Tonight we were tasked with inspecting the various types of fish passes on the weirs of the River Don for the Don Catchment Rivers Trust (DCRT). This is to make sure that fish are free to complete their migrations upstream unencumbered. The main species to make use of these are salmon, trout, and grayling, along with dace, chub, and barbel. The passes also help eels and other fish species navigate weirs that were previously impassable. The data and photographs we record are used by the DCRT to assess which passes need maintenance. Thankfully, on this occasion all of the passes we inspected were fully functioning with no obvious damage.

A fin-tastic time was had by all

We managed to survey three weirs- Lady's Bridge, Walk Mill, and Burton Weir- before running into a blocked section of path, which I thought, wrongly, that we would be able to negotiate. We did discover that this section was blooming with blackberries and rosehips, if any foragers are looking for a tip-off. The fenced-off section is absolutely thriving with no foot traffic passing through.

The following is the gathered inspection data for each of the passes. Lady's Bridge: Clear at top. Clear at bottom. Flowing freely. No damage visible or debris present. Walk Mill: Clear at top. Clear at bottom. Flowing freely. No damage visible or debris present. Burton Weir: Clear at top. Clear at bottom. Flowing freely. No damage visible or debris present.

Storm Floris was blowing, the rains had raged earlier, but the sun was now making an appearance and a "live and picking" team of hardened Goodgymers braved it outside to tackle the litter in the Grey to Green park and cycle path by the river Don.

To celebrate 300 good deeds, Céline was entrusted with the much coveted Sheffield GoodGym Cape.

Genial Gerry from Sustrans welcomed and tooled us up, and away we went into the Sustainable Urban Drainage System that are planted with beautiful flowers in bloom, pickers in hands and rubbish bags blowing like sails, buds in the SUDS!

Annie, right arm in a sling and picker in the left, undeterred by a recent gruesome fall from her bike, was determined to gather all the drinking cans - an amazing CAN DO attitude!

Both teams from GoodGym and Sustrans, all together, we managed to pick our way through all the beds along the river, and a real tower of rubbish bags was collected.

We were even treated to a welcome slice of chocolate cake from Gerry at the end, we got our just desserts, before heading for a meal at Sheffield plate to celebrate together.

On a delicious Mon evening in Sheffield we headed across town and uphill to Somerset Park to meet with the local legend that is Karen from Pitsmoor pickers to help this group keep the area litter free and sparkling.

We met with Karen and four other pickers including a new born baby and got tooled up with pickers, hoops and bags and got straight to it.

Cans were collected separately as Karen takes these away to get recycled.

Karen embraced her arty side and painted some messages, encouraging park users to bin their rubbish.

Once done, bags were collated, labeled and reported ready for collection by the council.

Until next time, happy running! :)

It was a stormy looking night, but that doesn't stop goodgym from making an appearance.

We met the fantastic Fran from Heeley Community Garden on site with tools, ready to get stuck in.

With the spring and summer sun the garden was looking full of life, only perhaps a little too much of the wrong type of life with weeds overgrowing and taking over.

We got tooled up with gloves and spades and got to clearing one of the beds which was full of fly-tipping, weeds, rubble and litter, we even found a rotary washing line in there!

After a brief spell the bed was looking much clearer and ready for a new lease of life! Fran was mentioning that lessons had been learned from the last set of planting and that they would be going for trees rather than flowers this time as they are a lot easier to maintain.

We look forward to seeing these come through in good time.

Until next time, happy running :)

On a hot, muggy evening it was goodgym time again and this week we were surveying the cities fish pases to check that they are free from debris.

Keeping the fish pases free from debris is essential to allow for the fish to navigate the rivers to get to their prefered place to lay their eggs.

The passes we saw were all in good health with free flowing water and now even have QR stickers so that anyone passing the fish passes on the weirs can report of there are any obstructions.

Why not give it a go next time you are passing?

Nice straight forward one today, it only took us about an hour and a half to finish and the couple were really happy with the work we did for them. I don't like taking photos of missions so I've uploaded a photo of Elsie the cat instead.