It's potato planting time! And who knew all your needed was some potatoes and elbow grease! A group of us planted a load of potatoes at the GG garden in Clapham - which we'll harvest later this year and donate.

Last night, 8 intrepid GoodGymers gathered to take on a mammoth task at the Katherine Lowe Settlement (KLS). For those whose first visit it was to this Battersea institution, KLS is a truly wonderful community centre that provides support for older adults, refugees, young people and vulnerable communities in the area. Not only do they provide a warm, supportive environment, but they also offer vital social services and activities for local people, so we were more than happy to help out!

KLS is having two floors redone, and they needed all the old flooring transported downstairs to be picked up this morning. We knew it was going to be quite the session so after a warm-up (where we spent way too much time discussing whether we were motivated by the carrot or the stick – turns out, most of us are stick people, which we should probably look into a bit further!) we set off on a quick jog down to KLS.

As we arrived and were met by Tracy and Tony. The scale of the job soon became evident with Tony's first question, 'how strong are you feeling?', which gave us an inkling about what lay ahead! We were working in a beautiful Victorian building, but those narrow stairs were definitely not designed for moving hundreds of planks of wood. Still, we are GoodGymers. And we fear no floor.

The plan was simple: Start at the top, and move planks down, all the way to the bottom.We were soon sweating, but there was a job to be done and we were going to do it no matter what. It was like a full-body workout, but after half an hour of intense work we managed it - after all, many hands make light work. We celebrated with a very artful group photo and headed out into the night.

The fun didn’t stop there. After all that lifting, we finished the night with even more fitness- a workout based on the classic game, I Have Never. We soon found out who has run more than 15km in one go, who has recently moved house and even who has broken the law. But there is a golden rule - what happens in GoodGym fitness stays in GoodGym fitness!

If you're free this weekend, Jordan will be leading a session on Saturday at the GoodGym Garden. You can find all the details here. Next week, I’m away, but Steph will be leading the session and you can find the info for that here

Great work, team! Another task well done, with plenty of laughs along the way. Until next time! 👏👏

We were a lovely big group last night, which was brilliant as we had a lot to celebrate!

We got to welcome G to GoodGym for the first time - great to have you join us! It was also lovely to have some visitors from Merton - hello Rachael and Jade, and welcome!

Perhaps the good turnout had something to do with our very own Catherine leading the session to become a fully fledged run leader? Catherine absolutely smashed it all, taking us seamlessly from warm up to stretches with a killer fitness session in between. Give her a big cheer!

It might have also had something to do with the double social night - we had not one, but two fantastic social options to choose from. It was our regular monthly pub quiz as usual, but as it was Shrove Tuesday there was also the choice of going for pancakes. What a decision!

We kicked off the night with some great warm ups, and the question of the week was suitably themed. What is your favourite pancake filling? Answers ranged from savoury to sweet, from the classic sugar and lemon to the more avant garde biscoff and nutella!

We set off for Doddington, where we met up with the rest of the team and set about doing various jobs. There is always loads to do at this community garden, which has been transformed from a derelict space on top of a multi story carpark to a thriving area which local residents use for growing food, educating children about nature and composting.

We were tasked with all sorts of jobs, from pruning to digging trenches, to cardboard laying and transporting strawberries, to dispatching a Christmas tree!

If that wasn't enough of a workout, little did we know Catherine had even more in store for us. A fiendishly inventive Shrove themed circuits challenge, complete with star jumps, high knees, repeater lunges, oblique crunches, vertical jumps and explosive squats. See what she did there?! The result was a great all over workout.

Then came the big decision of the night - quiz or pancakes? The majority came down on the seasonal side of things, and had a lovely time eating the sweet treats. Meanwhile a smaller group hit up the pub, and managed a place on the podium in second position! A good time was had by all.

There is lot of fun stuff coming up, including this international women's day run on Saturday - all welcome! Next weekend there is a lovely community mission to help spruce up an day care facility while Monday's group run is a painting job at Wandsworth bereavement services. Hope to see you there! And once again - congratulations to run super leader Catherine.

We've gardened in freezing rain, scraped graffiti in sub zero temps, even pulled weeds with the threat of snow - and finally, the evening came. An indoor task! Perfect timing as well, as it was pretty nippy out there last night.

Our job for the evening was to address and stuff envelopes for a charity called Sparkle which runs an intergenerational centre. It brings together elderly people who might be facing loneliness with young ones who can benefit from their experience. A brilliant idea! They just need some help spreading the word about their amazing offering.

So we met at St Michael's church, where some of the activities including gentle exercise, arts and singing are held. It may have been a toasty inside task, but it was no less of a challenge as we found we had no fewer than 1700 envelopes to fill!

Wasting no time we formed an efficient production line, some of us writing, some stuffing and some sealing. While we worked the conversation was certainly wide ranging, from the merits of singing butlers to the best parkrun breakfasts, the joy of sleeper trains and what exactly is meant by 'vibe merchants'.

No wonder then that some of us may have got a little distracted and 'Dear Neighbour' became 'Dear Envelope'! Mentioning no names but a certain glossy beard might be a good disguise?

After a good solid session working away, we had a final count and managed a grand total of over 1000 envelopes - amazing! Next week we'll take on the job of delivering them - hope to see as many of you as possible there to get the word out far and wide!

We had got so used to the comfy warm room that our planned session on agility and balance morphed into a cosy strength and conditioning session. But that didn't mean that there was less, ahem, vocal feedback. Still, hopefully Pritesh didn't pull every single muscle in his body and Steph's hip flexors survived the journey home!

Great work everybody. Join us next week for the second part of the task or check out this week's community missions.

The Katherine Low Settlement in Battersea is an amazing hub for all sorts of charities. They support refugees with various programs, have clubs for the elderly, provide food for vulnerable groups and loads of resources for kids. They also have a garden which has been neglected over winter, and needed a bit of extra love. Which is where we came in!

A big welcome to Holly who joined for the very first GoodGym session, great to have you with us Holly!

We met at a very chilly BAC and got straight into getting those frozen muscles with lot of dynamic movements up the hill. We finished off the warm up with a quick Valentine's Day related quiz question with a bit of a dark edge to it before setting off.

After a brisk run down to the centre we were shown the garden and given a list of jobs which included deadheading, sweeping, clearing and weeding. There was also a job inside for the lucky few tidying up a games cupboard and sweeping.

Before long we were a buzz of activity and within 25 minutes of hard work the garden was looking so much tidier and more welcome for the service users. The games cupboard was immaculate and ready for use by the kids club, and the floors were spotless thanks to Jo and her giant brush.

After a few minutes thawing out in the warm we headed back out to face the night and do a fitness session based on lower body muscle groups. Every 30 seconds saw us change up the exercise, from curtesy, plié, oblique crunch and static squats, to lunges, jumps, single leg holds and pulses. Phew!

Next week we have an indoor task writing envelopes for an intergenerational charity - sign up here

Great work everybody, thanks for all your efforts on a pretty cold night!