The Malthouse was a pop-up venue inside a Victorian former warehouse on The Crescent. GoodGym did a lot of work last year to help transform the space into a vibrant area that hosted a bar, street food stalls, a market, studios and much more. Sadly, all good things come to an end, and so now we were back to help the York Nurturing Community move their things out.

Part 1: The litter pick

Things didn't quite go to plan at first. Fifteen of us arrived promptly, and the van was waiting outside ready to be loaded, but unfortunately, no-one could let us into the building! Luckily, Egg had litterpickers and bags in her car, so we set off on an impromptu litter pick. It's fair to say that we somewhat outnumbered the available litter outside the building, so there was some truly competitive picking at first.

Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! — York GoodGymers

The pickings improved as we worked our way out onto the main street and we soon managed to fill a couple of bags. At this point (about twenty minutes in) we got the call from Egg that the venue was now open, so we all headed back to get started. We did consider logging the litter pick as a separate task, but decided that would probably be a bit on the cheeky side! :-)

Part 2: Dismantle that kitchen!

This is a hard screw! — anon

Our main task now lay before us. We had a kitchen and a metal pagoda to dismantle, many heavy items to shift around and a big van to fill. The kitchen and pagoda were to be reused so needed careful handling. (And yet they asked us?) The only slight issue was that we didn't actually have many tools to do all this. Not to be deterred, everyone got stuck in … armed with about three and a half screwdrivers, a hammer and a pair of pliers. Oh, and we then found out that the sink was still plumbed-in as well!

To me.. to you.. PIVOT! — GGers trying to get a fridge through a too-small door frame

We could just open the front door? — The guys from Space Invaders

It's amazing how much a group of enthusiastic people can get done in a short space of time. People set about finding many creative ways to dismantle (and just occasionally destroy) things, whilst others gave themselves a quick crash course in plumbing. The kitchen soon started to disappear, the van started to fill, and we made neat piles of stuff ready for collection tomorrow.

After just over an hour, we were done. It is a real shame that The Malthouse pop-up had to come to an end so early, but with our help there will hopefully be something like it in York again soon.