This week, eight Goodgymers ran, walked and cycled to Naul's Mill Park just outside Coventry city centre to support the Friends of Naul's Mill Park. Our task was to prune back all of the overgrown shrubs and trees covering some steps down to the newly restored pond, so that it is welcoming and accessible for park users. There was an event in the park at the weekend so a little litter pick (say that quickly!) was also needed.

We set to work with secateurs, a broom, rake and those big plastic grabby hands that Goodgymers love, and made light work of opening up the path to let more light through and ensure that it is welcoming and accesible to all park users. It also gives a much better view of the swan family enjoying their new pond. After tidying up, the runners made our way back to our start point via the Naul's Mill Linear Park, tried out the climbing wall and did a few continuous speed reps to get the legs and heart going!

It was a glorious sunny evening tonight and 8 GoodGymers enjoyed a 2.5 km run and cycle over to Sherbourne Valley allotments. Greg was there to welcome us and it was great to see everything in full bloom with giant sunflowers and pumpkins covering the area we prepared on our last visit.

There was a few jobs to get stuck into, Deb, Laura and Lil tackling the bind weed, which has wrapped itself tightly around some of the plants. Graham, James and Meera were on the weeding in between the paving slabs whilst Georgia, Laura and Greg prepared a soiled area under some trees ready for wildflower seeds to go down. With this being one of the furthest runs we only had around half an hour for the task but we worked fast to get a much done as possible. Time had had flown and we managed a quick group shot in front of a sunflower stem which towered above us.

As our second good deed for the day Lil kindly suggested that we return a supermarket trolley that Food Union had used to transport some plants. We ran via Morrison's to put the trolley back in its rightful place and then took a different route back down a narrow footpath which took us out by the arches at Spon End.

Fab work everyone, well done!

There are a few events happening at Food Union in the next couple of months so check out their facebook/instagram page for more info.

8 excellent GoodGymmers braved the uncertain weather for our group run and litter pick this evening. We welcomed back Meera who is gonna be sticking around Coventry for a bit so we hope to be seeing more of her :)

We all set off on the short run to Stoney Stanton Road where we were starting the litter pick. We were due to meet Joe at the Canal bridge near the Leicester Causeway.

We arrived at the beginning of Stoney Stanton, splitting into 2 teams on either side of the road Meera, Lilian, Allan and Georgia on one side and Graham, James and Laura on the other and got cracking. After a few minutes we quickly realised that making it to the canal was a bit optimistic given the volume of rubbish around. We contacted Joe and told him it would be best for him to start walking to us to join us on the pick as there was no way we would make it that far in the time we had. The bags were soon filled so we decanted what we could into the roadside bins and Laura had to pop to the shop for extra bing bag supplies to keep up with the demand!

It was sad to see so much rubbish around, we chatted with a fellow litter picker from a local Mosque who was telling us about what a mess it can be around there. At the end of our session we got rid of the bags of waste and head back. It was just starting to rain at that point but we very much welcomed it, hoping that it would wash off the bin juice! Luckily it was only a light drizzle and the heavy rain only just caught us during the cool down but we managed to get shelter inside Coventry boys and Girls club.

Brilliant effort tonight everyone, well done!

This evening 10 Goodgymers made their way to the brilliant charity that is Clothing Coventry and for a few it was their first visit.

We met at Coventry Boys and Girls club, chatted about the weekend and then split into a running and walking group. Louise and Sharon set off with Jackie leading on the walk whilst the rest of us warmed up with Laura. Laura had been researching some new warm up moves which got us really loosened up ready for the run!

The walkers arrived first and Joe met us there. Once we were all present and ready to go, Joanne set the experienced volunteers to work right away with some sorting whilst she gave a safety speech to the members on their first visit to CC. The main tasks tonight were sorting bras and shoes Georgia, Louise, Laura and Lilian were upstairs sorting bras into size order and packing them in boxes. Jackie, Allan, Joe, Deb and Graham formed a human chain to carry crates of shoes outside ready to sort into size and category, i.e boots, school shoes, sandals etc and label the boxes.

There were rather a lot of bras and other bits of underwear and bikinis to sort and the team spent the whole session getting them all organised with a bit of sweeping up in between . Once all the shoe crates were labelled up we formed a human chain again to stack them back up in the warehouse.

Everyone worked shoeper fast (see what i did there) so it was nice to leave with a job completed. Once we were ready to leave, the walkers set off on their way back and we said farewell to Joe who was also going straight home from Clothing Coventry. Making our way to Coventry B&G club, the runners stopped off for a fitness session of uphill pyramids making us work a bit harder seen as its such a short run to CC.

Didn't manage to get a team photo but got plenty of pics of this fab lot getting stuck into the task. Great team effort!

Next week we are off on our monthly visit to Charter House - hope to see you there :)