On a wet and dark September evening, a lot of GG Yorkies were out doing good!

First-timer, Louise wasn't worried about any rain! Go and give her a big cheer for getting stuck in.

It was indeed very wet, and our two tasks were not entirely conducive to wet conditions.

1. Scrubbing a grimy area of decking for MySight to make it less dangerous
2. Raking a large volume of grass and forking the soil in the Leeman Road Community Orchard

We arrived at MySight with enough light left to see the task which lay ahead. Imagine tongue and groove decking, but every groove is filled with old grime.

The decking was pretty treacherous and unsafe for people with visual impairments. We were provided some buckets, deck-cleaner, some scrubbing brushes, a broom, a mop, / couple of scrapers and err.. a dustpan and brush.

This gets in the groove really nicely!

Ellie D discovered that the most effective tool was in fact the dustpan, as she used the corner of it to scoop out dirty grime.

Debs was carefully 'aliquoting' portions of decking cleaner to the scrubbers, as she'd calculated that there wasn't quite enough in the bottle.

Paul, who is recovering from his Achilles surgery, had walked and ended up in charge of holding the bag which everyone was dumping moss and grime scrapings into.

I'm really pleased to you got me to come tonight - Paul

We finished up with many rounds of warm water being sploshed onto the newly scrubbed decking and Vicky sweeping furiously to get it properly shiny, whilst John mopped up our muddy footprints inside.

Over at Leeman Park, as well as that Goodgym classic of lots of raking (with only four rakes), we also scarified all the grass and removed large tufts of shrubbery. In the task owners words:

Hide and destroy! David, Friends of Leeman Park

We made quick progress, with people using forks as rakes and Stef using an apparently sharp and slightly dangerous tool, which he loved!

For our fitness session the plan was to do hill reps by the river...however we spent most of the time looking for somewhere that wasn't flooded!

We managed to sneak a few hill reps on a small embankment in the end which everyone was slightly relieved about.

On a beautiful sunny evening, 36 runners ran to complete two tasks in York

FOUR new runners joined us; so let's give some big cheers to Herbie, Gareth, Nic and Marianne. The new runners turned up tonight to some crazy shenanigans as I'd forgotten the absolutely vital bluetooth speaker for our musical fitness session, but Mel and Ed created a makeshift speaker with two phones and a tupperware so there was a lot of AC/DC testing happening.

Whilst you're cheering, make sure you also give some massive cheers to Nikki, who ran her 100th good deed tonight and got to wear the Centurion Cape - an amazing achievement, welcome to the 100 club Nikki.

We were joined tonight by original GG Yorkie Amazing Aron, who is also the Trainer for GoodGym Leeds (due to start soon). Aron led out our subgroup on a mission to deliver postcards to specific addresses in the Walmgate area advertising the upcoming York Walls Festival.

The rest of us ran to Glen Gardens, where our main task was to move three cubic tonnes of bark across the park and into the play area. That took all of about nine minutes so Karen and Adi, two of the Friends of Glen Gardens, gave us a big list of other jobs.

One of the tasks was to attempt the clear the very overgrown and very spiky weeds which were growing between the park fence and the basketball court, the gap between the two fences was about 40cm so we ended up having a daisy chain of weed passing.

There was also moss and leaf mulch to scrape off the edges of the paths and whilst we had hoes, spades and shovels a-plenty, there was only one broom which was in extremely high demand.

Aron's team turned up and helped Karen get out a load more tools before a ten minute push to clear weeds from one of the flower beds and there was one final task to take all the full bags of weeds, moss and spiky fence plants right down the other end of the park.

Thunderstruck

The first part of our musical fitness session involved running about, high fives, squat jumps and burpees. The makeshift speaker didn't quite offer enough volume so unless people knew the song pretty well, they just had to rely on me shouting occasional words and trusting that I was making them do the right amount of squat jumps and burpees.

This is the Egg remix. There shouldn't be a burpee here!

