of the offending weeds and thick mulch. Amazing to see the difference our efforts made. Mission accomplished.

A team of three GoodGym heroes - Emily, Saber, Marie-Noëlle - met at the community garden this morning, joining forces with Susan and her loyal volunteers. Our mission: clearing and preparing an ancient compost bin space into a new planter for spring. An additional new bed was cleared, sowed with future flowery glory, and made a nofly zone for the resident chickens who seemed to be plotting a takeover. Elsewhere, compost chopping and turning and the composter zone tidied, followed by a watery marathon! pond restocking with water from the water rollers, then refilling the rollers with river water.
And finally gutter surgery, clearing out blockages to ensure the water tanks can capture precious rainwater

It’s was time to 🎵Step in to Christmas🎵 at the BHF.

Upon arrival Christmas was in full swing with garlands going up and Christmas stock piling out of the lifts.

After refuelling on Pizza Luke and Jonathan tackled fairy lights, a somewhat fiddly task but a sparkly one, whilst Levita became Santa - can you spot her?

Meanwhile Jana found display places for fancy ball balls, Martel and Levita - no longer Santa hung the garlands over the arch and Tom, Claire, Ellie, Louise and Sabir displayed everything on the shelves from Xmas stockings to socks, Santas, fir trees and a catus!!

In no time we had the shelves full of Christmas treats to fill Santa’s sleigh.

This morning Saber and myself met Danni and a few other volunteers to get on with the tasks that needed to be done. We set to work pulling up the pumpkins plants, weeds. Then chopped down the budelia all to a similar height and bagged this all up ready for the council to take away. Some of the cut down budelia also went on the dead hedge to replish it. With lots accomplished and a chat about goodgym, hopefully a new recruit we left satisfied with our mornings work.

We headed over to Full Cycle for our group session tonight, where a big list of jobs was waiting for us on the whiteboard.

Spllitting into pairs we tacklrd a variety of tasks: - Helping with recycling cardboard, old tyres, inner tubes, and scrap metal. - Reorganising bikes and sorting numerous bike parts, including stems, handlebars, and pedals.

As we reached the bottom of the list we left behind plenty of tidy space where chaos once reigned. Then finished up with taking a moment to celebrate an amazing achievement - Rachel completing 500 good deeds! What an inspiration - well done!

On a bright Autumn morning we met at the Goodgym flowerbed to prepare it for winter. The first job was to find the flowerbed underneath all the leaves. Sabir got to work with the rake followed by Mark and created a massive pile of leaves whilst Emily, Sahil and Julie picked the leaves out of all the tricky places in between the plants. Once Claire arrived back from her trip up the gardens for rubbish bags we will filled them with the leaves and Julie was queen of the leaf castle as we tried to squash them into the bags.

It was then time to plant the rest of the bulbs that Claire had donated from her garden. It was tricky to find a spot without any bulbs already so it should look pretty in the Spring.

We left the flowerbed full of Autuumn colour with the Aster and Salvias still in full bloom and will return next year in the Spring. Welcome to Sahil on your first mission and we hope to see you again soon.

It was a busy evening as we returned to the Malden Centre to help KVA's Surplus to Supper Hub.

There was a full van of deliveries to be unpacked and sorted, from fresh foods to clothes, mugs and even desk fans and a bird cage.

Tom, Marcos, Luke and Sabir quickly helped move crates out of the refrigeration unit so it could be cleaned, followed by some expert pressure washing from Dave and Jonathan. There was a huge amount of moving and sorting of the goods, handled swiftly by Claire, Rachel and Louise.

After cramming into the store cupboard for another typically unconventional KVA photo, we GoodGymers even got a cool water bottle to take home.

Another great task, full of variety and a fun atmosphere.