What a glorious evening to be newt and aboot with GoodGym Greenwich! With 13 of us gathered and the sun shining brightly, we set off on a scenic run through beautiful Greenwich Park, with Marta managing to sneak in the final part of her interval training en route!

A happy welcome back to Jia for her second good geed with us!

Our destination was the lovely garden of St Alfege’s Primary School, where we were met with a list of garden tasks organised by Amanda the Headteacher who popped in to say hello! Between us, we:

🌱 Weeded garden beds and turned over the soil

🛶 Emptied out a boat planter and refilled it with fresh soil

🌳 Replanted a tree

🛞 Emptied and weeded tyre planters, topping them up with fresh compost

📦 Cleared out and organised some storage crates

But, you ask - what's with title of the report? Well, we also found a newt who was very sweet. Ivar may have wanted to adopt him but settled for popping him back in the pond area. One of the cuter amphibians in my opinion and a lovely surprise this evening.

Anyway, with such a great team, the jobs were done in no time and after a group pic we enjoyed a little river run back to base before parting ways for the evening, with that satisfying post-good-deed glow.

St Alfege’s is starting a monthly community gardening session, so keep an eye out for more tasks coming soon as the school transforms this space for wider community use!

Coming up next...

🎉 This Saturday we’re helping set up and close down at the Beats, Boards, and BBQ event in Charlton Park and we have gardening at Hervey Road

🏃‍♀️ Next Wednesday we’ll be meeting at Charlton House for a group run to Brooklands School for more garden work!

Until next time, wonderful people! 👋

Rachel

An unusual week for us with a double task and a double mode of transport! We had 2 tasks in need of help tackling the weeks: Luxmore Garden and Florence Green.

Welcome to Philippa it was her first ever good deed and we hope to see you again soon!

Whilst Paul led the warm up I cycled off up the hill to wait at Luxmore for everyone to arrive (I can confirm that hill is just as bad when cycling). Once everyone arrived and the small group of Marta and Alison had headed to Florence Green to join Vic and Julian. It was time to get stuck into some weeding at both tasks.

The key thing at Luxmore is to always leave the ornamental grass but take out the non-ornamental grass which we always find tricky! There was plenty of alkinet and other weeds to be pulling up as well.

Over at Florence Green, the weeds between the hedge saplings that we helped plant needed to be removed to give the best chance of the hedges growing big and strong.

It was time to regroup as a whole group for the group photo and then back down the hill to Glass Mill.

Next weeks task is to Seniors!

What a fantastic time we had helping out at The Community Hospice!

This was our most popular community mission so far, with GoodGym members coming from Greenwich, Tower Hamlets, Camden, and of course, Bexley. It was great to see so many friendly faces ready to get stuck in!

Jason, the Head Gardener, had lots of jobs for us to do to get the garden looking at its best before the Open Gardens Festival next weekend. And wow—we got loads done!

✅ We pulled out weeds

✅ Cleared ivy and brambles from the wall

✅ Cut back some bushes

✅ Tidied up the whole area

Everyone worked hard and made a big difference. The garden is now looking fresher and ready to welcome visitors!

We also had some brilliant milestones to celebrate:

🎉 A huge congratulations to John gaining his GoodGym crown with his 500th good deed—amazing 👑!

👏 Well done to Zita, Robert, and Caroline for reaching 10 good deeds each.

Go team!

Thanks to everyone who came along—it was such fun, and we’re already looking forward to the next one. 🌼🌳

To quote Marta "Thanks everyone! Very happy to have had 900 opportunities to spend time with amazing people like you guys!! ❤️". Well we're more than happy to share you with Greenwich and to celebrate the amazing achievement of 900 good deeds! You might have to wait another 100 good deeds for a tshirt and with your current rate of good deeds, we'll need to get planning for that one soon.

The task for the evening was to Alexander Care Home in Ladywell to continue tackling the weeds in the garden. We made a good dent in the flower beds last time and now this time we were focusing on the gaps in the pacing stones and the alkinet and brambles at the back of the garden.

The group then took a leisurely walk to keep me company on the short journey to Mamma Dough. It was good to chat about Charlotte Church, Marta staring in a gameshow, Saturday morning TV and the Pope visiting Charlton.

Thanks to Paul for getting the group to the task whilst I jumped on the bus. Next week is a double task so we need all hands on deck to tackle weeds at both Florence Green and Luxmore Garden.