Our help is always welcomed around Croydon, so when our planned task owner had to pull the plug following being told she had to self isolate, I reached out to our friends at ECCO, who were very excited to offer us a task.

Eight of of us met up at Solutions Gym where we had a little chat about our weekend and the week so far before setting off to our little spot next to East Croydon train station for our warm up.

Before we began our warm up there was a presentation to be made, Yasser who we met on a task at St Augustine's has been running with us since our return to group activities. He is a keen gardener and a very polite young man with a smile that lights up the group. Following him signing up to Good Gym I got in contact with the lovely folks in the Central office to ask for his T-Shirt to be sent to me, I was excited on Monday when the post came and I saw that little red bag because I knew it had something in it that would make someone happy. It was an absolute pleasure to able to present him with his Good Gym T-Shirt and he was so thrilled to receive it he got changed into it as soon as I had let it go into his hands.

Wardrobe changed and we were ready for our warm up before setting off on our 1 mile run to ECCO. ECCO is normally a 5 mins walk from Solutions, however going there I always try to take the longer route so that the group can have a little jog, although while sitting here writing the report I've just managed to come up with another route, I'll introduce them to on our next visit in September. Should you not see a run report following our September visit please send out the search party as I maybe still trying to navigate my way!

We arrived at Blake Road a bit sooner than planned which allowed the group to get a 2 minute rest before we tackled the overgrowth that greeted us. Our presence throughout lock down was surely missed as the raised beds have never been this overgrown prior to the pandemic. There was a lot to be done, however we decided we would work on one of the raised beds and if we had time we would then move onto another. There was also a lot of litter along the path, which made our queen litter picker Ingrid smile and she quickly grabbed an empty bag and a litter pick and went off to clean it up, she was not alone as Samantha followed suit and set off too, I think we have a future rivalry brewing here! Sam was at it too last week with the dust pan and brush sweeping up the overspill from the soil bags at the last task. I think I may have to monitor this as there are now two contenders for the queen litter picker title!

Good Gym for life

As we were working along the tram tracks, it is requirement that anyone who is working on the tram side must wear a hi-vis vest, a passer by who had noticed us working asked Ollie and one of the residents who had came out to assist what they were in for, thinking that they were undertaking some form of community punishment. We had a chuckle about the comment and talked about future possible responses should we ever get asked that question again.

25 bags filled and we had run out of bags just in time to call it a night, we swept up and pack away our tools then returned them to Jerry's home. Tom who had been filling for Jerry thanks us for what we had done.

Rupal and Shannon welcome to your first group run, I enjoyed how you both got stuck in and chatted with the group it was as if you knew everyone at the task the way you both seamlessly just slotted in.

Yesterday 8 runners met outside Solutions Health Club to run 2 miles to our task in West Croydon where we were met by Orsetta, who welcomed us and explained the task she had for us to complete. There were 4 ton bags of soil she wanted us to empty in the raised beds and spread while pulling out any weeds we came across.

Following the briefing from Orsetta we set off to the ton bags, with 2 wheel barrows and some big yellow buckets, our first round saw us filling the buckets and taking them to the planters and emptying them. We had to spread the soil out amongst the plants that were in the planters without them being buried. Rupal and Shannon assumed the roles of spreading the soil in the planters while the others alternated between filling the buckets and transporting them to the planters.

After a few rounds of decanting the soil into the buckets, one of the bags was able to be taken to the other side of the garden, which led to a team event between Orsetta, Callum and Yasser together the dragged the bag across the other side with a little sprint. We had managed to technically empty one of the ton bags with three more to go. With an eye on the time and 3 more bags to go I put it out there to the team to see if we would be able to get all three bags empty before our time was up. The challenge was accepted and everyone moved a bit quicker to beat the clock. Before we knew it another bag had been decanted enough for it to be moved, this seemed to be the part everyone was waiting for as it gave them an opportunity to do a sprint drag across the court yard to a nearby planter. Up stepped Nic, Orsetta and Yasser, check out their effort on our insta story and give them their ratings.

While spreading the soil in the raised beds there were so many different scents all smelling wonderfully, which prompted us to talk about teas.

Shannon harvested potatoes while spreading soil, which later turned out to be our reward for a job well done we emptied all for ton bags and was rewarded with organic Croydon grown potatoes to take home. Yesterday was first for us in Croydon working with Urban Growth but we showed them that despite the size of the group we do pack a punch.

We said our good byes to Orsetta & co and began our jog back to solutions.

Along the way back you could see that some of the group was feeling the workout however, Callum and Yasser seemed to be still buzzing from the task and had a bit extra in the tank. We split the group into two with a shorter route back to solutions led by Nic and a longer route back led by me. It was no surprise that Callum and Yasser chose the longer route however by the time we got back to solutions where the others had been awaiting our arrival they had burned the extra energy they had. :-)

After allowing them a little break to catch their breaths back we did our stretches where we were joined by a member of the public who wanted to show us his skills at doing the splits however it seemed like he got stuck in that position while we did other stretches. It amused us and his friends.

Well done all for a wonderful evening together and hope to see you all next week, there are talks of a social.