Six GoodGymers - Sekar, Marie-Noelle, Marcus, Luke, Zoe and Sophie teamed up to help out at Canburry Community Garden to help Marylin one last time with some much needed vegetable beds watering, water fetching from the river, pruning of the tall bushes around the fencing area, clearing the fallen leaves from the outbuilding gutter and some weeding and clearing of the path for easy wheel-chair access. As we said goodbye to Marylin who is retiring, we got to know Susan who takes over as Lead Gardener.

Meanwhile over at the GoodGym flowerbed it was a watery work out for Tom, Louise and Saber who filled the large buckets with river water and transported them to the flowerbed by wheel barrow.

The flowers were given an extra good water followed by some super mulching to keep all the moisture in.

In between the watering and mulching Claire removed the litter and a few small weeds. Hopefully the rain will make an appearance soon to give the muscles a rest from watering.

Welcome to Sekar, Sophie and Zoe on their first task with Kingston GoodGym we hope to see you again soon.

As the students had left town for the Summer it was a good opportunity to give the Kingsgate Church food bank a Summer clean.

Claire and Farzeen started working on the fridges and freezers cleaning away the pesky crumbs and washing all the shelves and drawers.

Meanwhile upstairs the team of Luke, Tom, Jenny, Anna and Enara started to sort the canned fruit, meatballs, soup and some very strange looking drinks to identify those which had expired or were close to expiry. Anything close to expiry was put at the top of the pile and everything that had expired was separated out.

One of the freezers needed a little help defrosting for its clean so Anna joined Farzeen with some hot water to give it a helping hand whilst Tom tackled the last fridge.

Everything cleaned and sorted some brave Goodgymers decided to try the mystery drinks that would apparently provide calmness. Some slightly odd expressions followed the tasting - very sweet flavoured with a combination of berries was the verdict. Let’s hope they provided a sense of calm and serenity.

For those that didn’t fancy the mystery drinks there was an assortment of soup, tinned fruit and shepherds pies to take home that were close to expiry and prevent unnecessary food waste.

A big welcome to our newcomers Jenny and Enara!

We've normally been in action outside the front of Surbiton Library, where we've beautified the planters, removed more ivy than can be imagined and generally kept it looking nice.

The car park behind the building was the issue this time around and we were joined by Alan, a local resident who felt that the litter had begun to make it very unpleasant.

Luckily we had a top team to get down to work. Anna, Claire, Dave, Emily, Laurel, Luke, Marcos, Rachel, Sabir and Tom grabbed litter pickers, hoes, brushes and black bags and got going.

We removed a huge amount of green waste, cans, plastic and even socks. Alan was very grateful for our efforts and it looked way better after just an hour. Emily even had time to make it to the pub to see the England Lionesses fight their way out of trouble yet again.

A nice hour outside making a difference.

Tonight, GoodGym Kingston had a fantastic group run and session at the Full Cycle Bicycle Project! With a great turnout, we were kept busy with a whole host of new jobs and a few we are always happy to help out with:

Our tasks included:

Sorting out the loading bay and re-organising bike parts 🛠️

Reordering the upcoming servicing schedule 📅

Giving bikes a good clean ✨

Pumping up countless tyres 💨

And a general tidy-up to leave the place gleaming! 🧹

As we efficiently tackled each job, more things to do were found. We always love to support this amazing project and look forward to being back to tackle some more tasks soon.

A huge welcome to both Shammy and Amy! We hope you enjoyed your first session and will be joining us again soon for more good deeds and great company!