Tonight a great group of GoodGymers ran to help Common Thread, a group who promote ethical fashion through clothes exchanges. They are made up of sharers and repairers who enable the swapping of clothes.

Upon arrival at their base on the corner of Union Street and Charles Street we were met by Jess and her team of other volunteers. We had a brief introduction to the project and then she outlined what tasks there were for us to get stuck into. The two main jobs for the evening were making signs and placards promoting reducing, reusing and recycling clothing, and piecing together old clothing rails, discarding the dud ones.

James and Rachel took on the job of rail assembly, delving into the depths of the building via a rickety old lift to search out hidden iron. The railing components were taking outside of the building to allow room for construction. Most of the rails were complete and functioning- each component of a full set was marked with a symbol so that if parts got muddled up in future, the correct bits could be easily located. The sets were then tied together with old bike inner tubes, a great bit of 're-cycling'!

Meanwhile, everyone else was making signs promoting the ethos of the initiative with various puns- right up our street! There was a list of phrases to be painted on to old bits of cardboard box pieces. We have some very creative, talented artists in GoodGym Sheff it seems.

After all was said and done, we said our goodbyes and headed off for some box-jumping activity in Pinball Park.

Swimming up a post industrial river is no mean feat when you are a salmon, trout or grayling. All these weirs get in your way of making it to the spawning grounds in the nice gravelly upstreams; and thats no exception on our local Don river and its tributaries.

Thankfully, fish passes have been built on the weirs.

Where there's a weir, there's a way!

But these must be checked regularly for obstructions; Leaping to the task were a (s)t(r)out team of GoodGymers: Rachel, Michelle, Cat, Celine, as well as Helen whose first GoodGym deed it was! Welcome Helen!

We were joined by Matt from Charity DCRT who shared his knowledge of all things weirs, fish passes and local wildlife with us, including the sand martins and the nest box in Kelham island - I'd never noticed that before!

Observing wildlife never fails to lift my spirits - it's always amazing to notice it on your doorstep, even in our urban environments. Giving wildlife a little care is even better! Join us on our next weir watch!

Thank you for all the fish (passes)...