Tonight 5 GoodGymers ran to West Leeds Activity Centre where we moved mulch and bark from one part of the site to another. it was surprisingly hard work and we literally went round and round with our wheelbarrows!

The run was challenging in the heat, so I think it's fair to say we had a pretty good workout this week!

6 goodgymers met to run on a lovely sunny evening.

The Run

Our run was a long one - 4km each way this evening - taking in the surroundings of Headingley and Kirkstall. It was a nice gradual decent down to Kirkstall, so a few running drills were thrown in for good measure.

The Task

*'The Bramble is the cradle of the Oak' for their role in protecting woodland areas, however now that the oak tree is established, we needed to set it free! Thick brambles can prevent young trees from growing.

We chose our tools and headed over to save the tree. It didn't take long to start to uncover the tree and very soon we were all admiring how much we had managed to accomplish. We could hardly recognise where we were.

It turns out Rachael was not prepared for standing next to Rob, as he was rather enthusiastic when discarding brambles (sorry for the scratches, Rachael!).

Woah! Black Berry

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_2D8Eo15wE

Well done everyone for your great work and see you next week!

Four fabulous goodgymers, Rachael, Alex, Katie and Rob, met on a sunny spring evening expecting to plant trees. What we didn't expect was an impromptu arboreal lesson! We found out lots of interesting facts about how to identify trees, as well as how to brew a homemade beech drink (apparently they have a slight citrous taste)!

Robbie, our task owner and tree ID expert, imparted some of his knowledge on how to identify different trees from their buds - beech trees have pointed buds, rowan buds are hairy all over, oak buds form clusters, to name a few. There were many facts and insights, so please comment below if you remember any others :)

We headed over to the field and were shown how to plant the saplings in the soil. After the demonstration, we split into pairs and got to work, making sure we marked them carefully to avoid any accidental mowing (they were on the edge of a football field). After 45 mins of planting - and, most importantly, tree-whispering to encourage them to grow - we had successfully planted between 35 and 40 trees between us. That's just tree-ific.

Well done everyone - it was great to be back at West Leeds Activity centre and we are pleased we were able to help out with some more tree planting. You can check out our instragram post here for a few photos : Instagram

We fully intend to come back soon for some more fun tasks and can't wait to see how our saplings get on! Look out for upcoming tasks in the near future.