It’s was time to 🎵Step in to Christmas🎵 at the BHF.

Upon arrival Christmas was in full swing with garlands going up and Christmas stock piling out of the lifts.

After refuelling on Pizza Luke and Jonathan tackled fairy lights, a somewhat fiddly task but a sparkly one, whilst Levita became Santa - can you spot her?

Meanwhile Jana found display places for fancy ball balls, Martel and Levita - no longer Santa hung the garlands over the arch and Tom, Claire, Ellie, Louise and Sabir displayed everything on the shelves from Xmas stockings to socks, Santas, fir trees and a catus!!

In no time we had the shelves full of Christmas treats to fill Santa’s sleigh.

This is always a favourite task — and with plenty of sign-ups, it’s clear why! We needed all hands on deck to blitz the Hawker Centre’s soft play area and get it sparkling clean for the local families who use it so much.

We split into three teams to tackle different areas:

• Claire’s team took on the mighty ball pit — emptying it out and reaching every nook and cranny to make sure it was dust - and plaster-free.

• Julie’s group rolled up their sleeves to clean chairs, tables, high chairs and the outer spaces, including the multi-sensory room.

• Emma’s crew scaled the soft play structure, climbing through tunnels and down slides to sanitise all the high-touch areas with anti-bac spray.

This is a much-loved community space — many of us at the task tonight have fond memories of bringing our own children here — so it felt extra special to give something back. Families and little ones will now be able to enjoy a cleaner, safer, and brighter environment to play in.

Supporting This Girl Can

Tonight’s task also shone a light on Sport England’s This Girl Can campaign — an inspiring initiative that encourages women to be active in ways that work for them, no matter their age, background or ability.

This year, This Girl Can is going bigger and bolder, and we’re proud that GoodGym is part of the movement. Together, we’re raising awareness and taking real steps towards making outdoor exercise safer and more welcoming for women.

We showed our support by writing empowering messages on a large banner, to champion the cause!

And of course… we had the run!

In true GoodGym spirit, our evening wouldn’t be complete without some running! We clocked up around 3km there and back to the Quaker Centre, enjoying some great company along the way.

A fantastic task, a great cause, and brilliant teamwork — GoodGym Kingston at its best!

After running walking and cycling our way to Refugee Action we met Heidi with a long list of tasks that some may have considered impossible but not GoodGym.

The craft materials were moved for future sorting to free up space on the racking for children’s clothes and shoes which were sorted out by Claire, Levita and Susannah.

It was a case of many hands make light work as we all lifted a suite of desks and turned them 90 degrees to make more space for moving over the ladies wear racking.

Marcos, Sabir, Luke, Dave and Anna got stuck in moving the ladies wear department before a brave team headed to the depths of the building armed with torches to visit the recycling bins. Dave also fixed a safe to a wall with his trusty drill.

After a quick tidy of menswear and moving the toiletries the list of tasks was complete and it was mission accomplished.

This morning was a great turn out for a Friday morning, where goodgymers from different areas (kingston,merton,richmond and ealing) joined the volunteers of The friends of Beverly Park to carry on clearing out the weeds around the roses. This is an ongoing project to get the Rose beds back to their former glory, with all their vibrant colours. Hats of to Sven for soldiering on after his fall in the Royal Park. Great progress was made and enjoyable as always when we all come together.