Ashley and Helen met at the Church to help set up a room for the local parkinsons support group. There wasn't much to do, only rearranging some tables and putting out chairs and biscuits (sadly non for us). After about 5 minutes of hard work we spend a while talking to the volunteers that do an amazing job helping and supporting the community. It's really quite inspiring just how much they time and effort they give to the cause.

Pete, Lewis and Rachel welcomed back Helen who is fast becoming a GoodGym Derby regular and also Manlin on their first volunteering session with us!

It was great to see a new face on the team, Manlin is interested in the Tiny Forest site as part of their research work for their dissertation.

The team assembled at the Tiny Forest having travelled there by car, train or on foot and set about a plan for the evening. Thanks to Pete for clearing some litter from the recreation ground in front of the Tiny Forest site, Pete collected a bag of litter and left this at a bin at the end of the session.

The team made a visible impact, clearing nettles, thistles and ragwort and making the beginnings of paths inside the Tiny Forest. This was all whilst being distracted by a furry visitor who was very interested in what the group were doing. It transpired a local resident had been feeding the fox and now pretty tame, it had come to see if any food was available.

For most of the group, it was their first time at a Tiny Forest site so it was great to have Helen there who knows the site well as she and her work colleagues planted the trees when the site was first created.

Thanks again for everyone who helped out and good luck to Lewis who has two huge life events happening over the next few weeks.

Keep an eye out for the next Tiny Forest session with GoodGym Derby.

Ashley, Naomi, Mandy, Helen and Pete met on a beautiful Saturday morning to help out Ian of the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust with some little picking and collection of discarded items. Along our way we discovered two tents hidden in the trees. One of tent seemed to be still in use, possibly by someone fishing, the other was long since abandoned so needed to be collected and disposed of responsibly. Taking a long loop around we collected several bags full of litter, chopped down an overhanging branch and generally have a great time chatting and laughing. We are all looking forward to helping out the Wildlife Trust on a regular basis.

Rachel and I managed to find each other at Alvaston Park and walked over to the Tiny Forest. There we met Helen, and Reg from Trees for Derby who were already getting stuck in.

The recent warmer and wet weather seems to have helped the Tiny Forest grow, so there were a lot of weeds growing and the paths could barely be seen when we arrived.

The weather forecast turned out to be accurate so despite a dry start we were in a downpour by the end. But raincoats were put on and progress was made. The paths are more visible and the trees have more space to continue growing.

I am looking forward to getting back on future missions to continue caring for the site.