🍁 18 excellent GoodGymmers met on a lovely November evening for an autumnal classic - leaf-clearing.

🎇 Ed led the group to Glen Gardens, which was locked and dark on our arrival. We soon heard from our task owner Iain that he’d gone to Clarence Gardens by mistake so he quickly headed over to join us at Glen. In the meantime, we did our fitness session first (which proved to be a popular option!), which was a belated (and tenuously-linked) bonfire bonanza. Thus followed sparkler skipping, toffee apple squats, Catherine wheel side crunches and rocket sprints. These sprints were then extended to the different entrance that Iain arrived at with the van.

🌬️ We got to work quickly and split into teams to tackle different parts of the park. Neil took on the blower challenge, moving between the groups to blow leaves in the right direction to be raked, leaf-handed then bagged/barrowed. Meanwhile, the leaf bin crew were tackling the three bins, moving the compost that was already there to make space for the new leaves. There was even space for a small amount of fun, including the moment (captured on camera) when Ed may have dropped some leaves on Max's head...

🥳 In no time at all, we’d filled the bins and the paths and grass area were both noticeably clearer of leaves than when we arrived. Iain was very grateful and will be ready at Clarence Gardens when we go in a couple of weeks for more leaf-clearing action.

⏰ It was soon time to head back to base and on to the pub for most of us while others headed home.

🙌 Thank you everyone, and hopefully see you again soon!

❄️ 20 glorious GoodGymmers met on a chilly Monday evening for our weekly group run. We had some news and warmed up while chatting about our favourite meals to cook. (Lots of curry and risotto fans, alongside some Pad Thai 🍛)

🎅 Keen to keep warm, we headed off swiftly and enjoyed a Christmas light sightseeing (and people-dodging) run through town to Glen Gardens 🎄

🚲 Once there, we were met by a couple of keen cycling GoodGymmers and Iain from the council who was delighted to welcome us to tackle the autumn leaves that were dominating the park 🍂

🍝 We got to work quickly, with a crack team of 4 folk on (literally) the leaf compost bins aka “Leaf Lasagne”. They did a sterling job, digging and turning the leaves in the three bins, ready to be added to by Team Leaf 🍁

🌳 Speaking of whom, the rest of the gang grabbed tools to tackle the accumulation of leaves across the park. We had leaf hands (apparently not called clappers, who knew?!), rakes of many shapes and sizes and the infamous leaf-blower. Pete quickly stepped up for the latter and got to work. Mountains of leaves were swiftly blown/raked and then grabbed and dropped into bags and wheelbarrows to be transported to the leaf compost bins. Phew, incredible teamwork 💪

👌 Too many leaves to count were collected and received by the newly organised compost bins and it was soon time to head back through town to CVS 🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️

🦵Once there, we did a collection of exercises to strengthen our knees, as requested previously. I may have had some name-finding challenges so if anyone fancies suggesting an alternative name for “Nicky’s special squats”, that would be greatly appreciated 👍

🍻 And after some more stretching, it was time to head to the pub where we had a good chat about the upcoming January Challenge. Watch this space for more information 👀

🙌A group of brilliant GoodGymmers gathered for our weekly group run. After congratulating some hardcore folk who arrived after running the races yesterday, we also welcomed Rob who was visiting from GoodGym Leeds. In honour of yesterday's races, we each chose our favourite things about Yorkshire, as part of our numbering off. Fell running, Yorkshire puddings and Tristan were just some of the highlights!

🚶‍♀️🚶‍♂️Abi led a walking crew while we warmed up and then split into two groups. Mitch and Leanne led a group to West Bank Park while the rest of us went to Glen Gardens.

Here's what Mitch had to say about the West Bank Park task...

• 7 runners left,
• 8 arrived,
• 11 did the task,
• 6 came back.

🦔 After a run consisting of multiple traffic light stops and hedgehog talk, we arrived at West Bank Park. We needed to tackle the infamous mountain of mud, which is located in the raised wooded beds. Our task was to dig out the mountain and then spread it down on the path.

⛏️ After half an hour of pickaxe, digging, raking and borrowing, we managed to make a large dent in the pile, but will have to come back!

🧹 Whilst we were digging, Tristan, Abi, Ellie and Tay were busy raking away. I didn't see what they were doing (great run leading there, Mitch!) but I imagine they were working hard!

🍃 After the hard work and a quick group stomp to flatten the path, it was time to leave for the fitness session. However, the darkness proved difficult for some.

"I kept trying to find the handles of the wheelbarrow,  it realised I was on the wrong side". Carl

🧨 Meanwhile at Glen Gardens, we met Adi in the dark and quickly got to work clearing a patch of ground. Ivy and roots came up while certain other plants were protected. Debs joined us at the task and quickly got stuck in with Barbara digging up a particularly stubborn root. They persevered and were eventually told that it probably went 20 feet deep! So with great reluctance, they called it a day and moved on to some less intractable weeds. Stefan advocated the use of dynamite for clearing the ground and after a (short) discussion, we concluded that probably wasn't covered under GoodGym's health and safety.

🦸🏼‍♀️🦸‍♂️ After a run back, we met by the wall near Priory Street for a "quick" fitness session. A little competition of who could stand on one leg for longest turned out to be longer than expected, due to the muscle power present in GoodGym York.

🍻 A stretch and pub trip concluded our Monday evening. See you next week!

