☀ 21 excellent GoodGymmers gathered for our sunny group run this evening.

🦸‍♀ We were thrilled to welcome back Louise who was visiting from London for the double-whammer of her birthday and her 500th good deed. What a hero, especially as this was her 3rd good deed of the day to get there! She posed with the cape but we didn’t make her wear it all evening as it was a tad toasty.

🏆 The other celebration was the arrival of the golden trowel, which Dom brought up from the GoodGym shindig this weekend. Of course we had to get a group photo with it 🤳

✌We had two tasks this evening so Mitch led a super crew of six to Gale Farm Court to varnish some benches there. Here’s what he had to say:

🖌 "We painted the town (or benches) red"

🎨 Six GoodGymmers arrived at Gale Farm Court (via a few diversions...sorry) to help scrape and paint two beaches. With the hot dry weather, this was perfect. So after an hour(ish) of scraping, painting and more painting, between the 6 of us, we had the beaches painted and looking in a better state.

🏥 The rest of us headed to York Hospital where we split into three further groups - Renal, Labour and Mosaic.

👶 The Labour group were weeding and tidying up the wellbeing garden there. They were reassured that they wouldn’t see anyone giving birth, though sadly also wouldn’t see any tiny babies.

💦 Here’s what Ed had to say about Team Renal:

🐜 We got to work in quite a small courtyard area, getting rid of weeds and disturbing woodlice. There was a lot of fake grass that had moss growing over it so some of us did a bit of scraping to remove the moss. We all agreed that fake grass is appalling and should be banned. Other than that nothing remarkable

🧽 Meanwhile, the Mosaic group were armed with soapy water, brushes and cloths. They set to work cleaning the mosaic and soon made a noticeable difference, realising how shiny it could look once clean. They also tackled the spiky sculpture thing in the middle, realising that this was really a task for Team Tall. Steve Rice put in a sterling effort, leaping to reach the top of the spikes with the long brush - very impressive. Amongst the leaping shenanigans, Nicky did some weeding. Not that many weeds were located (proving that the garden is very well cared for) but there were sadly two dead birds (the Labour garden apparently had a net to prevent similar tragedies). We wondered if the turkey statue was a monument to its fallen feathered comrades 🦃

🥵 It was soon time to head back to base where we gathered and made the group decision that it was too warm for fitness.

🍰 People were also keen to get to the pub and enjoy the delicacies very thoughtfully provided by Louise alongside some much-needed liquid refreshment.

👏 Thank you everyone, it was great to get lots done at both tasks.

Today we had two tasks to complete.

Mitch led four Goodgymers to continue preparing the Acomb Methodist Church notice board for repainting. They all spent an hour sanding scraping, brushing and observing (Mitch and Ellie) and managed to make good progress.

Meanwhile the rest of us, including Anna who was giving GoodGym a try for the first time went to Ashton Park in Clifton to remove tree guards from some mature trees.

As it happens in that park we had an opportunity to engage with local young people. One lad told Jenna that the job is best done when you " let the saw do the work".

Abigail had an opportunity to show off her extensive boxing knowledge and Leanne stood on hammers.

Stef and Lucy competed on who is faster at cutting the wooden posts and Max admired Abi's shooting skill to get the litter bag down from the tree.

The rest of the crew stuck in at removing the metal guards and carefully trimming thorny branches that were in the way and packing them into bulk bags.

Once the trees were freed and tools tidied up a fitness session with a focus on back and abdominal muscles followed, then run back to the HQ to enjoy some of Lucy's birthday cake.

8 wonderful GGers made their way to Kimberlow Hill to give some care to a new mixed deciduous woodland. Saplings were straightened, weeded and de-snailed. Ants were dislodged from tree guards. Alder leaf beetles, orchids and wild flowers were discovered. All re-usable tree stakes, canes, ties and 3 types of tree guards were bundled up and left for people planting trees to come and take. The broken stakes were put in a dumpy bag and since the task another volunteer has offered to collect these for recycling. The unusable waste was bagged and taken to be binned by the Treemendous volunteers. Here's hoping the saplings benefited from our care and will grow into trees to be enjoyed for many generations to come.