Gaynor and Ben risked the incoming rain clouds to deliver a whopping 250 copies of the Manchester Post 📰

Starting from Brunswick Parish Church, we covered some of the residential streets in Ardwick, just off Brunswick Street. Several dogs, cats, and student flats cropped up along the way, plus some very decorative benches 🐲🐉

Thankfully, the rain clouds skirted by, allowing us to complete the round to spread some positive community cheer to local residents.

Fresh morning at Fletcher Moss parkrun event number 292 after the overnight rain. Big thank you to the 19 volunteers who helped make it happen, with quite a few missing due to the Easter hols.

360 runners and walkers completed the 5 km course with 49 new PBs and 81 first timers including 18 doing their first ever parkrun!

Scott and Ben filled their backpacks to go rucking along the Bridgewater Canal to deliver lots of tins and food to Manchester South-Central foodbank, with the drop-off point being the Chester Road Tesco.

Some of the items donated include:

• Easter eggs 🐣
• Peanut butter 🥜
• Tinned meat and tuna
• Pasta sauce
• Spaghetti 🍝
• UHT milk 🥛
• Pesto

During the run along the canal, we passed Embassy Village, a few barges, plus Old Trafford and lots of runners.

Solid workout and well done for persevering to remove as much of the wall frames as possible! 💪

The Plastic Shed refurb of 2026 has kicked off this week, with the previous shelving space used by Shuropody needing to be dismantled and removed to install murals, actual shelving, and other arty paraphernalia.

With a wide array of screwdrivers 🪛 drills, GoodGym elbow grease, and a handy crowbar, we managed to remove as much as possible, with some clinging on as a future problem. At times it felt like a rage room, with banging and drilling filling the air along with the resulting dust.

With the health and safety book firmly out of reach, the Treatment Room 2 upstairs is now filled with wall panels, wood planks (some with screws still attached...), and after some scraping and sanding from Sophie, Caitlin seemed happy with the progress made.

Top effort and teamwork from Hazel, Mandy, Fanette, Tanoshi, Sophie, and Ben!

Welcome to David for your first GoodGym task!

After a ~4 km run along the canal from the city centre for Peter and Ben, we collected the key from Gorse Hill Studios and met with Katie to see what seeds could be planted out. They had some potted up and boxes of seeds so we took what was ready and able to be planted outside in late March and met up with David in the allotment.

With 2 project managers and a biochemist, we set to work. Weeds were pulled, tarpaulin was pulled up, and we managed to make another 3 or 4 new beds ready for the volunteers in the studios to plant things out of the coming months. We planted some lettuce and rocket in the salad beds, planted carrots, onions, peas, and broad beans from last year, with space made for footpaths and the future potential shed to go in. We shifted bags of compost and emptied some out.

All in all, a productive session and we hope to be back before too long to help with planting, maintenance/weeding, and shed building. All things GoodGymers are specialists in.

Tanoshi and Ben joined in with the Great British Spring Clean with a few groups in Ardwick. Co-organised by Ardwick Climate Action, Brunswick Parish Church, M13 Youth group, and the local Scouts, around 30 people took part to help clear up in the local area.

We were split up into groups, with some tackling a green space closer to Plymouth Grove, while we joined a group to tackle a spot beyond Ardwick Green. We were provided with gloves, litter pickers of different sizes, and plenty of bags.

In our group, we managed to collect ~26 bags in total, including a couple that were combined, plus a toilet seat (of course) and a few laughing gas cannisters. In total, we collected 65 bags of litter, tidying up the local area and all reported to Keep Manchester Tidy for collection.

Afterwards, we were treated to a warm soup lunch and plenty of sweet treats and cake, a just reward for a couple of hours of hard work.