Here today, outside York CVS, at 18:16 the Group Run is back!

I was so pleased to announce that after 16 months we are finally back together and we had things to celebrate!

Amy celebrated her 100th good deed today and got the honours to wear the red cape! WELL DONE AMY!

Ellie achieved her 200th good deed last Tuesday. What a massive milestone! AMAZING JOB ELLIE!

Barbara, Tim, Debs, Lucy, David, Ed and Amy were part of the team who ran, or walked as part of the RunWithPride last month. Today was a great opportunity to present them with their medals. Well done you!

With everyone buzzing and raring to go it was time for the H&S brief and a warm up including pulling an invisible rope which made people chuckle. We were visiting two projects today, so we split up in two teams and headed in two different directions.

Led by Paul and Nick, with back marking duties diligently undertaken by John team St Paul’s School Allotment went to help with ground preparation for paving slabs and planters to go in.

Part of the report written by Paul:

Ideal GG task description ''just clear it all!'’ No concerns about accidentally digging up the wrong tree or confusing weeds and plants! Soon everyone had grabbed either a spade or fork or were using their hands to pull up the weeds and clearing the overgrown areas. There was good humour all round as everyone was glad to be back taking part in group runs. Eventually the heat took its toll and the pace of work dipped for the final 5 mins, but not before the area had been entirely transformed and numerous piles of cuttings and bags of waste had been produced. Highlights included Debs, Michael & John juggling potatoes that had been dug up. Laura’s surprise at finding she was trying to dig through carpet!

Meanwhile with Pete at the front, Leanne at the back and Ellie in charge of the walking group team Fishergate Primary garden went to do a pretty similar task. Welcomed by Caroline we quickly went to clear up weeds from the planters and raised beds. The difficulty here was that we had to leave the good plants and just pull out the weeds. Fortunately we are all expert gardeners and knew exactly which plant needed pulling out, the sticky weed deffo being one of them. We’ve uncovered some black and red currant bushes with ripened fruit ready to harvest by the school children during the last week of this term. Leanne focussed on improving access to the green house and uncovering paving slabs. The task owner asked us to put all the green waste into a massive wheelie bin and Abi took the opportunity to 'rescue' 5 black bags full of weeds and sticks from being disposed of in a non recyclable way - read on to find out why. We managed to clear most of the flower, fruit and veg beds, well we have left the fruit, veg and flowers and just cleared the weeds, I think! and with 19:30 on the clock we were ready to head back to the HQ. Five of us who wanted to walk did not leave empty handed and carried the weedastick bags to a composting bin at Abi’s project, a small park conveniently located just over the road from our new pub place. Having a look at and discussing what will potentially be one of the group run tasks for this summer I lost the track of time and had to sprint back to the HQ where most of us were already cooling down. I thought I will make them stretch and perhaps sweat a little bit more so they can cool down better and after a few stretching/yoga movements we were ready to visit Golden Ball for a well-deserved post task social drink.

It was Monday night and a group of 11 Goodgymers congregated at Glen allotments.

There's a long waiting list of folk wanting the chance to take an allotment and an area of bark paths and raised beds at the front of the site had become completely overgrown and needed freeing up.

The first task was to free up the paths and a group set to with spades and forks to pull up weeds, old vege and a few tasty looking potatoes.

Leanne, Cara and Caitlin meanwhile headed off to a nearby school plot to do their own bit of unearthing. 3 or 4 filled rubble sacks later and we had revealed a couple of wonderful plots for someone to take care of.

Then it was on for a Michal-led fitness session consisting of high knees, burpees, commandos, mountain climbers, reverse lunges and another thing.

Half the team stayed for fitness - based in part on the incentive of James's mint chocolate, nutty brownie cake (that might not be its actual name) and the rest of the crew cleared off as they were either lame or lazy I guess.

Ed had some excuse about having thrown himself off a scooter going downhill at the weekend while showing off and bruising his ribs in the process and Ang didn't stay for fitness either - apparently running a 24 hour solo run at Endure 24 this coming weekend was her excuse - no commitment, it’s disgraceful! 😉

After an incident involving a lorry and a narrow gate our task was moved to Hull Road Park (fortunately for Kieran and less so for everyone else).

Reunited with our good friend the woodchip and every tool imaginable at our disposal, we were tasked with weeding the woodchip and surrounding area to lay the chip around the playground equipment making it safer for all.

New GoodGymmer Caitlin sprang into action after finding us filling up wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of woodchip making light work of the journey. Soon many of the playground areas were covered by Paul, Caitlin and Leanne.

Meanwhile, Zinnie, Cara, Carl and Kieran got to work weeding the woodchip on this scorching day learning interesting facts from Carl's wisdom and chopping the nettles after Kieran's 10th sting.

The plants were quickly decimated to fill a whole bag ready to replace with the salt grit and ready for the next phase in Kristina's plan.

Certainly another visit to Hull Road Park on the cards but we have left behind a tidier and safer park!