Welcome to Chris for his first GoodGym task and to Sarah from GoodGym Brighton who was in the area for work. Hope you enjoyed the task!

On Earth day we took to the water to remove debris and lots of plastic that had built up in and along the River Mersey, particularly following the floods over new year. We kitted out in buoyancy aids and collected a stash of litter pickers, oars, and bags to collect the rubbish 🚣‍♂️🚣‍

🛶 With two per canoe and then fastened in pairs, we slowly made our way upstream, collecting any rubbish as we went, particularly from tree branches were items had accumulated 🌳. In particular, there were lots of bits of plastic bags, bottles, cotton and material, plus polystyrene. At one particularly crowded tree, we collected lots of materials and freed much of the tree of rubbish, including a blue barrel that (eventually) was freed from the branches after some tactical sawing and cutting. We did our best to avoid the sewage outflow nearby too but couldn't avoid the wild garlic that lined the river bank!

Once the bags were full, we slowly drifted back downstream, bringing the canoes out of the water and onto racks (after a quick rinse in the Mersey) to be stored back at Venture Out 💪

Top effort from all involved. There will be more canoe (or kayak...) sessions planned for future dates so keep an eye out for that.

Tonight, Hannah-May, Laura and Mai returned to First Steps Pre School for the first time since 2018!

We took the scenic route down by the river and discovered a new path (when we were heading in the right direction 😂).

We helped with staining the fence in the lovely garden.

We met the lovely Helen and her daughter Ffion and over the course of 1.5 hours, discussed our lives in depth and told our funniest stories.

We hope to return to First Steps for future tasks! We received some lovely feedback from Helen after the session 😊