The second part of our musical fitness session was a Pitch Perfect inspired press-up and sit-up session. Ed modestly proclaimed that him and Rich were "incredible" at both whilst Nick was a bit more realistic.

I basically just rolled around for a few minutes

After a stretch out, and once we were safely hydrated in the pub, Nikki brought out her celebratory 100th good deed 'cowpat cake', which although wasn't entirely visually pleasing, was unquestionably delicious.

After an action packed epic weekend at Endure 24 for some of us. We came together for another Egg-less Monday. Hard to stomach i know.

I was happy to report back on some excellent endure performances namely Becky and Nicky who came second in their event. And Huw who smashed out his 100 mile goal before deciding to do a victory lap and make 105 miles! Well done to everyone at Endure! More importantly though we were celebrating the amazing Ed, an important cog in Goodgym York who completed his 100th good deed last Thursday.

To celebrate we all did an endure themed warmup, so we could all experience the joys and spills of running endure 24! Pumped up and ready for action, we hit the road with the lovely Laura and John backmarking.

"We are running 2 of the 3 mountains of York tonight" John doing his best to frighten first timer Jack.

Arriving at the Viking Road play area, we found not only task owner Kristina. But also Trainers wife, Lizzie (no doubt reporting back to the boss!) And Lisa who was very happy to be able to help from the bounds of her wheelchair.

Kristina set us rolling on 3 main tasks to help clean up the playground. First we were scraping moss and dirt off of the tarmac of one section. Before using half moons to try and locate the edge of the tarmac area.

The 2nd task was to clear the overgrown fence of grass and weeds plus some hay that had formed around the base of the fence. With one particularly nettley patch near a bike rack. Mike and Emma worked tirelessly to trim one section, but were slightly embarrassed to find out they were supposed to the whole fence!

3rd task was taken to by some unruly run leaders and Taskforce members who had to fight (not successfully) their urge to play on the playground. Becky had to be reminded to put the shears down before you walk across the rope bridge! There was much discussion on the quality (and lack therefore) of some of the shears provided.

"I've got two tools, I'm feeling quite manly" Mike, clearly having the time of his life.

The 3rd task were successful at trimming all the weeds and grass down on the playground trail. Opening up a whole new section of the playground up for children to use!

Quick photo and we were off back home for a quick cool down stretch. Job well done everyone. Special thanks to returning Rachel and Emma, first timer Jack, and first timer at York Jackie!

Tonight's GoodGym York group run was in partnership the Great Get Together and our Run Leaders were put through their paces as we split into five groups with each group taking a different route to do good.

Mitch took 18 of the crew to St Nicks, where they were tasked with digging up Cowslip and moving the plants to a different location to encourage bees and wildlife.

Everyone filled wheelbarrows full of Cowslip after digging them out from the woods, except Ed who as Chief Forker was in charge of moving a large pile of grass.

Next up the team took on a ten minute challenge to transplant everything in the meadow and had to plant them in 10 minutes. Easy!

Me, Leanne, Becky and Nick all took a team to different parts of Fulford, Fishergate and Bishy Road to deliver flyers telling people about the fantastic Millennium Fields Summer Fair.

Becky almost certainly had the most challenging team with 'super-speedy' Paul Kelly and Max taking their own little route to check out a pub.

If you're super-speedy, can you help me on this road? Becky If I'm super-speedy I'll be first at the bar! Max

Nick's team won the flyer running challenge and were rewarded with an extra round of fitness circuits with the walking crew. It didn't take long before the skies opened but as Debs was in the walking crew, she had an umbrella and managed to complete the whole fitness session underneath it. Bravo.

Soon Leanne and Mitch's teams joined us and there was star-jumping, lunging, squatting, spotty-dogging(!?) madness at Tower Gardens before another damp run back to base, where Becky's team joined us for a cool down, phew!

If that wasn't enough, Jenna made amazing cakes as a belated birthday celebration and we played the 'walk-out-to-cake' game, which I know everyone really loves!