This session was a collaboration with Wild Cookham and a team from Waitrose and Partners.

Wild Cookham needed help with a Ragwort invasion at the Odney Club and Waitrose had people looking for a wellbeing activity. It was meant to be!

GoodGym connected the two groups and Kristina and I joined in for our own wellbeing boost too. It was great to catch up with Kristina, who is one of the few GoodGymers who has been with us since launch.

The weather and setting was beautiful and we had a really refreshing and sociable 45 minutes pulling up ragwort roots and chopping off and bagging up flower heads to reduce the spread. We were picking up where previous working parties had left off and although we didn’t complete the (rather big) job, we made satisfying progress.

Thanks to everyone involved!

Clara, Sheila, Amy, Tony, and Sol made their way to Cookham to join Wild Cookham volunteers to remove weeds and overgrown trees from the pond.

All volunteers split into two teams. Tony and Clara joined the tree cutting team and helped clearing branches leaning over the water.

Amy and Sheila took to stearing the boat to try to measure the depth of the pond. They also helped to cut reeds in the middle of the pond.

Sol put on waders and helped to clear reeds from the bank. It was a muddy task to pull reeds one by one and not to get too deep into muddy waters. This helped to clear 2 meters from the bank. Other volunteers helped to take weeds to a compost pile.

All in all it was a sunny Saturday morning and everyone was in a good mood to spen time outdoors for a good cause.