Ben joined Heaton Mersey Village Conservation Group with a taskforce kind of day down by the river. There were lots of other helpers, including corporate volunteers from Manchester Airport and other engineering companies plus several local residents and members (there are >380!) of the conservation group too.

The conservation group look after 33-ish acres of land around Heaton Mersey alongside the council, and today we were doing some work near Burnage Rugby Club on the river bank. Jo and Janette (?) were in charge.

Before getting started, we had a health & safety briefing and introduced to Mark, one of the Burnage Rugby Club owners, who could provide teas & coffees, bacon butties, or a combination of the two. We were all decked out in high viz and gloves, ready to take on the forthcoming tasks.

Darrell from the council provided a whole host of equipment including spades, litter pickers & bags, loppers, choppers, balsam bashing tools (they looked cool), plus several wheelbarrows to actually carry the items to the work site.

As a large group, we were split into two:

• A group to litter pick and balsam bash
• A group to clear the area near a wild pond

I joined the latter, wanting to help clear the weeds, grass, and overgrown brambles for people to enjoy the picnic benches and to access the pond boardwalk and information post. Little did I know how big a task it would be... Beyond the board walk was a WALL OF BRAMBLES that apparently used to be a path! Our mission was to clear this to make a path to the parallel one through the area. With lots and lots of chopping, lopping, clearing, raking, and strimming of the brambles, nettles, blackthorn, all while dodging a bee's nest, we managed to successfully clear a path that can now be used by the general public.

Alas, I didn't get a before shot... and my legs are somewhat stung and cut up due to the low hanging brambles... but it was a fantastic 3 hours with a proactive group of volunteers and look forward to helping out next time. I also missed out on the lunch as I had to get back into the lab to finish a Western blot and add some drugs to cells. Productive day all round.

Ben, Hannah and Laura returned to Castle Street in Edgeley to complete a litter pick.

Another week of successfully dodging the rain, we filled 3 litter bags (mostly with mini wine bottles!) which we left next to the public bins to be collected by the council.

Another great session!

Peter and Ben met up for a light jog and litter pick in Manchester.

After meeting outside the Central Library in St Peter's Square, we made the run to Hulme park. The park itself was thankfully spotless, but the surrounding area and places near the road and footbridge had seen a build up of litter and discarded waste. We collected 7 full bags in total plus other large items consisting of:

• Pillows
• Shoes
• Lots of drinks bottles and cans
• Car bumper
• Piping
• Cones
• Road signs
• Lamp post covers

After clearing the area, we made the run down to Barrack park (aka St George's park) that again, was generally tidy near the play area and football pitches (where a man decided to have a swing at golf...) Around the outskirts, however, we found more debris mostly consisting of food & drink packaging. We did also find some large mushrooms although likely not edible.

After placing the rubbish bags in easy to collect places, we took pictures and noted the What3Words location to pass on to Keep MCR Tidy to ensure collection this week.

After a short jog back, we enjoyed a swift pint at Wetherspoons to chat about holidays, GoodGym Shindig, moving house, and the state of modern football. Cracking way to spend a Monday evening.

Welcome to Ruoyun for their first GoodGym Manchester session! Hope you had a good time and maybe see you again soon.

Today, we helped out with the Shakespearean Garden in Platt Fields Park. A really beautiful community garden with a vegetable/herb garden growing items for a local charity, The Place, a rockery, central seating area, and a stumpery that was popular in Victorian times. With it being open all day long, it takes a lot of tending to, but Kattie and the rest of the volunteers have done a sterling job to revamp the area since 2021. Huge kudos to them!

We helped with several physical tasks, once a lot of litter had been removed from the area. We were tasked with laying woodchip for a path around the perimeter to keep people away from the planted areas and to provide a marked route to explore a lot of the garden not visible from the main footpaths. The pile of woodchip at the start was sizeable and healthy, with apparently inedible mushrooms growing out of the top. Over 90 min, we managed to reduce the pile to a handful and the path had been successfully laid, topping up other sections in the meantime. We certainly got our workout in with shoveling, wheelbarrowing, and raking to ensure everything was laid as required.

We had a brief tour of the garden and shown the set up for the Open Garden on 27th July where we'll definitely be needed to help set up the gazebos and tents. Sign up if you are available!!

Today, Ben went along to Brunswick Parish Church to help out with Ardwick Climate Action for their monthly Saturday volunteering.

This week, there were several activities to get involved with:

• Litter picking
• Planting out plants from the Manchester Flower Festival
• Digging over the grass near a "wildflower mound"
• Wheelbarrowing lots of soil from one site to another

Abigail and John took on the challenge of litter picking while Gordon, Ben, and another volunteer moved a whole rubble bag of soil (i.e. lots and lots) from Lockton Close to the Kale Street site. We certainly got our workout in and covered many steps between the sites to give a dragon tail (or sperm...) shaped wildflower area on the Kale St site to be planted with poppy seeds and later other wild flowers once the grass had been fully dug over. We did make a start on the latter around the edge but it was tough work!

Some fox glove (I think) were planted in another bed, and there was a lot of weeding in the lavender beds.

The wheelbarrows each had their own quirks, either with holes, broken bits, and one with very squeaky wheels(!) but they certainly did their job.