On a scale of 1-10, our volunteers are a 13.1!

10 Goodgymers helped their local community in Liverpool
Charmaine Scott
Aditi
Julie Inge
Lucien Dobel-Ober
Siân Phillips
Heetu
Ema Quinn
Laura Waller
DaveMol
Jo G
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Liverpool

Sunday 17th March

Credits
Siân Phillips
Siân Phillips

REPORT WRITER

Ema Quinn
Ema Quinn

SESSION ORGANISER

PHOTOGRAPHER

Laura Waller
Laura Waller

PHOTOGRAPHER

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Report written by Siân Phillips (she/her)

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It was an early start for a group of GoodGymmers this fine Sunday morning as we came together to set up the Otterspool prom water station for the Liverpool half marathon. Three GoodGym members were taking part, Vikky, Roz and Emma, while Sallyann was running the Bath half marathon the same day. We were looking forward to cheering on our friends along with the rest of the runners, and got going setting up our tables either side of the route. As we prepared by unpacking crates of water bottles from a shipping container, opening the bottles and screwing the tops back on so they were ready to hand out, there was a growing sense of anticipation as we waited to see the first runners pass by. Not many of the leading runners wanted water, leading to the teams on each side of the path competing to hand out water to those who did and jokingly boasting about our bottle tallies. This was soon forgotten as we began to get steadily busier and were very quickly deluged with runners as the main body of the race passed by. Even though our stock of prepared bottles filled three trestle tables, it vanished very quickly and everyone was working flat out either unpacking bottles or handing them out. We were so overwhelmed that eventually we had to give up unscrewing them, something that has never happened before in our time running the water station for this race - there were 9 thousand runners this year, an increase of about 2 thousand on previous years, and it really made a difference! Despite how intense it was we kept up a cheer for all the athletes as they passed, and when we spotted Roz, Emma and Vikky we made sure to shout extra loudly for them. As the race drew to a close we turned our attention to our next big task - collecting up all the bottles the runners had thrown behind them. Charmaine, who happened to be passing by on a walk, got stuck in to help which was amazing, and even signed up as a GoodGym member later that day - a big thank you, Charmaine! With the extra help we powered through the clean-up and collected a staggering 52 rubbish sacks full of plastic bottles. We were all quite sobered to see the scale of plastic waste and are really hoping to see a more sustainable solution for next year's run. As for this year though, it was hard work but good fun and made enjoyable by the camaraderie and conversation of the GoodGym team - huge thanks and kudos to everyone!


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Liverpool

Lark Lane Litterpick
🗓Tomorrow 6:30pm

Keeping Lark Lane and the surrounding area litter free!

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