Kingston River Culture festival needed some help with setting up some gazebos, stalls and exhibition stands. So I met Levita and Saber there at Canbury Gardens and we managed to put 8-9 gazebos up together in our session time.

None of knew how to set up a gazebo so we needed to look it up by watching a short Youtube video which helped! We also needed to watch another video on how to close a broken gazebo which took us longer than to open and set it up.. However, when we needed to set up a replacement, we did it very swiftly within 10 minutes (a record!)

We also had 1-2 people helping us in some parts but we mostly did it all.

Organiser was pleased and thanked for our help!

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.

It had been a while since our last catch-up, so spirits were high when our GoodGym crew met at the Stay Well Centre in New Malden for a sunny two-hour garden blitz. In attendance were Sabir, Petra, Emily, Jana – and our special four-legged helper, Purdey the dog, who kept a close eye on proceedings (and an even closer eye on the sugary jelly sweets Claire from Stay Well kindly left for us!).

The task list was clear: plant new ferns and grasses in the flowerbed and give the patio a good spruce-up. The soil was rock-hard, so we gave it a good watering before planting. Petra and Emily soon got stuck in digging holes and settling the new plants in for the residents to enjoy. Jana tackled the leaves in the flowerbed and wrapped bags around the pesky bindweed, while Sabir powered through weeding all the way down the pathway.

We also blitzed the patio – the weeds didn’t stand a chance. In no time, it was swept and looking completely transformed. Between the gardening, we had plenty of laughs, stories, and catch-ups, making the work fly by.

Two hours later, we had a weed-free patio, freshly planted beds, and a very happy Purdey. A blooming good afternoon all round!

We found ourselves on the edge of a Saxon Encampment Aethel's town at the GoodGym flowerbed as the Saxons had moved in to Canbury Gardens for the weekend.

The flowerbed was pretty weed free so Emily and Susannah tackled the brambles and weeds around the edges whilst Sabir went to the river for water and fed and watered all the plants. Claire meanwhile planted a rudbeckia and an aster which will hopefully bring some colour to the bed. We were finished in time to see the Saxons heading off on their parade.

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.

At Canbury Community Gardens...

A warm welcome to Levita and Caro who joined us at Canbury Community Garden for their first mission. Our tasks included stocking up the water containers with river water ahead of what will be another hot weekend, clearing the overgrown garden paths ready to welcome a local group and harvesting 1.6 kg of baby new potatoes.

Whilst some cutting tools are in need of sharpening to ease clipping long grass and nettles, one of the pruning tools turned out to be quite the opposite! To close the mission head gardener Marilyn offered the team a few 2025 garlic heads and baby potatoes, what a treat 🥔🥔

At the GoodGym plot...

Back at the GoodGym flowerbed a team of Dave, Levita, Sabir and Claire got to work.

Levita and Dave did 3 runs to the river for water to feed the plants whilst Claire cleared the rubbish and leaves and tried to revive some heather’s that had caught the sun.

Then Sabir joined to help fill about 7 wheelbarrows with woodchip to keep the flowerbeds well mulched. With the woodchip spread and the plants fed and watered it was time to leave them to grow. 🌱

Welcome to Levita and Caro and congratulations on completing your on first good deed.

Tonight we had three missions in one! How did we do it? Four of our volunteers went to Refugee Action Kingston to sort the kid's clothes, another went to another RAK office to hang a blind and the rest of us went to Elm Road... phew! Here's the run report about our amazing volunteers...

Nettled but Not Defeated at Elm Road!

In sweltering heat, the GoodGym crew took on the nettle jungle at Elm Road playground, working with the local community group to help reclaim the space for local kids. Armed with spades, forks, and a few poorly chosen gloves (ouch!), we tackled the stubborn roots - some so long they felt like they were heading for Narnia.

Marcos and Tom kept spirits high with sports facts while litter picking, and Rachel captured the action on camera. Newbie John gave it his all but ran out of water - thankfully, local residents came to the rescue with bottles of the good stuff!

Despite roots hiding under the fence, we cleared a massive stretch and even uncovered some old mosaic tiles. One hot, sweaty hour later, the bed was clear and the team absolutely smashed it. Great work all round!

Such a sort out at Refugee Action Kingston

Claire, Anna, Laurel and Sabir ran and walked their way to Refugee Action tonight.

We were greeted by air conditioning which was a welcome relief plus lots of children’s clothes that required sorting. Having made signs for different age categories we sorted the clothes by size for boys and girls and boxed them up so that they could be easily selected by the customers. The area is now much more organised and I’m sure we will be back to tackle the coats another day.

Driller thriller

Dave went to a RAK office to help fix a blind. In his own words has a hot sweaty mess but at least the charity workers won't be now.

GoodGym Kingston - you are simply tri-mendous!

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!

GoodGym Kingston attended one of our favourite local charity shops this evening - the Kingston branch of the British Heart Foundation.

After running, walking and cycling to the task, we were met by our BHF task leader, the ever-joking Christine. Before the task even began she decided to give us a quick behind-the-scenes tour of their massive charity shop. BHF Kingston is housed in what was once a huge BHS store and is set over three floors. Christine took us upstairs, through a couple of locked doors and into what used to be the old BHS cafe and kitchens... now looking more like a post-apocalyptic zombie movie set! Slightly glad that I wasn't alone in the space but fascinating all the same.

And so on to the task. We initially thought we would be setting up a fitness window display this evening but a delivery of sports equipment and tennis racquets had failed to arrive in time. Our attention was hence turned to checking if a load of donated exercise machines were functional. This involved running, cycling, rowing and crunching on a few dozen different machines. Quality control completed we moved a few of the machines from the storage room to the main shop floor and made a mini fitness area ready for the customers to peruse when the store opens tomorrow. Mission accomplished.

Ready for the bi-annual bunting challenge tonight the team headed along to Jubilee Square. The age-old question of "how many GoodGymers does it take to put up bunting?" was certainly answered as we completed the job with almost half an hour to spare, then endeavoured to add a little more... bunting!

Getting the many hands organised with ladders, rolls of bunting and a trusty staple gun was an interesting test of coordination and precision. And of course, no GoodGym session is complete without an impromptu good deed - we squeezed in a quick litter pick to make sure the area is at it's best ahead of Saturday's Good Food, Green Fair and some over-timers stayed behind to help finish chalking out the stall locations, ensuring plenty of space for the main stage.

What a lovely evening and welcome to Shekinah and congratulation on your first task - we hope to have you back soon.