Well, what a night to be playing on the adventure playground - errr, I mean tidying up the Children's Centre. A huge storm blew over Kingston minutes before meeting at the Quaker Centre, leaving us all fearful that our running clothes would be better off exchanged for wetsuits and swimsuits. Thankfully we held our nerve and didn't cancel and the weather was kind to us for our evening's activities. A few spots of rain but nothing of the downpours and thunderstorms that were promised by the Met Office. Phew!

A fantastic turnout this evening which meant we whizzed through the jobs list much to the surprise of the task owners who had to create some extra tasks to keep us busy. The ivy was cut back, dead plants and weeds were removed, leaves were bagged up, the bike cover was washed down and an old, rotten planter was dismantled and the soil was re-purposed. We all had a chance to chat to each other and welcome familiar faces back into the fold.

After our task was complete, Brenda and Sophie offered us fruit and juice which was a welcome surprise as all that gardening was thirsty work. So thirsty, in fact, that we said our farewells and headed to the Albion for our monthly social.

Great session and lovely to see so many of you out. Hope to see you next week if the weather holds out!

Tonight, we noticed a dancing theme evolved for our weekly run! We had all been peeping out of the window throughout the day and promised the group we had spent the afternoon sun dancing in the hope that the rain would stop so we would remain dry for the duration of our run and task. So when we met in the Guildhall, we were quite chuffed that our efforts seemed to be working as although still grey out, it was at least, not raining.

Our brief saw us welcome back Leo and Marit on their 2nd GoodGym Kingston run tonight and had us prepared for the evening ahead. Then it was to market for our warm up, after stretching on the green outside Guildhall we literally lunged into the Kingston market square and proceeded to interval jog around the square using the natural space around us to pull up, dip, wheel barrow, squat jump, press-up and more – Oh and a few rounds of ‘Ready, steady, GLOVE!! (I’ll explain another time) All in all a seat in the square looked very tempting at this point but of course ‘No Way’!! Good deeds to be done so we fired up Strava and was off running.

Part one of our 6km run was outbound to Kingston Cemetery. It was a return visit and the task was to clear the headstones of intrusive self-setters and brutal brambles that were taking over in the graveyard. On our way the lucky front runners were treated to a loop of Fairfield Park while the rest of us caught up! Mark tried to explain it was a bonus for such pace but not all were convinced and for a change us further back in the pack felt less envious of pace as it proved to take a long road getting there!

Once everyone had arrived at the cemetery, we chose our tools and went on the hunt for the trespassers. With saws, secateurs, loppers and rakes we managed to clear a few areas, uncovered some stones that had been totally overgrown and tidy where we could but the job is huge and we hope to return sometime soon to make the differences we can around the site and keep up the good work!

The skills our GoodGym runners have are endless...#goodgym #volunteering #kingston #Cemetery #tuesdays pic.twitter.com/Dc2SMo0mVR

— GoodGym Kingston-upon-Thames (@GoodGymKingston) June 5, 2019

We were surprised how quickly time passed and you know something, the sun had been shining on us all the time we were there too! Easy to lose track of things working on the site when the evening was so pleasant in the end. Our normal cue to down tools from the caretaker was missing as well and tonight instead, we were able to leisurely pack up our tools under the watchful eye of a striking fox among the self-setters. It was as if it was inspecting our work or had he come to tell us it was time to leave and usher us out. Either way we took the hint and fox trotted out of there for part two of our run which saw us return to Guildhall for a full on stretch and bite inspection.

Great work team from sun dance to fox trot we made good things happen!

See you next week ; - )

A group of volunteer runners gathered at the Sainsbury's in Kingston to do some bag packing for good(gym)ness sa(c)ke in exchange for donations to support the Rainbow Trust Children's Charity.

Rainbow Trust supports families who have a child aged 0-18 years with a life threatening or terminal illness. The Family Support Workers provide a life line to these families and children. They bring support and help to families who so desperately need it at home, in hospital and in the community.

The first shift was filled by a team of seven spread across the row of tills to ask the customers if they would lettuce help them pack their shopping. A few grateful customers told us that they thought it was a grape idea and donated generously. While many customers were determined to stick to their own packing systems and declined our help, they did kindly donate anyway. Samia and Laura took on a new strategy and eagerly met customers approaching the tills to unpack their trolleys before they’d made it to the bagging stage! Nicky did an expert job with the photography in between her smiley bag packing duties. Since all tills were covered with help being offered, Rob found a more useful spot and stationed himself at the door with a donation pot, even convincing his mum to part with her change. While the packing jobs seemed light, some volunteers set out to scan the shop floor to hand out stickers from the Rainbow Trust to any children that keenly accepted them.

A big thank you to Sainsbury’s Surrey Basin for welcoming us to support the Rainbow Trust and giving us space to store our bags. Well done to everyone who was able to give their time this Saturday afternoon offering to pack customers' groceries for donations for this important charity. It was lovely to see Jacqueline, Milla, Lorena and Matthew (solo) joining us for their first community mission.