Who’d have thought it: another damp night for doing good.

Still, that didn’t deter tonight’s sturdy group of GoodGymers, all keen to head to Bow’s GET OUT garden to help Kieran and Frankie get some garlic into the ground.

But first, the fitness…

Helen, Martin and Rohan all joined tonight’s sweat squat at the bottom of Harley Grove. Confined largely to balance, standing abs and lower body moves (due to damp surfaces), the team proved truly robust when it came to rotating endless lunge and squat variations.

After a couple of laps of the square, we finished with a few final moves, said hello to John, and made our way around to the garden where tonight we were… planting garlic!

Why were we here?

Background to tonight’s visit

GET OUT is a local charity that ‘connects young people and children from disadvantaged areas to nature through surfing and related projects.’ The GET OUT garden in Bow is a community garden and food forest project that acts as a hub for both education and connecting the wider community to nature.

GoodGymers from both Newham and Tower Hamlets Areas visit once a month to assist task owners Kieran and Frankie with larger gardening tasks.

And so to the task...

Tonight we were helping to weed and distribute fresh soil and compost over a new planting bed, before planting three rows of garlic (garlic helps to fertilise soil, as well as being a useful, healthy cooking ingredient).

To start with, John, Johnny and Frankie headed to the polytunnel to fill wheelbarrows with compost, while Rohan, Vlad and Martin started on weeding and raking. Helen headed to the table area to separate many cloves from many garlic bulbs, while I took some pics and Kieran remained on project management.

It wasn’t long before the whole team was gathering for the planting finale, with Vlad and I tasked with positioning the tape to establish a straight line (the team decided unanimously that Vlad’s line was infinitely straighter than mine), with the rest of the team using dibbers to get those cloves 2.5 inches into the ground (no more no less).

We nearly did it by 8pm…Not quite, but not too bad going.

The drizzle didn’t let up, but neither did our spirits. Buoyed on by new gardening techniques and a bit of banter, it was another Monday night to cheer the soul.

Until next time.

We had a great little fitness session in Tower Hamlets before tonight’s task!

After dropping bags at the lovely Town Hall Hotel reception, David, Martin, José and I headed out to local Museum Gardens.

After a couple of laps navigating some rather uneven paths, we settled on a well located park bench for the obligatory weekly Bulgarian split squats.

We moved onto pulsing side plank dips to tackle upper body strength before ‘enjoying’ a couple of running drills, after which we made our way back to the Hotel to meet Vlad and Tamara.

Heading across Patriot Square, we were greeted by tonight’s task owners Katie, Natalia and Margaret, of the Patriot Square Tenants and Residents’ Association.

Why were we here?

Patriot Square TRA and residents are keen to make Patriot Square as wildlife-friendly and usable for all local residents as possible.

A new hedge, complete with blackberry bushes, has provided food and homes for wildlife but it’s grown a bit high. Branches overhang the well-used path, as well as obscuring visibility onto the adjacent dog-walking park. So as the nights draw in, now seemed a good time to improve visibility in this area.

Armed with shears, loppers, secateurs, lights, gloves and some newly-acquired pruning know-how, we got to work. Making our way from entrance to end-of-path, we cut and chopped and bagged lots and lots of overhanging branches and leaves. This proved to be a fantastic upper body workout indeed.

The time seemed to fly by as usual, and it was well after 8 before we gathered for that all-important group pic.

We said our cheerios to the Patriot Square Dream Team before heading our separate ways and looking forward to our next session.

Well done to everyone tonight, for some fab fitness and a good evening’s work. …And an extra big shout-out to our Task Force member Stephen, who set this task up!

Until next time.

Monday motivation

A damp evening was no deterrent for tonight’s group of GoodGymers.

Gathering by Columbia Road’s Ravenscroft Park Mosaic, we said our hellos; speculated about the weather (some of us more than others) and assembled new head torches (Emma).

The team sped through ‘the regular moves’ (Bulgarian split squats, single-leg squats, push-ups on the bench), with Emma and Oliver instead opting for a few laps of the park.

It was damp, it was humid - it was also relatively busy - but that didn’t deter tonight’s fitness squad.

At just before 8, we headed ‘round to the Estate gardens to meet Ed and Ed of the Columbia Road TRA.

Why were we here?

