For once the winter weather gods were smiling on GoodGym Nottingham!

Six of us wrapped up warm and headed out to the wilds of Sneinton to clean up St. Mary's Rest Garden.

We welcomed GoodGym founder Ivo who'd come up to see us, then donned our headtorches and hi-vis and paired off to tidy the park under the light of a gorgeous moon (the pictures don't do it justice).

It's a bit harder to find interesting stuff for the "Weirdest Item Wins" competition in the dark, but we got quite a lot of clothing (how? why? who's stripping off in the park?), an umbrella, the usual cans and bottles, and Ivo found a chunky silver key we left on top of the bin just in case anyone's missing it.

Special shoutout to Hannah who completed her 10th GoodGym task!

For our first weekend task of 2025 we returned to a chilly Sneinton with the wonderful Kathryn Cooper. We were meant to be helping out in the primary school's allotment, however the recent freezing temperatures meant that we couldn't really do a lot of gardening. So, in true GoodGym spirit, we instead decided to turn our hand to a spot of litter picking around the local area.

Lucy, Hannah, Matthew and Rachel met Kathryn and her children at the allotment gate where we collected our pickers and bin bags. We were also joined by one of the local residents who helps out regularly with various community initiatives and litter picks.

We spent an hour filling several big bags of rubbish covering Windmill Lane, Sneinton Road, Green's Windmill carpark, and the area outside the Salvation Army centre and Johnno's Mini Market. Lucy even managed to get a broom from the mini market so that she could sweep up all the cigaratte butts and smaller bits of rubbish that were hard to pick up. Luckily, Rachel had already collected an old broken dustpan so she dug it out of her purple bag and put it to use one final time to collect the sweepings.

Most of what we collected was the usual bottles, cans, sweet wrappers and the like, but Matthew did manage to find an in tact coffee cup discarded on the floor. Obviously this created the perfect mug shot! And yes, that is his breakfast also in his hand - not wanting to let us down when running a little late, he picked up a snack on the way and continued to eat it whilst picking litter!

On this task we also got to take a look at the beds outside the Salvation Army centre which Kathryn and some of our volunteers had worked on at a task last year - see the report from that task here.

It was great to welcome Lucy back with us after a bit of a break, and in doing so she completed her 5th GoodGym task - woo hoo!! Hannah and Matthew are also both closing in on 10 tasks - who will make it first....?

Sunday 15th Dec saw 5 Goodgymers head out into the wooded depths of Gedling Country Park with a small army of volunteers to help finish their 2024 tree planting programme. Hannah and Nigel were joined by debutants Diana and Theo and Emma who we have been fortunate to acquire from our colleagues in Newcastle. We started with a highly informative talk from the local naturalist who explained, amongst other things that the Purging Buckthorn we are planting was butterfly friendly but poisonous to humans. Fortunately tea and cakes were laid on at the end of the mission so no one was tempted to have a chew. First job was to plant beech saplings in the corner of the cow field - no need for any artificial fertiliser in that space. We were then asked to spread out and venture into the woods, find a small clearing and plant out the remaining beech trees. When we returned to the path Diana and Theo were missing - the Park is nearly 600 acres so we started to get concerned and were just asking the Duke of Edinburgh candidates if they had done their search and rescue training yet when our two latest recruits appeared, safe and sound. Onwards to the butterfly meadow to plant out the aforementioned Purging Buckthorn in the hope that next summer Brimstone Butterfly will return to the park.

Thank you to the regular volunteers and trustees who made us very welcome and invited us back any Sunday to support their impressive and valuable work.

When is a berry not a berry? Most of the time, apparently!

GoodGym Nottingham's Christmas party was a brilliant evening full of laughter, celebration and a lot of weird and wonderful facts.

Chickens like cherry tomatoes and can wear goggles and suncream, most things that say they're berries aren't, but bananas are, and Christmas lobsters may or may not be a thing.

Thank to Jules for letting us take over the Kilpin and sending us a lovely bottle of prosecco and crackers! And thanks to everyone who's been a part of GoodGym this year - it's been a great one!