A HUGE #GGSHEFF welcome to new runner:

Ben

Give him a whoop, hola, cheer and follow!

Great to meet with you and have a chat Ben, hope you're back again with Steph in the near future!

This weeks task took us back to Lynwood Gardens, a lovely section of a re-routed part of the Sustrans National Cycle Network (NCN) that keeps people off the busier Glossop Road.

We'd not been back for a while, so we got stuck straight in with the following tasks:

• Graffiti removal
• Sign cleaning
• Leaf sweeping
• Looping and chopping back

In a short space of time the path was looking a whole lot clearer and the line of sight much improved, making it much more accessible and less intimidating for any users.

We also hear that the next task with Sustrans would be Simon's last as he passes the reigns to John Kirkword who will be leading on all things Sustrans and goodgym in 2025. He has kindly offered to buy us a drink at the end of the next Sustrans task at The Durham Ox on Dec 2nd. I think it should be us buying him a drink for the efforts he's put in though!

Until next time, happy running :)

A BIG #GGSHEFF welcome to two new runners:

Katie from Leeds.

Carla from Brighton.

Tonights task was at The Hope Centre, an impressively massive space that has a whole raft of things going on from Church, to youth to conference based activities.

We met Mark McKnight the Facilities manager on site who gave us a brief on the evenings task which was to sort through chairs and tape up the ones that need attention due to wobbling issues or screws starting to come through the fabric which is a right pain in the arse!

We made quick work of the chairs in the conference room and soon moved down into the MEGA CELLAR where the were a MEGA LOAD of chairs to also go through. We got straight to it, forming a production line that would have made Jeff Bezos blush!

After a decent session on the chairs we rolled and shuffled them back into the storage area, ready for the facilities team to do their thing to improve the sturdiesness and comfort of our four legged friends.

We'll be back to The Hope Centre again for some sorting of other items and possibly some skip filling to help make room for converting the MEGA CELLAR into a Youth Club.

Until next time, happy running :)

A big welcome to new runner to the group Stephanie. Stephanie did a fantastic effort on her first group run out and even cycled to and from The Showroom as well!

This week we were completing our final weir fish survey for the Don Catchment Rivers Trust (DCRT).

It is really getting to the stage where it is too dark to be able to see the weirs and once the clocks change at the end of the month it will most certainly be too dark so it's the right time to be wrapping it up.

We got to 3 passes and all were looking good as far as we could see, although there was some pretty large overgrowth in some areas, making it tricky to fully see some areas.

With a good 5km or there abouts by the time we returned, this was a good distance for a first run so we called it there until the next one.

Happy running! :)

Tonights task had us heading to Rock Street to meet Karen from Pitsmoor Pickers and some friends to help clear Rock St which can get littered up!

Once we found Karen who was already picking away, we got tooled up with bags, pickers and hoops and headed up hill on either side of the road, picking as we went.

Karen was on cans, so we collected seperate piles of these to be recycling in the future and cashed in to pay for other litter picking equipment.

At the end of the session Rachel very kindly offered us all some treats that were left over from her 100th Park Run celebrations at the weekend. They were DELICIOUS and very much appreciated, thank you again Rachel!

Until next time, happy running! :)

In the city we live in, the city of Steel, we ran to meet SUSTRANS SIMON who was on site with his chariot of tools ready to welcome us to an area of the cities cycle network that was in need of some love.

The area just off the ring road, under a railway bridge is a key link from the city centre up to the hospital. Unfortunately it can collect a fair amount of litter and dirt, making it less appealing for people to use it.

We got brushes and shovels and got straight to work collecting litter and bagging up soil and rubbish to clear what is actually a really good bit of tarmac when it's clear. There was also a bit of weeding to do where the plants were fighting back through the cracks.

After a decent spell at the site, it was looking soooooo much better than before. Simon gave us some interesting facts about the link and the railway line above our heads before we said our goodbyes and headed home to The Showroom for some drinks and chat.

Until next time, happy running :)

It was biblical rain outside, but we didn't let that stop us!

A hilly route up to Heeley was our path to go and help Fran from Heeley Green Community Garden.

We started with some weeding of planters, in preparation for new plants going in.

We made quick work of this and next we set our sights a bit higher to cut back some of the overgrown tree branches to allow more light into this overgrown and dark area of the community garden.

By the time we had done this, the water was seeping in to the skin, but there's only so wet you can get so we ploughed on, continuing to weed the area and prepare it for future plantings.

When we were done the area was looking much more clear and ready for a future task of turning the soil over and planting some bulbs for the future!

Until next time, happy running :)