On a Sunny morning, and what was going to be the start to our week celebration of Goodgym Cardiff turning 5, Michael made his way to do some good before the fun in the par.

About 250 leaflets and the streets of Splott were calling, time to get out and let the residents know about the great Opening for our friends at Railway Gardens.

After an hour and a half it was time to head home and quickly get changed ready for games int he park.

After a very long week busy working, two goodgymmers were able to motivate themselves to get out in the old WELSH weather (we all know so well!) and flyer some leaflets on a drizzly Friday evening. We all ran from our homes and met on Railway street - only fitting to meet there seeing as this task was to help the local Railway Gardens! Michael, sadly, had to lug the many flyers on his back while running to the meeting point, so extra brownie points for him!

Both goodgymmers were able to flyer just under 200 leaflets in under an hour and the weather was not so bad to us rain-wise, but it was very cold as posting the letters into the many post boxes. Therefore, we made a note to bring gloves next time!

With that many done just between two people, we were satisfied it was a posting job well done and was time for us to head home.

Remember, we will be helping at the YMCA - will be fun to go back there after so long. So get signing up!

It's a busy time for the goodgymers in Cardiff and the Vale at the moment, after a full weekend of activity we continued with an evening of delivering flyers for the railway gardens project to the local area of Splott.

4 of us ran the streets delivering 500 flyers through the doors of locals to let them know how the project is getting on. In just over an hour we had made our way around and run out of leaflets, so time to get back together for a quick group photo before heading home for dinner.

Celebrating national volunteers week by getting out and volunteering, perfect!

Out friends at Railway Gardens are putting on an event June 19th for the local community to go and see what they are going to be all about. Our mission was to get their flyers all around the streets to let the community know about it.

Six of us met up just outside the site where the gardens will eventually be, divided out some flyers and hit the longest road - Railway Street. There were dogs, outside letter boxes, stiff gates and letterboxes just too small even for letters (confused).

We chatted to some locals sat outside their houses enjoying the evening sun and once Railway Street was complete headed over to our next one - Marion Street. We popped a few more through the street before meeting a lovely couple that were getting a special delivery of three leaflets as per the organisers instructions. They were a lovely couple who were very happy to see people to chat too, we let them know all about goodgym and discovered that they had seen us previously on a mission with one of our community garden tasks.

A quick group photo and it was time to go our separate ways and head home for dinner.

It was great to be at a new project today, eagerly we have been watching the progress from applications through to finally getting the keys to the site. And who better to come along and help clear and prepare – it has to be GoodGym.

Railway Gardens community space is going to be a resident-led site, transforming a derelict site into a thriving green sanctuary where local people can share, connect, grow, and play. This site will offer facilities, training, activities, and support for residents to build personal and local resilience and develop solutions to biodiversity loss, climate breakdown, inequality, food poverty, and other challenges affecting the community and beyond. I don't know about you, but I can't wait to get stuck in and help with this project.

Some of us had previously been at Samye so this was task number two so were a little tired / cold but still eager to go. We had a welcome return from Tori in her Tango van, she had said her farewells earlier in the Summer, great to see you can’t ever really leave goodgym. Whilst we are on returns, it was lovely to see more of the crew from pre pandemic days – Welcome back Rosie and Ali.

Becca from Green Squirrel explained the tasks for the day, we needed to clear the land in front of a wall, the plan is for a graffiti artist to come and decorate the wall with a mural. Then if the weather stayed dry and there was time, to give the first coat of undercoat paint on the wall in question.

Now to sort and pick tools………

We took our time and each picked tools allowing for distancing, then with loppers, secateurs and finally a small branch saw it was time to get clearing. There were lots of strange conversations going on today, Mikey with race brain went from favourite words to writing letters, Flo joined in with the letters and both agreed that letters are great things. There was talk of training plans and Lucy was all about the dead mice and park bins – I think we will leave that one there.

Along the way some of the team managed to find a hedgehog, not to worry though as it soon moved along to a new sleeping hidey-hole.

As soon as there was enough space cleared, the paint crew started work. Andrew decided to write his name, or now new name Andre…. Whilst the wall painting continued, the bramble hunters turned their attention to the invasive buddleia. Soon the compost heap had become huge, the wall was bright white and it was time for our group photo. Ever so slightly out of practise it may have taken a couple of attempts, but we got there in the end. We wished Becca well with the project and took to the streets.

We WILL return SOON