It was an enthusiastic crew of GoodGymers who braved the Sheffield drizzle to join new task leaders Dave and Chris from Sunnybank community centre to kickstart the community garden. the garden had been unkept for a good few years and the community is keen to develop it into a beautiful resource.

Local residents also joined us and within no time Dave and Chris had us getting into the wilderness with spades, forks, loppers, shears and...spoons. * we cleared the border of one of the plant beds * we dug out pesky sycamore seedlings * we cleaned the paved area of its moss and weeds * we cut back the big bush by the gate to its border * we cut back what used to be a lawn and had long overgrown.

After 45 minutes, the paved area looked good enough to sit on and picnic, the gate had been freed up of its invasive bush and the plant bed had been edged around.

There is still plenty to sink our teeth into before this jungle turns into an oasis and we're keen to come back!

It was good deed 100 for Becca tonight. Give her a massive cheer, what an achievement!

On a sunny but overcast eve the GG SHF crew met up with Kendal from Bloom Sheffield at Meersbrook allotments to help with this fantastic charity run space that creates a safe environment for women and non binary folk to come and spend time tending to the flowers and chatting with like minded people in a wonderful space.

The jobs on this visit involved:

• Weeding
• Loading woodchip into wheelbarrows
• Spreading woodchip onto the paths
• Chopping up and turning the compost pile

Since our last visit the place has really come in to flower and there are some fantastic colors bursting through in the sunshine!

We sought the less hilly route home as a number of us were feeling tired and a bit under the weather. Hopefully all will feel better soon!

Happy running :)

Our Motley Crue gathered outside The Showroom Cinema last night around a defibrillator to kick start our hearts ready for our uphill journey to Lynwood gardens. It was great to welcome back George who we've not seen in a while and we hope she and husband Sam are able to make it along when they can. Fortunately the defib was not needed and we all made it safe and happy at Lynwood gardens, meeting Seiko there.

John Kirkwood who is Sustrans Ranger and looks after this patch of the Sustrans National Cycle Network (NCN) met us at the task and walked us through this very important link road of the NCN which keeps people off the busier surrounding roads and gives people using it a taste of inner city nature. We also met with Sustrans volunteer Craig Myres who brought all the relevant tools down to help us.

The path was getting overgrown and narrowing with overgrowth and fallen branches. We got straight to it and set to work:

• Brushing
• Chopping/lopping back
• Litter picking
• Scrapping
• Soil shifting
• Armchair moving

After a good session and with a city owl cheering us on in the background (an actual one, not Sheffield Wed fan) we popped tools down and headed off into the night with a run through town to mix it up and see all the developments that are popping up in town.

John has sent us some photos of how it looks in the daylight which is a lot better than when we got to it!

Until next time, happy running! :)

An inside task in January? Yes please!

11 started from The Showroom and once at Ship Shape we met up with an additional 2 runners to make 13 on tonights run.

We met with Nur who told us all about Ship Shape's fantastic work in the community and how we could help. We got straight to it with the following tasks:

1. Vinyl wrapping the ladies bathroom to make them sparkle!
2. Putting up mirrors in the bathrooms and taking some time to reflect..
3. Screwing table legs to make broken tables good again.
4. Sorting the activity/food bank room so the table tennis/wiff waff/ping pong table can be used again.

When we left the pingers table was clear and good to go, the toilets sparkling, the tables well and truely screwed and the mirrors looking incredible (or was that just our reflections).

Into the night once more we ran and back to base to stretch off and rehydrate.

Until next time, happy running :)

On a very calm Mon evening we met with the Pitsmoor Pickers and some local residents to litter pick their street.

It was great to see the local community getting involved as a family activity and taking pride in their local area. We had thanks from passers by as we got to work pick as much as we could in the time we had and filling bag after bag with litter big and small.

By the end of the session there was a fair pile of rubbish, plus 2 TESCO trolleys which Rachel and Michelle willingly wheeled back to the supermarket. Every little helps..

Until next week, happy running :)

On a not too chilly November evening we had one of our longest runs to a group run task at just over 5km each way. After a very brief warm up and count off we set off on our journey.

The team stayed motivated on the mostly uphill route to Hillsborough, knowing that we had a fantastic winter indoor task set up by Amazing Alex from Age UK to get to, as well as the satisfaction from feeling the muscle burn from those hills - the best runs are the ones you still feel the next day right?

Once at the Pavilion we counted the runners in and I breathed a sigh of relief that we hadn't lost anyone. This in no small part to Backmarker extraordinaire Serg, and the group effort on navigating our way through trendy Kelham.

Heading indoors we saw the 4 keen Goodgym elves that had gone direct to the task getting stuck into the shiny paper and pritt stick. A very well organised set up by Alex meant that GG Sheffield got straight to task, using our artistic flare to create as many Christmas cards for the Age UK volunteers as we could in the time. Although we were speedy, quality was ensured by our QA Manager Michelle, providing appropriate feedback where it was due.

In no time at all our time was up and after a quick refreshment and group photo we headed back into the night and the super streets of Sheffield.

Good attendance for a Community mission. Lots of fly tippers and we managed to overcome the smelly site. On our way to the curry house we managed to pick up more litter. Rewarding mission.