Tidying up our environment, one piece of litter at a time. Every litter bit helps!

Hats of to Jana for litter picking on the RIVER! Brave to venture out on the water when it was so cold outside. Brrrrrr-illiant work :)

As ‘tis the season of traditions, we relished the opportunity to uphold one of ours with one of the Kingston Goodgym group’s favourite festive group run task! Tuesday evening’s good deed done was in support of our local SeeAbility residential home for adults with disabilities. The task was a fabulously festive one as we were called upon to spruce things up, ‘dec their halls’, (and dining room) and string outdoor lights to add some Christmas cheer to the home.

Three eager volunteers braved the elements outside to take on the hanging of the Christmas lights along the eaves of the home. Some reached new heights while others held the ladder. No need for Sabir to hold on for deer life as he was supported by both Dave and Rob providing safety and moral support at the bottom of the ladder. There were Christmas tunes being played as Rob took on the role of Rudolf to light the way with his large torch to guide them.

Meanwhile the rest of the team had snow easy task of displaying the large window decals - a beautiful winter scene with reindeer, baubles and snowflakes. They got their nails into it which were needed to remove the birds and butterflies to replace them by peeling and sticking the snowflakes and winter wonderland elements.

The tree was then assembled and decorated just in time for the team to reunite in the lounge to admire our handy work and celebrate with a bit of dancing to ‘Rocking Around the Christmas Tree’.

It was so lovely to return to support this fabulous home with Goodgym Kingston members young, old and new! Juniper was a very popular Goodgym baby on this task and her supervision of the activities was very helpful too!

We celebrated our task by heading to the Albion for a Christmas celebration with a not so savage gift exchange of secret Santa! It is now beginning to look a lot more like Christmas for the residents of the SeeAbility home and it’s feeling more and more Christmassy for Goodgym Kingston with every Christmas task we do! We hope to see you joining us on the next one!

On a beautiful sunny morning in Kingston it was time for GoodGym to become the Ground Force team for the morning and tackle a flowerbed transformation.

A giant laurel bushes, brambles, weeds and dead plants stood before us. Josie, Doris, Louise and Gordon tacked the weeds and brambles while Tom and Trevor cut down the laurel to give the plants some more light.

Claire and Tom got their steps in for the day going to and from the car to collect all the plants and compost.

Kate and Jassy arrived with our 2 tiniest members for their first task and after a quick biscuit to refuel it was time to lay the plants out using Claire’s planting plan. A few adjustments on positioning and a planting lesson from Gordon and the transformation commenced.

We all battled some tough roots hiding below as we dug holes for the plants and as we started planting Rob joined us to help plant a few of the plants and Jade popped by to check on our progress.

Plants in we distributed the rest of the compost and Tom and Dorris headed to the river for some water to give the plants a good drink.

12.50 pm and we were finished right on time and Trevor from the Friends of Canbury Gardens was delighted with the result.

A huge thank you to Gordon for advising on plants, keeping them watered and driving them all to Kingston.

Looking forward to part 2 planting the Spring bulbs on Tuesday night.

Great afternoon spent catching up with Kate, Rob and Rosanna on a litter pick round Fairfield Park. They had a great turn out so we concentrated on grabbing the smaller bits of rubbish that can get overlooked and managed to fill a bag between us. Well done team!

We hid 'em high, we hid 'em low, we hid 'em everywhere and the seekers of the eggs had a hopping great fun time finding them. Thanks to Martel for organising the mission and it was great to see our friends from Ditton Road again.

BANG!! No sooner had the last fireworks fallen from the sky that Goodgym Kingston sprung into action along the River front. Dogs, kids, neighbours, the neighbours kids, plus a couple of 'out of towners', all wondered up through Canbury Gardens and towards the Ham Lands picking up whatever litter we found on route. On solid ground or floating in the water, everything discovered was bagged up and disposed off - even the tiny little sandwich bags that couldn't hold more than a munch(y)...

Well done all for dragging yourself out after what was a busy night for some! Sorry Harry 😔