A whole bunch of wonderful GoodGymers turned up to help Alex and Nadia with the task of getting the playground ready for its grand reopening in a few weeks time.

Play areas were swept, cleaned and power washed, terrorising beasts were painted and brought back to life, the vegetable garden was tended to and growing pyramids created from bamboo, the shed was painted, and vast trees/bushes and parts of the garden was weeded. All done with lots of style and vigour.

Alex joked that he won’t need us for a while. I think we’ll be going back every week for a while, which is good news because it’s always such a pleasure to help out there.

Paula even stayed later to play ping pong.

What a turnout. What a safe, productive, industrious, dedicated, companionable turnout.

A big sized team headed to the huge warehouse in Poplar today to be allocated many types of stocktacking tasks by project co-ordinator Richard:

Writes Becky

“A great crew of people dropping in and out today! Our task was sorting and organising with abandon.

Richard presented us with multiple crates of miscellaneous donations for logging, passing on/reusing… There was sports equipment aplenty (in the morning I think a lot of hard work was undertaken separating basketballs from footballs…), as well as bundles of craft items and lots of stationary.

Crate by crate we unpacked and reassembled in more crates: yep, crates of paints, crates of pencils... You get the picture. And we found all sorts of interesting goodies - a spikey pink ball and the coup de grace: an elf on the shelf.”

Nick​ agrees:

“Yep, another fun filled, busy day down at the warehouse where Richard had us stocktaking a wide array of donations (yoga mats, balls – lots, in all sizes - books by the hundreds; wool, embroidery items and knitting needles; games and jigsaws…), caging items up and, where necessary, wrapping in industrial cling film to prevent them escaping.

Provided you came wearing sufficient layers, to take account of the somewhat chilly conditions inside the warehouse today, it was another enjoyable (and, we hope, productive) day in deepest Poplar.”

What a team. A big, big thank you to everyone who took part in this fabulous Community Mission, and especially to Becky and Nick for writing the report and taking pics, and to Charlotte and Jacqui for their pics too.

And a huge warm welcome to Edmund and Kezia who both enjoyed their first GG session today. Come back soon!

Crisis Community Missions return next week: there are drop-in sessions on both Thursday and Friday, 21/1 and 22/2, if you fancy getting involved.

And so it was a full house on this afternoon's Crisis session.

Teams were yet again dispatched throughout the building, with squads scrubbing the soon-to-be medical room within an inch of its life; building the call centre (including knocking down doorways); pallets being cut and assembled, new flooring prepped ready to be laid, and the outdoor cleaning and clearing went on late into the afternoon...

Yet more amazing work.

Yep, was a very busy site, with GoodGymers working tirelessly and carefully with Crisis staff, putting a wide variety of skill sets from engineering to gardening to very good use. Thanks to everyone for putting in a big Saturday effort (and to Peter for sending some great pics).

And the brilliant Ray (Ray is a longstanding Crisis volunteer, who's been doing this for seven years) continued to whizz around on the fork lift, overseeing and caring for our GoodGymers outside. Oh, and I got to the bottom of his 'RayRay' name: given by the Crisis team, as he does everything twice as quick as everyone else.

Well, what a day at the warehouse. And so, 'till...TUESDAY! When we'll be back at the usual Tuesday time of 6.30pm, to continue the countdown prep.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

On this cold evening a merry gang of 20 goodgymmers from Newham, Hackney and Tower Hamlets were greeted by Richard our task owner. It's always nice to see our neighbouring Goodgymers and this is such a worthwhile task.

We split into 3 groups. In the hub the larger group set to work to lay new carpet tiles and refresh the old ones in festive colours. By the end of the night the space was transformed and ready to be furnished.

In the pastoral care suite Sharon, Kevin and team were tasked with laying a carpet. Stanley knives were defeated, but they were not and left job done.

Meanwhile in the kitchen the cleaning team did a great job leaving a grungy space clean and fresh and ready for appliances to be installed next week.

It's great to see this space really starting to take shape now, but there is still lots more work to do.

A special welcome to Stephen from Tower Hamlets who joined us for his first mission, he will actually be using the building as a CRISIS volunteer. A special mention too to JC who crossed the river from Greenwich.

There are more CRISIS missions over the next few weeks, to make sure the space will be transformed into a working hub. This is a popular one, so sign up while you can.