After agreeing to be the Taskowner for the Friends of Rowntree Park due to his role as a Trustee of the Charity, Ed managed to get the time completely wrong and arrived with Amy and Arthur almost 30mins late. Fortunately Jan, one of the garden volunteers, was on hand to get the rest of the GG crew started on the task which involved removing a hedge that hadn't survived the 10 weeks it had spent underwater due to the regular flooding in the park

We were also joined by Jacqui from the Friends of Rowntree Park who was getting stuck in along with her husband and David at one end, whilst Leanne, Cara, Amy, Debs and the 3 latecomers tackled the other.

Leanne soon turned her attention to lopping back a bush that also needed removing, and whilst she tackled the trimming just fine, the removal part proved a lot harder. Ed and David were called in as reinforcements but soon realised it was too big a challenge to tackle today

But the failing hedge was successfully removed and we managed to turnover a fair chunk of the area that was covered with invasive species. Not for an hours worth of work for most of the group, and 45mins for those who can't keep track of the time

Tonight we returned to Park Grove to give the willow its annual haircut.

We welcomed newcomers Leticia, Matt and David to their first group sessions then headed through town to the school.

When we arrived we split into three teams - loppers, runners and weavers. Within no time the willow was cut down and transported to the dome, where the team added to the structure.

We then finished off with heart shaped strava art fitness for York Cares. The heart shapes were questionable but we spread lots of love and were rewarded with a chocolate heart.

We then headed back to base to round off another fun Monday evening.

As the January Challenge draws to a close, we just couldn't resist getting in a few last kilometres! It was great to welcome new members Tracey and David on our social run, which took in some literary sights of the city, several bridges and a cluster of cats.

It was great to welcome David to his first mission since he registered just this morning! He had joined GoodGym on an earlier mission in Woodthorpe and was hooked! Unfortunately his arrival in Knapton at the meetup also heralded the start of the rain which made the task very wet cold and windy. But we stuck at it and amassed a surprisingly large number of beer and vodka bottles amongst the detritus of fast food debris. We ran out of green bags but David grabbed a couple of domestic bags from a relative who lives nearby which saved the day!