On a miserably wet evening our hardy Goodgymers’ spirit couldn’t be dampened.

We met and welcomed newcomer Katy and celebrated soooo many running achievements from the weekend. We also adorned Charlotte with the cape of good deeds for completing an amazing 100 deeds! You legend!

After naming and numbering off, whilst saying what our favourite item of clothing was, Claire set off with a walk/run group, Ed led the runners, and Vicky shot off ahead on her bike to make sure everything was ready.

We arrived in the Groves to be met by Tracy, who had sorted the newsletters into piles with laminated maps! Jen and Lucy were quick to volunteer for a digging task and everyone else got into threes to go and deliver the Groves newsletter in their allocated zones.

In what seemed like no time at all the groups started to trickle back to base and the diggers had successfully dug up a big stump. No time for fitness tonight - straight back to base. Tracy was very grateful for our help - she said it would have taken her a week!

Great work team GG!

With the nights drawing in a whopping 29 GG Yorkies turned out to volunteer in their local community! We started off by welcoming newcomer Erin who was attending her first ever GoodGym session. We also gave a huge round of applause to one of our run leaders, Laura who tonight was completing her 500th(!) Good Deed. What an amazing achievement. Give them both a big cheer!

Tonight we were heading to Abbeyfield Care Home for the first ever time. Vicky set off a steady pace group whilst Ed led out the rest of the gang with Cara backmarking. We arrived at the task at the same time, but alas there was no one there to greet us. After a few laps of the grounds by Ed and Vicky we eventually encountered a member of staff who despite knowing we were coming, didn't seem quite prepared for us. Nevertheless we shared the one broom between us and after a fair bit of a delay got to work picking up weeds and leaves by hand, filling up a load of black sacks as we go.

The darker night had caught a few of us by surprise so the lack of head torches meant that we weren't always entirely sure if we were picking up the right things. But we did as much as we could in the brief amount of time we had and certainly managed to pull out a few weeds and sweep up a lot of leaves in the process.

Before too long it was time for the evening's fitness so we headed around to Little Hob Moor where Ed laid out a ring of cones for a game of tag with a twist. This time you would only be allowed to move using animal-inspired movements, including the taggers, so to start with we hopped around like Kangaroos whilst being chased by Nick, Vicky and Charlotte. After a few minutes of hopping we moved onto our finest crab impressions, with Charlotte once again proving she is the queen of niche exercises! The taggers then 'tagged out' to make way for Max, David and Laura who started as reluctant bear crawlers, before finally hopping around on one leg à la Flamingos. Every time someone was caught by a tagger they would step out of the circle and complete an exercise before being allowed back in, although as time progressed more people seemed happy to complete the exercise then spend anny more time hopping around on one leg!

We then headed back to the Priory Street Centre for some stretches and a wrap of what's happening in the coming weeks. We're still on the lookout for hands at the Yorkshire Marathon water station, so get yourselves signed up if you can!

Apologies for the slow start to tonight's session. We more than made up for it with the enthusiasm during the task and fitness!

Despite the slightly lower numbers for tonight's group run we had lots to celebrate. First we welcomed Emily to her first Goodgym session, despite her only arriving in York a week ago. We celebrated Abigail and Claire both achieving 200 good deeds. We celebrated Rebecca being crowned August's Goodgymer of the month, having completed lots of Goodgym tasks in her first few months since joining, including some Goodgym tourism. We also congratulated Emma on completing the Vale of York half marathon and Liv and Mia on completing the Great North Run. (We also thought there may also have been a few other York Goodgymers doing a race at the weekend and having a few drinks along the way.) Finally we celebrated World Ampersand Day by going round and naming our favourite food and drink pairings worthy of the & symbol. After all the congratulations we headed to the task at Holgate Community Garden. We did two main jobs, cutting a circle of grass and weeds away around the trees and tidying the beds nearest the road. Abigail, Leanne and Jenna joined in once they had finished staging a teddy birth for Abigail. As her due date is in three days we were hoping that we didn't have a real birth to contend with. Claire and Laura Bennett went down to the Holgate Allotments and brought back two barrows of bark chip for putting on top of the soil circles around the trees. Imran and Jenna did a great job clearing all the brambles on the beds. We managed to complete both tasks before doing some training related fitness, including squats while we were stopped for leaves on the line, lunges for shovelling coal, creating tunnel arches for the other team's train to go through and then finishing with all aboard the train for a photo and some delicious chocolate and courgette cake from Claire before running back to base.