The promise of sweeties tempted 27 GGers out on a chilly March evening to lend a hand to the front garden at Fishergate Primary School, which was in need of a bit of a face-lift.

We started proceedings by numbering off whilst listing things to be afraid of. Lyndsey conveniently listed her number (13) as something to fear, but we also Jamie's suggestion of FOMO and Joanna's fear of decision making as some great examples. It was then time for the short dash across to the task with Ed leading a sea of red shirts, and Vicky bringing up the rear.

At the task we were joined by Martin, Jenna, Anna and Charlotte and soon got stuck into the gardening. Rich declared himself the man with the bin and collected the various bits of rubbish dotted around, whilst others got stuck into weeding, pruning and clearing.

With everyone working hard on the ground to get the garden looking 👌, Mitch decided he'd think outside the box and look higher up for his opportunity to make a difference. A rogue black bin bag stuck up a tree was the goal and it was no match for Mitch armed with a spade, who had acted against all advice and climbed the tree to retrieve it.

Opportunities for further weeding and pruning were dwindling as the task wore on, so mind's started think about potential future tasks with Rich spotting a tree guard that looked like it was in need of removal. Obviously GG York are absolute pros at tree guard removal nowadays!

After a few last minute bits of weeding it was time for a team photo before heading off for Vicky's fitness sesh - Head, Shoulders, Knees and Cones! The game involved moving around a circle of cones before dashing into the middle to pick up a sweet reward. The sweets dwindled as the session went on, which led to a bit of pushing and shoving to get the most in demand sweets.

We then headed back to CVS for a photo with the coveted Golden Trowel (the prize for the most good deeds done in the January Challenge) and then sampled some of Nikki's delicious fudge which also turned out to be part of your 5-a-day 😋

Great session everyone 💪

Here today, outside York CVS, at 18:16 the Group Run is back!

I was so pleased to announce that after 16 months we are finally back together and we had things to celebrate!

Amy celebrated her 100th good deed today and got the honours to wear the red cape! WELL DONE AMY!

Ellie achieved her 200th good deed last Tuesday. What a massive milestone! AMAZING JOB ELLIE!

Barbara, Tim, Debs, Lucy, David, Ed and Amy were part of the team who ran, or walked as part of the RunWithPride last month. Today was a great opportunity to present them with their medals. Well done you!

With everyone buzzing and raring to go it was time for the H&S brief and a warm up including pulling an invisible rope which made people chuckle. We were visiting two projects today, so we split up in two teams and headed in two different directions.

Led by Paul and Nick, with back marking duties diligently undertaken by John team St Paul’s School Allotment went to help with ground preparation for paving slabs and planters to go in.

Part of the report written by Paul:

Ideal GG task description ''just clear it all!'’ No concerns about accidentally digging up the wrong tree or confusing weeds and plants! Soon everyone had grabbed either a spade or fork or were using their hands to pull up the weeds and clearing the overgrown areas. There was good humour all round as everyone was glad to be back taking part in group runs. Eventually the heat took its toll and the pace of work dipped for the final 5 mins, but not before the area had been entirely transformed and numerous piles of cuttings and bags of waste had been produced. Highlights included Debs, Michael & John juggling potatoes that had been dug up. Laura’s surprise at finding she was trying to dig through carpet!

Meanwhile with Pete at the front, Leanne at the back and Ellie in charge of the walking group team Fishergate Primary garden went to do a pretty similar task. Welcomed by Caroline we quickly went to clear up weeds from the planters and raised beds. The difficulty here was that we had to leave the good plants and just pull out the weeds. Fortunately we are all expert gardeners and knew exactly which plant needed pulling out, the sticky weed deffo being one of them. We’ve uncovered some black and red currant bushes with ripened fruit ready to harvest by the school children during the last week of this term. Leanne focussed on improving access to the green house and uncovering paving slabs. The task owner asked us to put all the green waste into a massive wheelie bin and Abi took the opportunity to 'rescue' 5 black bags full of weeds and sticks from being disposed of in a non recyclable way - read on to find out why. We managed to clear most of the flower, fruit and veg beds, well we have left the fruit, veg and flowers and just cleared the weeds, I think! and with 19:30 on the clock we were ready to head back to the HQ. Five of us who wanted to walk did not leave empty handed and carried the weedastick bags to a composting bin at Abi’s project, a small park conveniently located just over the road from our new pub place. Having a look at and discussing what will potentially be one of the group run tasks for this summer I lost the track of time and had to sprint back to the HQ where most of us were already cooling down. I thought I will make them stretch and perhaps sweat a little bit more so they can cool down better and after a few stretching/yoga movements we were ready to visit Golden Ball for a well-deserved post task social drink.

12 hardy GGers met for a mid week task at Fisherfield school - a venue we had been to before.

Met by the ever enthusiastic Pippa we were put to work with newly acquired skills and steadily improving willow weaving. After a ceremonial handover of the cape of good deeds being handed from Debs to Max (cheers on his 100th good deed) he joined Craig and Pete in using their height advantage in pruning the highest wisps while the others got to work in creating and improving a willow fence at the back of the field.

