Sadly we had some last minute drop outs, so it was just Celine, Rachel (me) and Maria from Common Ground this morning. At first we thought Maria might have forgotten, but then we saw her trundling up the bank with a wheelbarrow laden with tools.

Small numbers and cold weather didn't deter or hinder us from our task, which was to cut back brambles/ivy/weeds from an overgrown area to create a "no-dig" bed. The idea is you just cut back the worst, cover with cardboard to stop the weeds returning and top with compost. The no-dig proved to be a slight misnomer, especially with Celine, who was determined to dig out some stubborn roots!

The bed is now ready for planting in spring. Amazed with how much we achieved with so little time, we mulled over future possible tasks and admired the lavender planted on a previous visit!

Maria from Common Ground community garden put out a call and we answered! A team of volunteers were rallied for a winter tidy with 2 skips to fill.

There were inside jobs, emptying a basement into one of the skips, but it was such a lovely day, we asked to be assigned to an outside job. Celine had recruited a couple of new members from work, so we were a 4 strong team. Big welcome to Alex and Tom !

Our task was to clear a path at the side of the planters, which had long since been overgrown. After what seemed like a very fast 90 minutes, we were done and dusted, all the while other volunteers milling around working on other parts of the site.

We left with thanks from Maria and we encouraged her to make another referral for the January challenge.

Yes, that was a Sheffield based Pulp pun..

On a beautiful Sheffield evening we were back off to meet MARVELOUS MARIA from Common Ground Community Garden to help with a bit of a spring clean. This time around we took on the below tasks:

• Litter picking
• Painting planters a beautiful sky blue
• Clearing out a basement
• Clearing out a store cupboard
• Filling a skip

Maria was very thankful for the help which will make the spaces a lot easier to use and make storage for other equipment to be used by the surrounding community. The beds looked ace!

On completion of our tasks we used this amazing area for some paired fitness where one person would take on an exercise whilst their partner did 2 laps of the 'Stonehenge Circle' before tagging their partner to swap over. This weeks exercises included:

• Planks (the exercise, not the people)
• Press Ups
• Squat Jumps

Until next time, happy running :)

So great to start to see some of the old GG faces coming back to group runs and numbers becoming more consistent, long may it continue. We gathered outside The Showroom and headed out to meet MARVELLOUS MARIA at Common Lane Community Garden.

On arrival Maria gave us a marvellous brief on the tasks that needing doing on the Community Garden site and around the Community Centre which included:

• Weeding all around the centre and some of the beds
• Repairing the compost heap with new (old) pallets
• Litter picking around the site
  

We got straight to it, quickly splitting into groups and getting straight on task.

Becky & Lan got down to earth, weeding a corner bed.

Ash kept a level headed repairing the compost heap with Racheal and Abi.

Once time was upon us and we’d downed tools, we went from pallets to planks with a good three rounds of ‘plank and go’ where we paired up heel to heel in the plank position and took turns in our pairs to do sprint laps around the 9 ladies style stone circle before swapping with our partner.

We had a steady jog back with a small STARVA sprint section at the end for those that fancied a challenge and then stretched off before heading inside for some refreshments from The Showroom.

Thanks to James for the title pun and some of the action shots.

All I can say is kudos to the 6 Goodgymmers today who braved the mid-afternoon sun on the hottest day of the year to dig, weed and chop at Common Ground.

We made good progress on digging out the compost from the compost bays (finding lots of non-compostable content along the way) for them to eventually be rebuilt and the compost to be put to good use on the garden. We used teamwork to haul very heavy stone blocks to edge another area. We chopped back brambles and we weeded beds. We were then treated to ice pops, which were very gratefully received! We hope to be back very soon to finish the work on the compost bays and have lined up as a potential for a group run 😁

5 goodgymers met Marvelous Maria and her dog at the Common Ground Community Garden, where the task was to clear all grass and weeds out from an area adjacent to the pavement ready for the planting of a new lavender hedge. The task looked daunting but the Sun was shining and in typical GG style we all got straight to work and finished the first clear of the bed in the two hours, and even had time to start planting up. Looking forward to seeing and smelling the lavender grow in the coming months.