As is customary in the south eastern pocket of London known as Crystal Palace, the first GoodGym session of the year was a Christmas Tree Scavenger Hunt - clearing the streets, reducing waste going to landfill/incineration and saving others a job.

Our team of 5 were in high spirits to start with until no trees appeared...

Fortunately, a good 45 minutes after starting our mission, one tree presented itself to us!

And then minutes later, nestled inside someone's garden... another! We nicked it anyway and shifted them up the road to the tree-cycling spot in/surrounding Mayow Park where they will be churned up into woodchip. Nice.

Top work gang. See you next year?

Brenda, thanks for volunteering today at Crystal Palace junior parkrun. Your efforts are greatly appreciated by us and all the parkrunners

Brenda, thanks for volunteering today at Crystal Palace junior parkrun. Your efforts are greatly appreciated by us and all the parkrunners

Dear Brenda Just to say a big thank you for volunteering with us at Crystal Palace on Sunday 14th December 2025. Runthrough.

'It was a great session handing out water to all the runners and giving Black Girls Do run, Marcia her half marathon medal. It was so inspirational to sre all the half marathoners, 10km, 5km and the childrens one mile race.Well Done to everyone who took part plus Runthrough volunteer team

After quite a rainy day, it turned out quite a warm evening, and the ground was made softer for our little digging session.

We jogged to the park, met two more Goodgymers and Millie there, and loaded up a barrow with spades and spring bulbs.

Working after dark can sometimes be hard on the wildlife (no worms were harmed, only disturbed and then placed back in the freshly dug holes) but it's a bonus that it being after squirrel bedtime means they're unlikely to immediately dig the bulbs back up for dinner.

With it being a mast year, too (super bumper acorn crop) likely due to the hot summer stressing many trees into panic mode - the squirrels are already delirious and overstocked for their winter.

We happily dug, chatted about slow worms, running events for next year, and dinner plans - and placed tulips and snowdrops in a couple of places in the park, in little clumps, where with this unpredictable weather they could come up in February.

Brenda, thanks for volunteering today at Crystal Palace junior parkrun. Your efforts are greatly appreciated by us and all the parkrunners