Today it was less about gardening and more about maintenance. We started checking all of the Gazebos to make sure they were fit for purpose. Ready for the many events planned this summer, we'd need 2-3 tgat functioned. 3 were found to be fine and even had their roof covering, the others not 100% but repairable. With everything duly labelled, we moved on to checking if we had additional roof coverings and side panels. No roof coverings but side panels with windows duly checked and tidily packed away, with other areas in PCC to be checked separately. The Park had been mowed earlier in the week, but areas around the beds, box planting and signage needed to be tidied up with shears or edge cutters. Finally, after a bit of weeding, we gave our 'Friends of Victoria Park' plant box a good watering. It's looking lovely and the wild flower seeds are poking through. One of the volunteers is bringing in some lavender to attract the bees. We enjoyed refreshments, biscuits and a chat about swimming with Sharks!

It was a busy morning at the food bank today with less than 10 volunteers. 😱🤯

Lisa and Yvonne were the only helpers out back making up food parcels. 🥫📦 There’s a new system where customers can choose what they would like, which is supposed to avoid swaps, but doesn’t! 🙄 It takes much longer to make up orders, so still needs some work.

Pat was one of 2 helpers on the cafe 🍰 ☕after someone had a strop and went home.😾 Fiona did a great job today running the show, keeping morale up and greeting everyone on the door. 😊👏

One goodgymer joined 5 Friends of Milton Common volunteers and the Countrside Officer to do a mega litterpick!

In just 3 hours we cleared a stretch of Milton Common and filled 15 bin bags with litter and fly tipping including a TV, 2 signs, a witches hat, a fire extinguisher, a bench, a trolley and 16 shoes!

We also had the time to identify 4 species of butterflies and 6 birds.

The birds were singing and the butterflies fluttering - Baffins is looking great. Glad to say there wasn't much litter this morning.

its amazing how much litter two goodgymers can find in just 30 minutes!

Two bin bags were filled, plus half a burnt traffic cone and a broken child's scooter picked up.

What a gorgeous evening and a beautiful location for tonight's task! The sun was shining whilst our tasks were in the shade of the trees at the People's Memorial.

Brenda had prepared two benches for us to paint, but within the hour we had managed to paint those, prep and paint two more, and weed the memorial garden too!

There were only a few whoopsies of people putting their hands or arms in wet paint, which considering Dave and Andy started painting the bench top before the struts was pretty impressive!