GoodGym Wandsworth's goal is to be able to support our community in the best and most productive way possible, so when we had a last minute call from one of regular task owners asking for some urgent help, we were only too happy to switch up our planned task to lend a hand.

Hadas who runs Waste Not Want Not, a local charity which is dedicated to ensuring that perfectly edible and nutritious food does not become waste and instead is channelled for the benefit of our local community, is managing a big refurb of the site. The decorator is ready to come and give the place a facelift, but there were two massive spaces which needed clearing out before that can happen. That's where we come in!

After a short run down to the charity, we assessed the job in question. How to move two rooms full of equipment, food and stock into one room with limited space? Human chain, of course. Wasting no time, we got cracking shifting everything through the building and working out the best way to store it. Meanwhile, another group tackled the conundrum that is the WNWN shelves. After one false start where it turns out they were assembled upside down, they were soon successful.

After 40 minutes the place was emptied and ready for its new look. We'll be back soon to see how it's all changed!

Next we headed over to Banana Park for our fitness session, which involved one pack of cards, two teams and A LOT of power squats. There could only be one winner however, and with a final score of 11 versus 14 the victors were clear.

Next week we have a very exciting session as it is our 7th birthday. Please join us if you can for an evening of fun, mini tasks, orienteering, challenges and of course a post run social. It would be brilliant to celebrate GG Wandsworth past, present and future with you!

Last night was our monthly session down to Doddington community garden, a wonderful space transformed from a disused carpark roof into a thriving, blooming garden for local people to use. It's been great to see it change every time we visit and head gardener Malissa harnesses her creativity to make an oasis filled with corn, herbs, polytunnels and a soon to be installed outdoor kitchen!

We did our warm up as usual at the BAC and each took a guess on how many kilos of strawberries get eaten at Wimbledon every year. Our resident Ed Sheeran superfan Beth (sorry Beth!) got the closest to the figure, which is a colossal 28 000 kgs. That's a hell of a lot of strawberries!

We were entrusted with some high level gardening jobs last night, including dead heading the red verbena, pulling up mallow and tying up the jasmine - we're learning new stuff every time!

We all got on with our respective jobs, and it was great to look round the garden and see everybody working hard on their individual tasks, but all making a big difference for the community. Great job team.

We then went downstairs for our fitness session which this week focused on upper body, with tricep dips, press ups, and side planks and finished off with our minute squat challenge.

Our monthly Doddington visit also coincides with our social, so after finishing up we ran over to the pub for the quiz. We were a very healthy sized team, but rather than split the group up we decided to take the hit on the points deficit and even gambled on the wipeout round. Drums or double bass, double bass or drums? I'm happy to report it was another podium finish for Team GG in second place! A job well done all round.

Next week instead of a group run we have a community mission led by Lorna - so you can either meet at the BAC at 6:30 to run down together, or at Waste Not Want Not at 6:45 to help out Hadas. You can find all the details here.

13 of us went out last night to clear the streets of Clapham of those pesky Christmas trees

It was great to be back for the first group run of 2023 where we had a good turnout and welcomed Jon to his first Goodgym activity 

We started by sharing our favourite Christmas present that we gave or received, a highlight being Maya's seed calendar that can be planted. 🌱

Following a little warm up we headed towards Clapham Common to collect trees from the streets and carry them to the Windmill Drive recycling point. We divided into groups, took on different streets and collected about 25 trees in 30 minutes. After a group photo we headed back to base, turning strava back on to collect our kms for the January Challenge 🥇

Big shoutout this week goes to Kaz for getting his 50th good deed!