We were tasked with moving 4 heavy trees from a garden to Rowntree Park. The trees were kindly donated by the residents but we needed to help move them as they were heavy.

We arrived and to our surprise there were 6 trees, and they were big, very big! We weren't put off however and got to work removing the trees from the very heavy pots and borrowing them down to the park. We may have made a mess, but we managed to make headway.

After the heavy graft, and some creative "root pruning" (his words, not ours), we managed to move 5. Unfortunately one was too big and heavy to move. It didn't matter however as the resident was very happy and Rowntree Park now has new trees for decoration.

7 of us met at Rowntree Park to help the Make Space for Girls project to finish off the area ready for this evening's launch event. This is aiming to reduce the drop off of park use in girls as they reach their teenage years. They had fundraised for a bench, basket swing and balance log which we tested in the interest of quality control! They had saved some log stumps from a fallen tree which we collected from various locations and helped secure in place with wooden stakes that were bashed into place either side with mallets and screwed into the logs. We then retired for a well deserved lunch in the cafe.

A small but talented group of Goodgymmers broke off from their second day of eating chocolate for an Easter Monday trip to Rowntree Park.

With three tasks to complete, we split into groups. The first task involved securing the logs in the sitting circle with stakes, screws and tools. Martin was definitely in his element with Radu, Barbara and Michael ably assisting. Speeding though the task, they were also able to join in the second task, barrowing woodchip to be placed around some of the saplings in the park.

With Neil shoveling (and eventually Martin and Michael as well), Leanne, Barbara and Radu were able to shuttle the woodchip to Jenna and Nick. They took charge of ensuring it was laid correctly. The woodchip is intended to reduce the weeds that would otherwise grow up around them and reduce their growth.

The final task was to dig out the nettles that were already starting to grow around the circle. Paul, Claire and Jamie attacked the area on the left whilst Lucy, Abigail and Hannah dealt with the nettles on the right. The ground was soft but the nettle roots were deep as usual so some of them put up a lot of fight before accepting they were coming out. Hannah managed to pull out some incredibly long roots so hopefully the nettles will remain gone for a good while.

With lots achieved in a short space of time, we put the tools away and played an exercise themed game of cards before heading back for some well earned brownies courtesy of Barbara.

Rowntree Park has recently reopened after flooding and everyone is hard at work to tidy up the damage. A big pile of bark chippings had been left blocking a main path through the park - a worrying prospect with the Easter holidays fast approaching! Luckily a hit squad of Friday lunchtime Goodgymers was available to shift the chippings to the storytelling circle and clear the path for park users. As a bonus, we also collected some cut logs, a few to add to the circle and others to provide habitat for woodland creatures. A lovely sunny task followed by a nice café break - a perfect end to the week.

💫30 fantastic GoodGymmers came out on a cool but clear starry night for our final group run of January. Having beaten both our good deeds and distance targets for the January Challenge, we were keen to see if we could get to 500 good deeds, and we’re getting SO close, it’s pretty nail-biting stuff 😬

👋 We were thrilled to welcome Grace and Benjamin for their first GoodGym session. We hope you enjoyed it and would love to see you back if you did 😁

☕️ Our walking group set off for Rowntree Park while we warmed up, lunging/running round the circle while saying our GoodGym highlight of January. Lots of love for all the food and socialising that’s accompanied many of the tasks, and also brilliant to hear from people who have joined (or rejoined!) during January 🙌

➗We split into two groups with Mitch leading half the gang to Back Park. Here’s what he had to say about what they got up to…

🍂 We arrived at Back Park and were tasked with clearing the grounds of all the leaves. With a wide assortment of tools (including the leaf scraper which was amazing!) We quickly filled 10 bags 💪

🗯️ Quote of the night from this gang - "I come with a lot of baggage".

🏃‍♀️🚶🚲The rest of us ran/walked/cycled to Rowntree Park where we were met by Jenny and a list of tasks. We split into different teams, doing various tasks all over the park.

🌳 We had tree-moving teams, shifting a very heavy tree in a pot to a different part of the park (and only discovering afterwards that we weren’t using the trolley to its full helpfulness). The other part of Team Tree were digging up a tree. This was quite the manual labour, requiring much muscle and exertion but also skill to work out where the roots were that still needed cutting.

🌊 Meanwhile, we had a couple of groups on path-clearing, making sure the paths were clear and not slippery, following the recent floods. After some discussion of where the debris should go, sensible homes were found for it and it was distributed. There was also some discussion about if/where/how ducks and swans sleep, after seeing a fair few still bobbing along on the water, even at this time 🦢

🌲 The final Rowntree group started off clearing the top path (by the cafe) of debris then moved onto some topiary, cutting back bushes and considering potential shapes to mould them into. They looked great and there was still a hint of an elephant to one of them at the end (if only there was a GoodGym topiary badge…) 🐘

📸 After failing to drag Team Tree from their task, we posed for a (not-quite-complete) group photo. We heard a cheer while heading back to fetch them and were able to see their felled (by digging) tree, alongside some rosy faces and cheery smiles ☺️

🌟 It was time to make our way back to base where we did some celebratory fitness, featuring sprints and star-shaped exercises.

🍻 And then it was time to stretch and part ways, some to the pub and some off home.

👏 Thank you for some brilliant work tonight everyone, we’re SO close to 500 good deeds now so if anyone’s free to join the final task tomorrow evening to help us get there, we’d love to see you 🙏

*Credit to Cara for the pun 🤣

A terrific trio of GG Yorkies met at Carr Junior School to help Christine move some wood chips.

After gathering a couple of wheelbarrows and tools we started on the 2 large bags of wood chips, using the "rake it off the top" method for the taller bag which worked pretty well. As we got further down it was much harder but did give us a good upper body workout.

The wood chips were put around the bases of a variety of fruit trees in the nearby orchard to suppress any weeds. After an hour of hard work we'd covered most of the trees and given Christine a real helping hand in keeping the orchard healthy.