From foodbanks to the riverside, schools to Chiswick House itself, we cover a variety of organisations for our tasks in Hounslow. One special one was our location last night. We were back for our regular visit to lend a hand to the sisters at the Comboni Centre.

The sisters here run a centre for spirituality where everybody is welcome. They have a huge garden which needs a lot of looking after, and as we were told last night, the youngest of them is in her 60s so some of the bigger jobs are tricky to do.

We were met by lovely Sister Expedita. As her name translates as speed or haste, it was very on brand for GoodGym! She took us round the area handing out jobs as we went.

Tish and Georgia got their hands on loppers and went straight to work on a big overhanging bush, while Paul and Chris were challenged with uprooting and moving various trees. Gus dispatched a huge root in record time but then had the job of sawing it up for the rest of the night. Meanwhile tree surgeons Luis and Emily had shot up a ladder outside, and Jon and Michelle got stuck in weeding and clearing flowerbeds. Will and Jonny were on weeding and clearing, and before long all the jobs were done and dusted!

We took a short run back to the green where we did three sets of three minutes working on three different muscle groups - glutes, abs and arms. With the backdrop of a beautiful sunset and the encouragement of Paul and Luis, we worked our way through them one by one, and finished off with stretches.

If you'd like to continue your week with some more GGing, then there are a number of missions happening, including helping set up an inclusive music event at Waterman's park on Saturday and Sunday.

It was busy, busy, busy right from the off at GoodGym last night, so let's start off with a bit of a roundup...

Firstly a huge, GoodGymmy happy birthday with a crown on top to our lovely Michelle. Hope you have the best day - we'll let you off the squats (for this week only!).

Congratulations to Alan who is the newest and shiniest member of our elite taskforce!

On Saturday, do you fancy a parkrun/gardening double? Then join Jonny in Fulham for just the thing!

Sunday is the day of our very first West London scavenger race! Meet at Furnival Gardens at 10:45 for an 11am start. Challenge yourself to cover the distance picking up clues to your final destination - racing against other GGers! This will be a lighthearted, fun event which you can run, walk or cycle and will test both your legs and brains! Join us at the end for some refreshments and possibly a prize or two. Sign up here.

After going through all the fun stuff that is happening, we headed over to Chiswick House for our regular visit to lend a hand in the gardens. This week we were met by Connor who took us to the sheds and introduced us to the biggest pile of wood chips we had ever seen. Our task for the evening was to shift the pile over to another area in the grounds to be raked out.

We got straight to work filling buckets which we soon found out were light enough, but generated some serious heat! While we accompanied the trailer to the site, Lucy and Kymm got busy pulling weeds and Michelle had her rake ready.

After 45 minutes of hard work we were ready for a nice, gentle mobility for runners session , so made our way to the green outside the beautiful Orangery. We worked though lots of different moves that opened our hip flexors, increased the range of motion of other joints, reduced stiffness and strengthened muscles. Thanks to Emily for demonstrating the perfect pigeon!

Next week we're lending a hand at Strand on the Green school, hope to see you there for more fun and fitness!

(ps if you'd ever like a group fitness session focused on something specific such as form, speed, mobility, strength or a certain muscle group just drop me a message and I'll make it happen!)

Last night 11 Goodgymers ran, walk or cycled our way to Chiswick Allotments to help with clearing the plot donated by Chiswick Horticultural Society, for Hounslow Community Foodbox to grow fresh produce for food parcels.

A big welcome to Georgia joining for her first session with Goodgym, and great to have Eric and Kymm back for more good deeding.

Karoush showed us the section of the allotment that needed attention and there was a demo of efficient weeding and turning over the soil for anyone who needed it, before we got stuck in.

There was no time to waste and there was no signs of anyone feeling sluggish at Hounslow last night. Just under an hour later we had cleared most of the area under the picnic bench and relocated some slippery creatures with and without shells 🐌 so the area should soon be ready for planting.

Footnote: no slugs or snails were harmed (or consumed) during the task last night. Despite what some might have you believe in these photos!

We’ll be back at the allotments to help foodbox again in the coming weeks so look out for future tasks.

This Saturday we’re heading over to Strand on the Green school to help them out with lots of jobs, if you’re free why not come along and join us - sign up here https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/sanding-benches-ready-for-painting-4e9f1bd2-c73e-4ffd-9706-5177a8bd79e6