A Berry Good Morning in Battersea 🌿🌞

What better way to kick off the weekend than with a GoodGym community mission that had a huge impact!

A brilliant group of GGers came together on Saturday morning, answering the call to help out at a thriving community garden in the heart of Battersea. This huge green space is a vital hub for local residents—a place to grow, connect, and learn. We're really happy to visit regularly to help keep it flourishing.

It was especially lovely to welcome some first-time GoodGymers—great to meet you Abadesi, Pranav, Adrian and Shreyasi and thanks for getting so stuck in!

There was certainly no shortage of jobs to tackle, and we going straight away. Tasks ranged from planting raspberry canes to clearing an overgrown area, de bind-weeding around a goji bush, and yes—digging not one, not two, but THREE holes to plant a beautiful new bay tree. There was weeding a-plenty, pruning, trimming and composting and a few mystery pipes to contend with, but it was nothing we couldn’t handle.

The energy was high, there was plenty of teamwork strong and even more laughs. It’s always amazing to see how much can get done when a group of motivated people come together. By the end of the morning, the garden was looking better than ever and Malissa was really pleased with all we got done.

We wrapped up the mission in the best possible way—with a trip to a local café for some well-earned tasty drinks and snacks. A perfect reward. Nice work everybody!

It was fantastic to celebrate International Women's Day with fellow GoodGymers by getting active, spreading the joy and doing a task that had a positive impact in our local area.

We met in a very busy Battersea Park. It was brimming with runners, as though parkrun had finished, there was another massive race taking place. We found a spot to do our warm ups, and each chose an inspirational female athlete who inspire us - they ranged all the way from marathon runners to speed climbers!

The next challenge was crossing the carriageway without getting in the way of the racers. Luckily we timed it to perfection and headed out of the park on the way to the Falcon estate in Battersea.

The sun was shining and everybody had a smile on their face as we arrived to find Senia from the Women of Wandsworth charity with all the tools we needed and instructions on where to plant our bulbs. Unfortunately I had forgotten about the invitation to wear a splash of purple and green as the official colours of IWD, but luckily Catherine had followed the brief with an excellent pair of socks and green hat. We also did manage to find some bright purple bulbs which will be a lasting reminder of our visit.

Despite the hard ground we got the planting done quickly and as we had a few minutes left we did a speedy litter pick and tidy up, even causing some passers by to stop to find out more.

Job done, we walked the short distance to the Waste Not Want Not hub, where Hadas was waiting for us with delicious treats, hot tea and coffee and music. We spent the rest of the morning happily chatting about food, choirs and dragon fruit!

Happy International Women's day to you all - thank you for coming to celebrate and spreading the positivity in our community.

We were back at St Andrew's youth club last night. As usual the place was filled with the sound of classes happening - from boxing to chess - the scent of cooking club, and the beat of an excellent playlist keeping us motivated!

Our job for the evening was to sort a huge games cupboard which was bursting at the seams with every board game imaginable. We were taken back to our youth as we pulled out Kerplunk, Monopoly, Connect Four, Buckeroo...and too many more to mention!

We managed to stay focused and avoid the temptation of getting stuck into a game of Risk. Instead we stacked and sorted, packed and piled, until all the games were back in their rightful place.

We were rewarded with a homemade cornflake cake, and a quick look around the new sensory room that a few months back GoodGym had helped clear. Next week we're off to hand out clothes and bedding to rough sleepers on the Strand. Hope to see you there for some more GG Westminster fun and a positive impact!