For once the winter weather gods were smiling on GoodGym Nottingham!

Six of us wrapped up warm and headed out to the wilds of Sneinton to clean up St. Mary's Rest Garden.

We welcomed GoodGym founder Ivo who'd come up to see us, then donned our headtorches and hi-vis and paired off to tidy the park under the light of a gorgeous moon (the pictures don't do it justice).

It's a bit harder to find interesting stuff for the "Weirdest Item Wins" competition in the dark, but we got quite a lot of clothing (how? why? who's stripping off in the park?), an umbrella, the usual cans and bottles, and Ivo found a chunky silver key we left on top of the bin just in case anyone's missing it.

Special shoutout to Hannah who completed her 10th GoodGym task!

Today I helped Dale at the YMCA with prepping the kitchens ready for decoration by the local college students. This would be as part of their work experience and also potentially a first step into a painting and decorating career for them. A good hour well spent! Jules

Read more about the YMCA's Peachey Street project here

Plus extra well done to Jules as this was her 10th GoodGym task - congratulations!!

For our first weekend task of 2025 we returned to a chilly Sneinton with the wonderful Kathryn Cooper. We were meant to be helping out in the primary school's allotment, however the recent freezing temperatures meant that we couldn't really do a lot of gardening. So, in true GoodGym spirit, we instead decided to turn our hand to a spot of litter picking around the local area.

Lucy, Hannah, Matthew and Rachel met Kathryn and her children at the allotment gate where we collected our pickers and bin bags. We were also joined by one of the local residents who helps out regularly with various community initiatives and litter picks.

We spent an hour filling several big bags of rubbish covering Windmill Lane, Sneinton Road, Green's Windmill carpark, and the area outside the Salvation Army centre and Johnno's Mini Market. Lucy even managed to get a broom from the mini market so that she could sweep up all the cigaratte butts and smaller bits of rubbish that were hard to pick up. Luckily, Rachel had already collected an old broken dustpan so she dug it out of her purple bag and put it to use one final time to collect the sweepings.

Most of what we collected was the usual bottles, cans, sweet wrappers and the like, but Matthew did manage to find an in tact coffee cup discarded on the floor. Obviously this created the perfect mug shot! And yes, that is his breakfast also in his hand - not wanting to let us down when running a little late, he picked up a snack on the way and continued to eat it whilst picking litter!

On this task we also got to take a look at the beds outside the Salvation Army centre which Kathryn and some of our volunteers had worked on at a task last year - see the report from that task here.

It was great to welcome Lucy back with us after a bit of a break, and in doing so she completed her 5th GoodGym task - woo hoo!! Hannah and Matthew are also both closing in on 10 tasks - who will make it first....?

In the second part of our double-header to welcome in the new year, we headed back to the Meadows Food Bank.

Six of us had a run (or a run/walk) down to the river and back, headtorches on and looking out for ice – it was -1°C after all! Thankfully we all stayed upright and arrived back with enough time for a quick stretch before heading in to get stuck into Mark's latest jobs for us.

The Food Bank often has to buy large quantities of stock at once, so it's difficult to keep an eye on the dates on things and make sure the products with the shortest shelf lives get given out first, avoiding unnecessary wastage. Our task was therefore to sift through the various stock categories and arrange things in date order so the regular volunteers don't have to spend time looking at all the packages when they come up to grab stock.

Rachel and Leah started with cereal before heading over to help Nigel (celebrating his 25th task, amazing job!) find any tins with a date in the next three months and bring them down. The three then had a few minutes left to split up several four-packs of tuna (a surprisingly tricky task) and date them all before putting them out on the racks.

Meanwhile, Tom, Matthew. Bozena and our brand-new GoodGymers Lindsey and Maisie carried on sorting out the stock upstairs, with Tom apparently having to buy us all a drink at the next social after losing a bet about whether there'd be any pasta packets with a different date to the rest in the pile.

All in all, a fantastic start to the year! Go GoodGym Nottingham!

Sunday 15th Dec saw 5 Goodgymers head out into the wooded depths of Gedling Country Park with a small army of volunteers to help finish their 2024 tree planting programme. Hannah and Nigel were joined by debutants Diana and Theo and Emma who we have been fortunate to acquire from our colleagues in Newcastle. We started with a highly informative talk from the local naturalist who explained, amongst other things that the Purging Buckthorn we are planting was butterfly friendly but poisonous to humans. Fortunately tea and cakes were laid on at the end of the mission so no one was tempted to have a chew. First job was to plant beech saplings in the corner of the cow field - no need for any artificial fertiliser in that space. We were then asked to spread out and venture into the woods, find a small clearing and plant out the remaining beech trees. When we returned to the path Diana and Theo were missing - the Park is nearly 600 acres so we started to get concerned and were just asking the Duke of Edinburgh candidates if they had done their search and rescue training yet when our two latest recruits appeared, safe and sound. Onwards to the butterfly meadow to plant out the aforementioned Purging Buckthorn in the hope that next summer Brimstone Butterfly will return to the park.

Thank you to the regular volunteers and trustees who made us very welcome and invited us back any Sunday to support their impressive and valuable work.

When it comes to painting walls Goodgym Nottingham are on a roll (er). Splitting resources to help out with a late request meant two (thankfully indoor) tasks were completed on a bitterly cold January evening. Peter and Rosemarie returned to The Place in Sherwood to help with laying down the first coat ahead of the joiners coming in. Paint was applied, splashes were wiped up, tea was drunk and the task owner was happy. All in all a good start to 2025!