This vibrant youth club always brings out everyone's playful side and this evening was no different while we scrubbed down the projector inflatable, laminated posters and menus and prepared flags for summer activities! All this sandwiched by a sunny 7.5km run welcoming Larissa back to GoodGym for the first time since 2020, and Steph for her first group run, taking us from Richmond to Mortlake. The other half of the team made their own way and Lucy and Katie hot footing it from another task in Hammersmith!

This evening was all about member Monika hitting a heroic 250 good deeds! Starting at the Tap we also had the pleasure of welcoming Anais for the first time.

A lovely chatty pace run led the group to the Achieving for Children Youth Centre in Mortlake where Monika was adorned with the legendary cape and presented with her group card. Monika joined in 2019 and has completed tasks in seven different areas, an achievement that could only possibly be eclipsed by her fondness for giving cheers on the GoodGym website: 14232 as of this evening! 🤣

The task itself involved moving the large gym equipment around, an almost impossible task for only a couple of people but pretty quick for 10 GoodGymmers, especially with one Super Monika on the team!

Congratulations Monika! ⚡

Christmas cheer was high for the last group run of the year to Mortlake where Achieving for Children have their Powerstation Youth Centre, managed by the brilliant Danielle who always provides a wide variety of tasks to help with the centre.

Following a steady 4km run from Richmond, the group was very happy to hear the help needed this time was to bake cupcakes for a football tournament taking place later in the week! Using a plant-based egg substitute that had been donated by City Harvest, the group created five trays of cakes and left them baking as they ran back off into the night!

The weather gods were on our side as we made our way to The Power Station Youth Centre in Mortlake. Despite the threat of thunderstorms, the rain didn’t come, and seven of South West London’s finest had come to do good.

Danielle prepped us for the task at ask tonight - helping to clear the old tape lines on the gym floor, so that they can be relaid. After years of wear, the lines were faded and worn away, and it was hard to tell the difference between the netball court and the football pitch.

Time to call in the Scrape GOATs. For those not in the know, a goat is no longer just a horny mammal that can produce delicious cheese. These days, the acronyms stands for the Greatest Of All Time, and I’d like to think of us as being up there as some of the best people.

Armed with a plethora of scraping tools and razors, we were on our hands and knees (or at least squatted down) attacking the tape lines, and peeling them successfully away. This was followed by Danielle getting handy with the ‘Goo Be Gone’, a magic potion that does exactly what it says on the bottle. With the sticky tape residue soaked, we were back on the floor with soapy scourers, wiping off what was remaining, and mopping up the mess.

Although we felt like we could be in jail, scrubbing away at the floors on all fours, I promise you we were all their out of our own free will! This inspired the prison mugshot-esque group photo (and a rare pic where smiley Suze isn’t smiling!).

It was great to see what a difference we had made, and the sticky old tape lines were replaced with sparkling clean floor lines. Maybe Danielle made a mistake in not getting us to clean the whole gym floor whilst we were at it! It was lovely to have Sam back with us, traveling from the distant lands of East London, and a big welcome to Rachael from the yet-to-be-started Merton GoodGym. If anyone knows of anyone in the Merton area who is interested in getting GoodGym up and running (or walking or cycling) there, then please shout. Until then, Rachael you are more than welcome here at Richmond.

A team of GoodGym Richmond’s stupendous seven made their way across to Power Station youth club in Mortlake to do some good.

We weren’t quite sure what we were going to get up to, but whatever it was, we’d apple-y get on with it… Danielle the youth leader showed us tables laden with fresh produce. Curly kale, marvellous marrows and an abundance of apples. The challenge, if we should accept it was to prepare the crates of fruit to freeze, ready for future apple crumbles and pies.

We core-dially accepted, and chopped to it, prepping ourselves with the knives and chopping boards. Some of us solo and some in pears, we cut the fruit into chunks and sprinkled over cinnamon before bagging it up for freezing. Amazingly, despite trusting us with sharp objects there were no injuries (even with some flying footballs courtesy of Sam in the room)!

Forty or so minutes later, there were multiple plump bags of sweetly cinnamoned apples ready for the freezer. A quick clean up, and a peel good job done. There was even time to enjoy the, ahem, versatility of the humble courgette in its overgrown form for a group photo.

As we left the youth club, we were greeted by darker skies and a spitting of rain from overhead. Time to fruit off back home until next week!

A tropical evening for a longer 8km round trip to AFC Powerstation Youth Zone in Mortlake made for a hot start to the task. Arriving at the club, we were first shown the completed gym refurb that we helped start on our last visit - it looked amazing!

Task owner Danielle asked us to help with two tasks: getting out the staging and checking it was all in good order for band nights, and chopping up the pineapple and watermelon that had been received from City Harvest so that it could be frozen for smoothies later in the week.

The stage team were so excited by their efforts that fruit chopping was halted for a great team photo, latex gloves and all! 🤣

Stage complete, fruit bagged up and everyone re-watered and ready to run we said our goodbyes and headed off into the evening sun. ☀️