10 GoodGymmers "came together" outside the Braywick Nature Centre on a much warmer evening that we've been having of late to attempt to build stag beetle habitats. Unfortunately, upon trying to locate the equipment we realised that our task owner may have accidentally forgotten we were coming and hence had to think of a plan B(eetle). Perhaps "Yesterday" I should have sent a reminder to say "Don't let me down". Amy and I even tried calling for "Help!", but alas, in the end we just had to "Let it be".

Thankfully our glorious leader Amy had a colony of litter pickers in the boot of her car (sadly, not a VW Beetle!) so we set to work with the intention of having a social walk around the parkrun loop, a very "long and winding road", whilst clearing up any litter we saw en route.

We stag-gered around together, chatted and cleaned up a few bags of rubbish. Great job team! Hopefully we can return another evening to give the beetles a "little help from their friends" so they can "twist and shout" in their new home!

We also congratulated Tony on his 50th good deed this evening! Well done Tony!

On a lovely sunny, but chilly afternoon, Jess, Sol and Sheila joined other volunteers at Ray Mill Island for one of their weekly sessions. Jess was tasked with painting some signs on wood to direct people to the bird trail, several bird names and asking people to keep off the dry hedging. An excellent job she made of it, too! Meanwhile Sheila glued some pre-cut lettering onto some wood to acknowledge the contribution to the trail by the Craft Coop. She then moved on to helping Sol and others who were practicing the art of coppicing Sol was right in her element, using her forestry skills learnt in her childhood. The cut branches were sawed into lengths - the longest ones will be used as stakes for the dry hedging and the thinner ones will be used to weave in and out between the stakes. We can't wait to build the dry hedging, once the ground has unfrozen. An excellent afternoon's session on a beautiful day

I went for a frosty walk and litterpick. It still surprises me how much litter there is in such a small area!

6 GoodGymers met in Windsor to help Age Concern charity to distribute leaflets about their activities.

It was a dark task (good for January Bingo Card). It felt cold, and it was slowly turning frosty. But we were all wrapped up warm and willing to face the cold chill.

We plit in two teams and started to cover small residential streets in the area not too far from Spencer Denney Centre.

It was great to work in teams of three. We kept chatting and alternating the sides of the streets. Soon, the stock pile of leaflets had gone. That seemed very quick.

We met with the other team back at the starting point at 7.30pm, said farewells to Adam and Jen, and headed back to Age Concern location.

Job well done!

The community allotment task was cancellled so seven intrepid good gymers and a dog (Flora) set off in the sleet and snow to pick up rubbish. They searched gutters, delved high and low in hedges and scanned the green spaces to fill up five bags before returning to the meeting place. They celebrated with delicious marble chocolate cake baked by Jess before setting off for home!