A beautiful day saw 7 of us help out a the lovely family fun day at Roots4Life today. Justine, Johnny, Sarah, Ashton and myself helped in the first shift, Justine and Ashton manning the smoothy bike (a great hit with kids and grown ups alike!), Johnny and Sarah on the bouncy castle, me on the raffle stall and as if it was all perfectly planned, Khai and Sarah arrived to take over after their respective tasks of building a train set and litter picking in the morning! You've gotta give extra kudos to the double deeders any day!

Great to see you all and thank you for helping the event go smoothly! The session next week at Roots has been cancelled but we'll be back to help with their growing day on the 7th June!

Until next time 🥰

A fired up team from GoodGym joined Clean Up Charlton members for an hour on the circuit around the retail park in SE7. Half the group tackled the usual debris in Anchor & Hope Lane and Bugsby's Way, and the rest Woolwich Road and a 'grot-spot' at the car-charging station. Now, as well as clean energy, we have a clean pavement there. Then it was a brief call to 'Frankie & Benny's Alley' which we will have to rechristen 'Popeye Lane' now - doesn't mean it has any less litter!

Thanks for a great effort to everyone who attended - you light up our life!

A fresh Sunday morning in May saw 6 goodgym-ers make their way to the hidden gem that is Westcombe Woodlands. The area was saved from developers by the Friends Group, and is now looked after by volunteers to keep the woodlands biodiverse and accessible to all who want to visit.  Today included an open afternoon, so our mission this morning was to help get the woodland walks ready for guests of all ages. Armed with secateurs, loppers and choppers, we clipped back overhanging branches, floor dwelling creepers threatening to trip up visitors, as well as nettles, brambles and anything else which may have proved hazardous. We also got to work sweeping up the pathways and planting in designated areas.  The woodlands are a haven for wild flowers,  including some interesting specimens (if anyone knows what the green cylindrical plants are in the pics please comment...?!) several tree species, as well as beehives to help keep everything pollinated. A lovely location and one of GGG's regular missions. Thanks all and hope to see you.soon! Also a big thanks to Ashton for the photos 🙂

A gorgeous spring evening saw seven goodgym-ers make their way along cherry blossom-lined streets, to St Richard's Church in Charlton.

Our task here was to continue our project working on the outside area, clearing away weeds and making the area into a usable outdoor space. First up was moving back the cardboard placed down during the last task, then tackling those pesky return weeds with all the tools we could find.

It was time to level up the playing field a bit to make a flatter surface for the membrane layer. A game of rock paper scissors then ensued to get the membrane down, and we embraced our inner cave people discovering which makeshift tools worked best for hammering in the pegs without a hammer.

The surface is now ready and waiting for a delivery of wood chip mulch so watch this space for its progress!

Have a lovely Easter weekend/Spring break everyone & catch up soon! 🙂

Next week we're back at Prince Philip Maritime Collections centre- hope to see you there.

Another sunny Sunday and GoodGym, CleanUpCharlton and a local friend set out to clean the mean streets of SE7. Hopefully the person who complained about the state of Ramac Way on FixMyStreet recently will see a bit of a difference - but what's with all the balloons? (Almost 99 and none of them red!). And why are there SO many cigarette ends in the cycle lane? It's these type of intellectual questions that GoodGymers have to try to answer...

We left 4 bags for Greenwich Council (in the approved grey bags), sorted out some Asda trollies so they didn't cause a car crash, and made a neat pile of bigger items that will hopefully be collected too. And then it was off to the M&S cafe as usual for refreshments.