Tonight we welcomed new member Jen 👋🏼 who had heard about us on the grapevine. We also met a new task owner, the lovely Gayle of Hempland Haven - a great community allotment space. Ed made a good first impression by getting lost on the way!

Tonight our task was to weed between the cracks in the paving, to tidy up the site and make it less of a trip hazard. We also shifted some bags of sharp sand (always wondered how sand can be sharp?) ready to fill in the freshly cleaned cracks.

A very satisfying time was had by all, most weeds being easily pulled up by hand (although we also got some excellent brand new weeding tools), while we put the world to rights and strengthened our legs (probably) with lots of squatting. After a quick sweep and a final sprinkle of sand, we were done and on our respective ways home for tea.

Filled two bags of litter from the roadside

With less than an hour to go before the start of tonight's session the rain was still absolutely hammering it down, but the clouds parted and the sun shone on the 21 GG Yorkies who ignored the threat of rain and turned up to help support their local community. Phenomenal stuff!

We started tonight's session by giving a big round of applause to Steve who was attending his frist session since completing the Race to the Stones 100km ultra-marathon. What an incredible achievement. Make sure you give him some big cheers. We then numbered off by naming our favourite junk food courtesy of National Junk Food Day (only in the US, obviously!). As expected our group of runners like their sweet treats including toblerone, cake and chocolates. Amy then led our a walking group making the short journey to the task, whilst Ed led the running group, backmarked by Vicky

Tonight's task was at the Arts Barge. A floating venue and exhibition space which has been a big part of the York arts scene for a fair few years now, but only something that we've recently got involved in having completed a couple of community missions there earlier in the year. At the task we were greeted by Hannah from the Arts Barge team who explained gave us the various nautical names of the parts of the barge that we would be sanding. One was definitely the Gunwale/Gunnel =, but i've completely forgotten the rest! Then we got to work armed with wire brushes, scrapers and sanding blocks and got rid of as much of the flaky paint and dust we could

Whilst the majority of the crew cracked on with the sanding, a few people stayed on dry land and tackled some of the weeds that had re-emerged on the moorings since we last visited. Unfortunately we didn't quite have the array of tools that we had last time, so the guys made do with a broom, a hoe and their hands in order to dig out as many weeds as possible

Despite a few dicey moments, everyone did a remarkable job of not falling into the water and the only distractions were a few cygnets who wondered what all the fuss was, and Cara's half-joking threat of doing a balancing act along the mooring line

After packing our tools away and getting a cracking group photo on the deck, it was then over to Amy for tonight's nautical themed fitness session! We headed round the corner to St George's Field car park and boarded our imaginary boat across 3 vacant coach parking spaces. Amy then proceeded to call out boating terms such as 'Port', 'Stern' and 'Climb the rigging' with each having an appropriate exercise attached. After a few trial rounds it soon became an elimination event with the last person to perform each exercise dropping out each time. Micheal and Issy proving to be tonight's Sea Dogs being the last 2 standing!

We then headed back to port (CVS) with the walking group growing considerably after Ed mentioned taking a slightly longer route back for the run!

It was lovely to meet first time GG, Abi at the task. The sun came out as we erected gazebos, puzzled over the one with poles with 1 missing (where do all the poles go?) and helped move tables and chairs from the race course event tent. We did all this whilst carefully avoiding the crowds of children, gathering for Junior park run! A mascot cockapoo accompanied us everywhere. Good Dog! All in all a good work out before breakfast, pet!

Mike, Elle and Jenna made short work of the hoovering, dismantling of tables and chair stacking. The floor was swept like a school caretaker and voila, job done!

We started the session tonight by celebrating some fantastic running achievements over the weekend, which were even more remarkable given the heatwave. Paul Kelly completed Lakeland trail 55km, with Max also doing 35 of it! Steve raced to the stones - completing a 100km ultra, and Becky, Nikki, Ed, Tristan and Nikki's brother attempted the Snowden challenge. This got canceled so they ran up and down twice each anyway!

We then welcomed Kit for his second task, warmed up then headed over to Scarcroft Allotments with Ed leading the way, Pete backmarking and Nikki and Abi with the walking group.

When we arrived, the plot we were asked to clear was so overgrown we barely all get in but armed with a wide selection of tools we soon started clearing space. Jan joined us there for her second task too, welcome back! Eventually we got to ground level then a team took to having a go at mattocking out some large roots. One mattock and seven observers seemed to be the mist effective method!

Before we knew it it was time for the team photo and to head to the grassy patch for fun fitness. This got quite competitive and folk worked hard. Good job it was only a km back to base!

Another good job and another plot ready for new tenants!