We were blessed by the weather – dry and cool. Goodgym volunteers were joined by ECCO regulars Ann Douthwaite, Mike Griffiths, Steve Thompson and me. Adding together those present to those who undertook preparatory work, 19 people were involved in the tasks:
- Removing thistles which were already threatening to choke life from the flowers and shrubs planted in the Joan Pick memorial bed on 6 March
- Litter-picking along The Boulevard
- Cutting back brambles and ivy from the planted areas
Altogether 19 purple bags were filled with litter and nasty weeds.
As ever, grateful thanks to Conroy Barnett and his hard-working Goodgym colleagues, and to Tracey Bellamy, the last Council officer standing after the culling of the “Don’t Mess with Croydon” and Neighbourhood Safety teams, who liaises with local volunteers to ensure that equipment is provided and bagged rubbish collected by the contractor. Residents are more and more called upon to volunteer to do tasks which stop the public realm getting any worse than it already is. Residents are prepared to assist. But we cannot make an effective effort without the facilitation of the Council.
Goodgym will be returning in June. ECCO’s “usual suspects” would be glad to see some new local faces on that occasion.
Jerry Fitzpatrick
East Croydon Community Organisation 
shame the bags from last year were not removed too , they are still there !
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I have just walked along “The Boulevard” and could see a small group of black bags in the raised bed outside East Croydon Medical Centre and a single black bag in the bed opposite no 57 Addiscombe Road. Are these the ones you are referring to? As far as I know, they only use purple bags during the GoodGym sessions. The black bags may be as the result of fly tipping, which you can report to Croydon Council for removal.
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Hi
Thanks for the reply , yes , those are the bags I mentioned, you will find that these are not fly tip category, but they were left over by the last cleanup team for the boulevard, The council did pick up most of the bags left for them which were black last year but these were left behind , they are not easy to get at now but I’m sure you will find the contents are weeds and litter .
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Hi, Steve. The clean up before the recent one was on 14 November 2023. All the bags used then were purple as you can see in the photo on this post https://wordpress.com/post/eastcroydon.org.uk/14991 . Also, no one went on the beds themselves as it was very dark, we were mostly removing fallen leaves and tidying up vegetation overflowing onto the foot path. However, the next clean-up should take place in June and I will draw attention to the black bags on the beds then.
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