Yesterday, our big-hearted GoodGymers came together at Elm Road Playground with one clear goal: to make the space safer and more welcoming for little ones to play. Armed with determination, gardening tools, and plenty of head torches, we rolled up our sleeves and got to work, clearing dry autumn leaves and digging out stubborn weeds rooted deep in the soil. Every minute was powered by our shared love for the community and a strong desire to give back. It was a chilled, productive evening, filled with hearty conversations, teamwork, and good vibes. We combined fitness, friendship, and social action, proving once again that doing good really does feel good.

Last night a large group of GoodGymers made their way to Canbury Gardens for some autumnal chores. At the Canbury Community Garden, Susan and Marie-Noëlle split the team in three groups. Dave, Lordi, Anna, Kento moved the tyre towers around & re-filled them with fresh compost. A second group - Luke, Saber, Marcos - dug and turned the compost in the two large compost heap areas whilst a third group - MN & Tom - collected water from the river to refill the garden's water containers. We finished our mission with some light pruning and praking of the vegetable beds.

Meanwhile over at the GoodGym flowerbed Louise, Claire and Levita filled a massive sack with all the leaves that were covering the flowerbed and hiding some plants. Saber and Anna then joined us and helped Levita collect water from the river to water the plants and keep them going until it rains. We ended the session planting a few spring bulbs. Join us in our next session at the flowerbed to plant the rest and create a colourful Spring display.

Busy bees at The Hive

What a cracking evening at The Hive in Kingston – GoodGymmers rolled up their sleeves and got to work on a task that had graffiti, cobwebs, and plenty of rubbish to tackle.

⭐️ A big cheer for our team: Lordi, Tenko, Anna, Emma, Jana, Jonathan, and Ken (and a very warm welcome to our new GoodGymmers, Lordi and Kento – great to have you with us!).

Jonathan and Ken wasted no time taking on the toilet walls – not the most glamorous job, but definitely a satisfying one. Buckets, rollers, and brushes in hand, they soon had the graffiti-covered walls and door looking fresh and clean with a smart coat of paint.

Meanwhile, Emma, Tenko, and Lordi took to the streets for some litter-picking action. Cobwebs didn’t stand a chance either – Emma took particular delight in banishing them from the lights. Before long, the trio had filled two whole bin bags of rubbish. Gold medal standard effort!

Over by the wooden wall, Anna and Jana led the charge against some seriously stubborn graffiti tags. Armed with sprays, brushes, and plenty of elbow grease, they scrubbed and scrubbed until reinforcements arrived. Soon the whole team was joining in, proving that many hands really do make light work.

By the end, the toilet walls were painted, the tags were scrubbed away, the cobwebs were gone, and the area looked so much better.

👏 Top job, team – a real hive of activity at The Hive!

Keeping cool at KVA

Dave, Rachel, Levita and Marcos met at KVA to move a fridge up the stairs. We took a dolly to do the hard work but didn't use it in the end as there was a n awkward corner. So Dave and Marcos flexed their muscles and carried it up the stairs. Lots of encouragement from Levita, Rachel and Sanja helped of course!

We stayed to chat with Sanja and then headed back to the Hive to help with the grafitti removal.

We've been to Kingston Voluntary Action's new project redistributing surplus food this summer and seen how it's been coming on.

Organiser Emma had a load of different tasks for us to do, from crushing boxes, sweeping, cleaning out their fridge as well as their van.

Anna, Amreet, Claire (expert power washer), Tom, Emma, Emily Luke, Levita, John (top leaf-blowing), Dave (skilful van driving), Rachel and first-timer Jonathan got involved in a bit of everything and we'd made a big difference by the end.

We didn't leave empty-handed, either. The great thing about a food hub is…food…and we got some water kefir and cacao bars for our trouble.

Nice to be back helping a very worthy cause.

Kingston River Culture festival needed some help with setting up some gazebos, stalls and exhibition stands. So I met Levita and Saber there at Canbury Gardens and we managed to put 8-9 gazebos up together in our session time.

None of knew how to set up a gazebo so we needed to look it up by watching a short Youtube video which helped! We also needed to watch another video on how to close a broken gazebo which took us longer than to open and set it up.. However, when we needed to set up a replacement, we did it very swiftly within 10 minutes (a record!)

We also had 1-2 people helping us in some parts but we mostly did it all.

Organiser was pleased and thanked for our help!

8 goodgymers brought and dropped items for the food bank whilist doing their own shopping.