This evening, the GoodGym team met in Limehouse, ready to make a difference both indoors and outdoors with Ocean Youth Connexions at the Tower Hamlets Community Transport Hub.

After a short sharp workout in neighbouring Kings Wharf park, we headed over the road for tonight’s briefing.

Our tasks tonight were to clear the outside area of leaves, and start the painting inside the new offices.

We divided into two teams and got to work.

Team Paintbrush focused on the inside, adding a fresh coat of paint to brighten up the space for everyone who uses it. The team strategically navigated high walls and low skirting boards, aiming to cover as much in the short time we were there as possible.

Outside, Team Leaf tackled a thick layer of fallen leaves, raking and bagging to make the area safer and more welcoming. They covered the entire outdoor yard area, and the minibus area, but not for long: GoodGymers blitzed after bag and bag, pausing only to head upstairs for more bin liners.

We finished in two waves (apologies for the small group photo), with Team Paintbrush waiting until every last drop of emulsion was used before gathering dust sheets and brushes and ensuring the place was left as we found it.

We all left with a great sense of accomplishment, excited to be returning on the 25th November.

It was our October visit to the Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park this evening, which is always good fun.

At our last visit in September, we'd raked hay and grass around gravestones and monuments close to the entrance of the park.

Tonight, Park Manager Ken's plan was for us to plant crocus and camassia bulbs around this area, to produce an array of colour by the Spring.

With everyone arriving close to 7pm, we were ready to head to the well stocked tool shed shortly after, to grab trowels and barrows, bulbs and gloves.

We welcomed Sal to his first GoodGym session, and grabbed head torches and lights for the ground.

Making our way to tonight's spot, Ken proceeded to tell us a little bit about the area of the park, the purpose of our planting mission and the best planting know-how.

Wasting no time, the team divided into small teams, taking care to cover the entire area, distributing both types of bulb evenly. Returning to the wheelbarrows to restock buckets and occasionally relocate to a new planting spot, as always, the time flew.

Several broken trowels - and one spectacular pun - later we were calling it a night.

Wandering back to the Soanes Centre and tool shed, we concluded it had been a handy little upper body workout, and that we're looking forward to returning later in the Autumn.

Another fun night in the borough - well done team, and a big shout-out to Lucinda for this evening's pretty awesome pun.

Writes John,

"Once you’ve been to Tower Hamlets GoodGym, you never really leave. Danya and Chris both reappeared after some time pursuing other interests, and even recently-unwell Fiona made an appearance, looking dazzling (or was it her reflective cycle jacket?).

Lucinda, Tom and Ilana, all newbies this year, soon became regular attenders, while stalwarts Martin and Rohan can always be depended on.

Meanwhile, Oliver forgot to mention that he recently completed FIFTY good deeds in little more than a year.

Well done Oliver!

The task at Cranbrook Community Centre, Bethnal Green, was a familiar one: removing leaves and dirt which had gathered between the big fence and the little fence. We split into several teams; some were equipped with cutters to trim back the leaves which were overshadowing public areas. I helped sweep up the resulting debris.

Laura had to dash off to one of her other numerous activities, and somehow we managed to wrap things up and take the final picture without her guidance.

And of course we’ll be back next week - and also on Thursday!.

Finally, look out for news of a November social. (It’ll be in November)".

And one by one our little group grew tonight, until there were no fewer than 13 GoodGymers working on the new hazel fence at the pretty St Leonard's Priory Park up in Bromley-By-Bow.

We said hello to first time GoodGym-ers Gurprit, Anton, Anna, and a warm welcome to Tower Hamlets to Anna!

Starting with four teams (one chopping hazel, one weeding, one digging fence-holes and one repairing our less-than-perfect previous hazel fence), it was definitely a case of learning on the job as we pruned, stripped and chopped; weeded and wove, blitzing multiple jobs at one time.

With the team working flexibly, rotating out of one task to another, particularly as time sped on ("Hazel! We need more hazel!"), it was a busy but sociable evening, with the countdown to sunset well and truly on.

A decent workout was had by all, whether digging up weeds or sawing tough branches.

It was after 8 before the team were generously stacking up the kit, and wheeling barrows to the back of the park.

With Kareem providing decent tech assistance, the all-important group pic remained in tact, despite the lack of light.

A great effort, everyone - and a final shout-out to Charlie, who came up with tonight's belter of a pun.

Next week

...we're back to Hollybush Gardens, for our first visit of Autumn with Margaret and Ash.

Until then.

A sunny evening in Tower Hamlets saw a nice-sized group of GoodGymers gather round a large woodchip pile it turned out they would clear in no time.

Background to tonight's task

The Teesdale and Hollybush TRA are probably GG TH's longest standing task. Headed up by brilliant Margaret, and now Ash, GG are invited once, twice a month to join the dynamic duo to lend a hand with various projects on one of the Estate's many pretty garden areas.

Tonight we were helping redistribute old planter wood and spread a rather large pile of woodchip.

An early arrival time for some saw Ash and Margaret instructing the first arrivals on how best to distribute the woodchip.

With project management promptly handed over to John and Chris, the team wasted no time whittling the large pile away.

A flurry of late arrivals provided the perfect opportunity to introduce the second task - transporting a large stash of planks over to another part of the estate gardens, Rocky Park.

Trolley- fulls of logs were flying toward Rocky Park at a speedy rate: lats and delts got a workout to rival the finest upper body session.

The rest of the team joined this breakaway task, by which time it was game over for what was initially a large pile of planks.

Posing for a quick pic in the planters (as it sounds), we then headed to the pub for a self-congratulatory pint. Another superb night of productivity.

The shout-outs

• A big warm welcome to Priscila who joined us for her first Monday night task.

• Well done to Michael for a FANTASTIC GoodGym debut.

• Massive thanks to John for organising tonight's post-task drink.

• And a huge round of applause for Rohan, who co-wrote tonight's report; to Fiona for delivering another splendid pun, and the rest of the table at the Bethnal Green Tavern for chipping in for tonight's report.

You all rock.

Next week, we're pruning and bagging The BIg Hedge in Bethnal Green's Patriot Square.

You snooze, you lose...

Until then.