"What is more important: length, width or girth "

Unable to produce at speed the willow required for everyone, 4 of the gang started weeding a raised bed by the school; Laura and Amy started weeding the vegetable patches and Katie made a wilow crown for Egg ! Shortly after that either because the fence was just about complete or the fact that Max discovered the biscuits were by the allotment beds the willow crew easily found an excuse to use the remaining time digging out weeds (or hopefully non important plant based material) before polishing off the biscuits and the end of another task

35 GG Yorkies saw in December with two massive tasks!

We welcomed along two brand new runners to the gang, your best cheers please for Vix and Evan especially because they joined us on a very chilly night.

Mitch led the majority of the group off to a lovely indoor task at Fishergate School, where everyone was tasked with wrapping HUNDREDS of presents for the school's Christmas shop, where the kids can buy small gifts for their families.

There were matchmakers and chocolate oranges which were easy and rectangular, then the slightly more complex triangular lip balms and much more difficult cylindrical pots of slime!

Mitch did have a go at wrapping but as you can see from the picture of his efforts, he was better just staying in charge and making sure nobody was going rogue with the scissors or getting paper cuts.

The remaining small but hardcore group ran with me over to the Groves where Jane of the Secret Garden had asked us to move "about 50 big stones".

The short version of this story is that a local man spotted some excellent large rocks which had been excavated from a local building site. Some of the stones are carved and almost certainly have some sort of historical significance but we don't know what.

With permission, and an electric milk float, they took all the stones with the idea that they could use them to build a rockery in the Secret Garden (a local community space) and stored them in his front garden, where they've been for months.

The rockery can't be built until spring so this task was to shift all the rocks to the shared garage for winter storage.

It was a bit like a strongman Atlas Stones challenge as the awkwardly shaped stones challenged everyone, with only the biggest ones going in the single, rickety wheelbarrow.

This is a proper task! Max

Max was very happy to be lifting heavy rocks and there was some rock jigsaw solving going on that a drystone waller would have been proud of.

30 minutes down and the last, enormous rock was placed in the garage. We estimated that there were in fact about 150 rocks. Slightly more than anticipated.

With our task complete we ran to see if we could help with any last minute present wrapping. It was an absolute hive of activity when we arrived and there was some seriously high quality wrapping happening. The rock gang mostly focused on recycling cardboard and being countdown timers whilst the wrappers finished up.

There were hundreds of gifts to wrap, it felt like an impossible job to do in the allocated time. The GoodGymers were amazing; they came in, cracked on, laughed and did the lot right until the very last minute. What absolute stars. I imagine they are sick of the sight of matchmakers! - Friends of Fishergate School

Amazing work with all the good tonight everyone. There are LOADS of community missions coming up in the next week so check out the listings and get involved.

On the first light evening of 2019, an absolutely massive crew turned up to do some good!

Our team included three brand new runners, a surprisingly unbroken Nikki (even after running a casual 65km over the weekend), a very happy Craig who beat his 5k PB again at the weekend, breaking that 20-minute barrier AND of course, the GG Yorkie of the Month for March.

The accolade for March goes to Christine who did loads of community missions in March, also wrote loads of run reports and takes fantastic photos for us regularly, well done Christine!

We sent a speedy crew of of ten blokes and a Jessie (led by Paul) off to a bonus task of planting lavender on the bank in Clifton, whilst the rest of us headed over to Fishergate School for a whole list of tasks in their outside forest school area.

The task list at Fishergate included:

• weaving willow into the igloo shelter
• weaving willow into the fence
• weeding the raised beds
• weeding the bases of all the hedgerow trees
• excavating an old brick fire pit

The excavation was actually quite exciting. On first glance, the 'fire pit' was just a flat muddy area, but as the team scraped away, a circle of bricks emerged.

I feel like we are time team! - Helen

Over at the raised beds, Lucy had ended up with what was definitely the smallest trowel that has ever been manufactured. Still effective.

Huw, Ben and Simon were really chuffed because they'd bagged another task which involved digging a big hole. There isn't a GoodGymer out there who doesn't love a good bit of hole-digging. The hole they dug was 100% big enough for the quite small tree which had to go in it. Some might say 200%, either way they were all very happy.

The speedy crew made it to Clifton in double quick time and got to work planting 45 lavender plants in amongst the daffodils on the steep bank. Craig had forgotten his gloves so borrowed a pair from the pile. He gleefully handed them back once the task was over, proclaiming them to be the comfiest garden gloves he'd ever worn.

Those are my cycling gloves - Kay, task owner.

After just 40 minutes, we'd finished the whole Fishergate task list and new runner Lionel finished beautifying the fire pit by washing away the last of the dirt was a bucket of water. It was an amazing transformation. There was some chat about igloo weavers stealing willow from fence weavers but all rumours were unfounded.

We celebrated a great evening of tasks and the lovely light, sunny evening with the super duper Cones of Joy!! Paul's team got back just in time to join us and it was fitness mayhem as people lunged, planked, can-can-kicked, ran in circles and did extreme cheering from the cheering station.

I was paired with Stef, he just kept running so I had to do all the exercises - Craig (lucky)

Pun credit - Tim (excellent work)