Tuesday evening group run : Freya, Richard and Steph Ducat set off from Bodyline studio to the Willaim Hobbayne Centre on a 3km run to meet Angela and then Jules. June welcomed everyone and we got the tools and cracked on in the courtyard. We normally attacked the weed in the main courtyard area, but this time it was decided we go from the far end towards the courtyard as never have enough light and time to do that section. The team tackled weed, brambles, moss and dead leaves. June was so impressed at the speed we tackled the whole area : aie aie speedy Gonzalez and his friends were present at Hobbayne tonight. We filled 6 bags and even had time to get 6 boxes of old brochures to the bin plus load June's car with 2 boxes and a bag of toys that would be given away tomorrow. Were the Goodgymers in need for speed tonight? Well done to Richard for running 3km as he has just recently started to run.

Four GoodGymers walked, cycled and ran to help Cultivate London beautify the green areas around Ealing Hospital this morning. They were all warmed up and raring to go, then they were led into the depths of the hospital, to the Estates office, where they went through a contractor health and safety briefing on the office computers. It covered working at heights, what to do if they found asbestos and how to get permission for digging work. Well, maybe the digging part would be relevant 🤷.

Once out of the basement and back in the sun, the task for the day was to rake and flatten some new flower beds, then scatter wildflower seeds to make this stretch of Uxbridge Road more colourful and increase biodiversity. There was big group of volunteers to help out on the various tasks, which was great.

Rebekah, Chris and Richard got going on one of the beds that needed flattening, moving sand and soil from the far side of the car park, then raking it to be smooth and picking out any big rocks. Sevan had decided to use his brain instead (for once) and was doing some mental maths to calculate the area of each part of a prepared flower bed, then working out the weight of seed and sand mix to be sprinkled on each.

Having done the hard maths, Sevan joined the other 3 as they worked their way along two more beds, making them look their best before the seed planting. The chat turned to work and job hunts, so Sevan semi-jokingly asked Romina if Cultivate had any jobs going where the GoodGymers could do more good stuff. Romina gave each of them had a grilling about any relevant skills they had, other than wheelbarrowing and raking, with a couple of possible collaborations to come.

Chris and Sevan headed off at midday, with Rebekah and Richard staying on into the afternoon to do some seed scattering and moving more soil.

If you want to get involved in improving the hospital grounds for patients, passers by and insects, sign up for next week's session here.