Holidays are coming...

With Manchester city centre busy with Christmas shoppers and party revellers, 4 GoodGymers donned Santa and elf hats, plus an interesting bobble baseball cap, to go for a social run before the Christmas holidays.

Juno ably led the way taking us down Oxford Road towards the University buildings, which were quiet with students having left. We circled back to Canal Street with a rather frightening blow up Santa, and then back towards Deansgate with street Christmas lights shining the way.

We finished the ~5 km route via Manchester cathedral before a well earned drink at Victoria Tap.

Was great to get out for a group run before the holidays!

In the aftermath of Storm Darragh, three GoodGymers Stefanie, Peter, and Ben brought their sturdy gloves to pick up the litter left in its wake. With bag rings, litter pickers, and strong pink sacks from Keep MCR Tidy, we made the short jog from St Peter's Square to start litter picking from Deansgate.

On our way, we found numerous cans and bottles plus plenty of filled coffee cups that have gone to waste. We found a still tagged plaid shirt, too much McDonalds waste to keep track of, and a decent wellington boot. With the high winds over the weekend, it probably wasn't a surprise that we found 4 discarded umbrellas and the wet weather made the bin bags quite heavy by the end!!

Following the tracking of the bin bags using What3Words, we were able to pass on the locations to Keep MCR Tidy to ensure they are collected successfully.

Always a good and useful backup task through the winter months. Keep an eye on our sessions for a possible Christmas social run next week and for sessions during the January Challenge coming up in the New Year!

Welcome to Christopher and Md for their first GG Manchester task!

Five keen Goodgymers rolled up their sleeves to help out with Ardwick Climate Action on their Saturday morning volunteering session. We wheeled the equipment and plants over to their site next to the Mancunian Way before getting to work.

We quickly cleared the nearby litter with 6 or 7 bags collected plus a GB sign, a set of traffic cones, and a metal pole. With the litter cleared, we helped plant 500 crocus bulbs around the trees and some additional grass plants to be ready for the spring.

While planting, Peter was busy pruning the tops of lavender on a nearby site and Stefanie with Ben pruned a hydrangea near Brunswick Parish church.

On a busy morning, a few of us managed to swap numbers and pick up some strawberries for home, while also singing happy birthday to Ben on a bumper day of GG Manchester volunteering.

Great to meet Stefanie and Sophie this evening!

Keep MCR tidy provide a great resource for refuse sacks (and in future we'll tap into their litter pickers and bag rings too) and promote local community litter picking in Manchester. We got a hold of 20-30 pink refuse sacks and between the four of us, collected at least 10 bags (plus a bit more) full sacks of discarded waste!

We covered 6 km, starting by Piccadilly gardens before going along Canal St, to Deansgate and then to the Castelfield bowl before downing tools to run the remaining 1-2 km back to the meeting point.

We collected a whole range of items, including lots of cans/fast food packaging, laughing gas canisters, discarded vapes and cigarette butts, drinks cartons, and lots and lots of polystyrene bits.

We bumped into Don't Walk Past Manchester on their Monday night round and had a chat, possibly due a donation push toward the colder winter months. Keep an eye out for future tasks!

p.s. We did spot a lit Christmas tree in Deansgate. It's coming.