Beautiful spring sunshine welcomed us as we gathered at the Green Flag to launch another round of the monthly People's Park litter pick.

Splitting up and roving around the park we collected all the litter dropped by recent park users enjoying the warm weather.

The trees in the orchard also got a thorough watering with those on that task getting lots of steps in by having to walk watering cans out from the nearby houses and across to field to the trees and return for refills.

When our time was up we returned to the flag with our collected bags to count them up: 14 bags in total, not bad for a morning in the sun 🌞

This week's group run took us to the Dallow Downs to meet a new partner organision for GoodGym, the recently formed Friends of Dallow Downs and Winsdon Hill!

It was unseasonably warm on the way up the Dallow Road but before too long we found Kevin from ABCD Luton who supports litter picking groups all over town. We set ourselves up with bags and pickers and headed between the houses into the woods at the bottom of the hill to meet Sophie, Vanessa and John, the friends group.

We didn't have to take more than a couple of steps into the woods before we found plenty of mess. Domestic waste had been dumped here many times by the look of it and the area hadn't been cleaned for years and years.

We filled bag after bag of all the rubbish, there was layer upon layer. It's the first time we've made good use of a rake on a litter pick! Perseverance meant we made some progress and forged on deeper into the woods.

After an hour we called it a day and counted up our collection of bags to a huge 129! Not to mention all the other random large items we pulled out like beds, tables, TVs and a gazebo!

It was a pleasure to meet this new group and help them out with their passion to restore the downs to something resembling a natural state! We will be back!

On this warm and sunny Sunday morning a team of three from GoodGym joined a couple of local residents and Kevin from ABCD to tackle an overgrown alleyway connecting Montrose Avenue to Carlton Crescent.

The alleyway was closing up with the ivy on the fences closing in and the weeds in the sides growing unchecked. But with an hour's effort from the collective of volunteers, spurred on by the thanks of passing residents, we soon got it all cleared clean with a transformed view through to the other end.

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