This Columbia Road estate is situated in-and-around Columbia Road, sandwiched between Hackney Road and Columbia Road. Managed by Tower Hamlets Homes, the Columbia TRA (a residents’ group living in-and-around the estate) also take a keen interest in maintaining these gardens.

The group are in the process of creating a Forest Garden, a ‘multi-level ecosystem’ (trees at the top, then bushes, flowers, etc) which will enable residents to produce food on the estate, as well as helping to ‘boost’ the environment, by supporting a healthy habitat for birds and bugs.

Today we were completing some planting; spreading woodchip (helps control weeds, and maintain healthy soil), and weeding (gives more space to those plants that are wanted and needed).

Top teamwork

Ed and Ed divided us into four teams: woodchip-shovelling, woodchip-wheeling, planting, and Weeding Teams 1 and 2. But first we enjoyed The Weed Tutorial. As it sounds, this fabulous little Show and Tell enabled the GoodGymers to see, touch and learn about the weeds found in the garden (invaluable when it comes to deciding what’s staying and what’s going on a dark Monday night).

The rain held out, the group size grew, and the time flew. It was a fantastic evening.

It was after 8 before we were gathering equipment and emptying the last bag of mulch.

GoodGymers and Columbia TRA gathered for a final group picture, before heading our separate ways but not before enjoying some much-needed cake, courtesy of Victoria and Emma.

How so?

Tonight we celebrated Emma’s 100th good deed. Joining us in the middle of 2021, Emma promptly clocked up a lot of deeds in a very short space of time, swiftly joined Task Force, and completed the Run Leader training to boot.

A regular GoodGymer and booster of spirits extraordinaire, Emma’s 100th good deed was a celebration for sure.

A wonderful evening all round – well done to all, especially to Fiona for tonight’s cool pun, and to Greta, who joined us for her first GoodGym session and did great! Hope to see you again soon Greta!

Next week, we head to The Royal London Hospital!

Until then.

We are now on three for three in terms of newcomers coming to our group run. This week, Sam greeted Vlad, who had been to a Southwark task before (his first good deed was at Thorlands on a Saturday). However, this was his first group run with Southwark. Welcome Vlad! As we all gathered in Old Spike, everyone rushed in as the drizzle came about; Nathan and Lindy arrived one after another whilst Nelly strolled in and finally, Daryl. Sam got a text message from Paulin that he would meet her and James at the task, so he started his GoodGym intro speech mainly for Vlad.

Since they did not want to brave the small amount of rain, Sam skipped the warm up and asked two ice-breaker questions: Who is your favourite Eurovision act this year? and for those not into Eurovision: What fruit or vegetable would you like to have an abundance of?

Nelly and Sam were the only ones into Eurovision and said "Finland" is their favourite act. The others chose the other question with Lindy starting us off with "mushrooms", Daryl said "potatoes", Vlad mentioned his love for "strawberries" and James said "corn".

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Eurovision-sceptics

Thanks to Daryl, who back marked again as we took the same route as last week, but turned left instead of right at the end of the run. Our 3k run took us 18 minutes to get there. We met James and Paulin at the task and they were already getting stuck in as they were cleaning windows.

Catherine met the rest of us inside for a few refreshments that she had prepared (including some strawberries...one for Vlad) as she told us that the task had changed slightly due the cub scouts using the hall where we would clean/disinfect the baby toys. There were some gardening gloves and tools by the refreshments as she asked us to weed the garden and parking space.

Sam split the group with Daryl, Lindy and Nathan taking control of trimming and weeding the front garden whilst the second team consisting of Nelly and Vlad as they paired up to take care of the weeds in the parking lot.

Sam moved between these groups to get photos whilst he had a Eurovision playlist going on to set the mood. He also got stuck in with some weeding but ultimately ensured everyone was doing fine.

As 20:00 approached and pretty much all the weeding done, the team stopped to pack up, get some more refreshments before proceeding back to Old Spike. James, Paulin and Lindy made their own way back home.

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Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came out tonight! It wasn't the task that was advertised, but thank you for getting stuck in with the alternative tasks. You could see the difference from the start to 40 minutes later. Thank you for coming back for your second task and first group run in Southwark, Vlad!

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Thank You Catherine

GoodGym is all about getting fit and doing good! We praise the runners/cyclists/walkers who come to get fit and help out, but we often forget about our task owner. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Catherine who ensured we had tasks to do as our original task couldn't be performed due to the hall being in use. There's always plenty to do at Salvation Army Camberwell Corps.