Today started with a massive round of applause for Leanne who has recently reached 800 good deeds. It means that Leanne was out 800 times volunteering in York! That is a huge achievement deserving a massive CHEER!

Following a Michal-Egg jointly run warm-up we split up into two teams and were ready to do more good in York.

A team of 11 ran over to Glen Gardens to clear the borders around the new accessible pathway.

Adi met them there and warned that the ground was hard and dry but that was a massive understatement. It was almost impenetrable.

There was one really cool spade with a point end and saw edges! Paul Kelly put it to good use and managed to make good progress on his patch.

Lucy and Max escaped with some loppers to cut back overgrowth further along the path and they missed out on an extraordinary range of conversation about ‘the longest fence in the world’ and the paint colour ‘forth bridge red’.

With a fairly decent area of border cleared, the team moved onto bark chipping, armed with only two wheelbarrows and a lot of leaf grabbers.

21 seconds to go!

They were being chucked out of the park because the gatekeeper needed to lock up, but not before Bec and Lucy completed an amazing jigsaw of getting all the tools and the two wheelbarrows back in the metal tool shed.

Er.. one of those is mine and I need it back - Adi

Let’s hope for some rain and softer ground next time!

Meanwhile a team of 13 ran to Danesgate School. Jackie and Carl joined us at the task, making the team 15 strong.

Some of us were familiar with the location as we have been here before on three community mission. Today we were determined to complete what we have started back in April, namley remove every remaining bit of the invasive grass and other unwanted weeds and make space for new plants.

Guess what, the ground was hard here too...

Be careful not to dig into the electric wire - Debbie the task owner

To be on the safe side Ros, Cara, Jenna and Abi opted for a selection of trowels as oppose to forks and went on weeding along the paving slabs.

Barbara and Laura wielded a fork each and focused on the bit of the garden close the the school wall and well away from the illuminated path.

Rich, Stuart, Vicky and Izzie dug and pulled at the weeds by the wooden fence and the rest of us worked around the edges.

About 20 minutes into the task the ton bag was looking like full and Stuart stepped in. With Leanne's and Carl's assistance he demonstrated very effective compaction technique which involved jumping on top of the green stuff to make space for more.

We are an efficient bunch and Michal, Louise and Carl even found time to list the next bench marking task on the website.

With all the unwanted roots and weeds removed and the landscape fabric expertly laid Debbie opened the remote controlled gate and bid us farewell.

Back at the base and with various degree of eagerness we did few fun exercises including walking lunges, spiderman walk, duck walks, crab walk and backward walking lunges, before heading to the Ackhorne for the traditional after run social.

Next week we are all going to Hull Road Park.

A continuation of the path clearance from previous missions - this ivy does not take things lying down!

Having arrived early I managed to bag one of the coveted Root Slayers (as did 2nd arrival Graham) after being rather frustrated by the poor ivy destroying skills of the humble garden fork. At one point it was suggested I swap with Steve for a while but it turns out Nikkis Don't Share Tools (bad Nikki!).

However Zinnie, Steve and slightly later arrivals Louise and Jon did a fine job with their forks, and us Slayers tried to make nice by breaking up some of the extremely hard baked ground for them.

We were quickly at the end of our allotted hour and had already (over) filled the collection bags so called it a day, leaving plenty of ivy to go at for the next team. Top tip - the early bird catches the Root Slayer.

On a proper cold and wintry night, we went to Glen Gardens for a big double task.

There were many things to celebrate tonight, not only did we have a PB-tastic team running the Dalby Dash over the weekend we also....

• awarded Centurion Carl his cape for running his 100th good deed last week
• announced Amy as GG Yorkie of the Month for October for being our insta queen, boshing her first half marathon and generally being an excellent GoodGymer.
• welcomed new runner Cara to the gang, who'd pitched up on the windiest, coldest night of winter so far!

We headed over to Glen Gardens where Iain, Adi and Karen were waiting for us. Adi and Karen (Friends of Glen Gardens) had already been in the park for TWO HOURS making piles of leaves. If I could award good deeds, I would dish those two out one each.

There were two main tasks. The first was to shift the gigantic pile of mulch to the borders, and the second was to clear as many leaves as possible from the paths and the grass, and fill the new compost bins.

The mulch movers were bizarrely armed with snow shovels, possibly not the most effective tool for the job but they seemed to he enjoying themselves.

Several sub-teams of leaf gatherers headed to different corners of the park with huge sacks, brooms, rakes and giant leaf grabbers. Once everyone was tooled up, Iain presented two leaf blowers, which Rich and Ellie were extremely excited about.

Much to my utter delight, Rich discovered that the 'lunge and leaf blow' move was quite effective. However, after handing the leaf blower to Leanne he also learned that trying to catch leaves in leaf grabbers whilst they were being leaf-blown, was hugely ineffective (envisage the final Crystal Dome challenge of Crystal Maze, 90s kids!)

The compost bins required lots of jumping in to compress the many piles of leaves and after 45 minutes, they were absolutely full to the brim. With most of the mulch shifted too, we had a little bit of time left for some fitness.

Fitness involved a partner challenge where one person skipped or bunny-hopped the length of the Pavilion and sprinted back whilst their partner squatted or lunged.

I'm so hungry, the bunny hops have sent me over the edge - Lucy

We utilised the leaf-blowers for some excellent Centurion Cape footage, gave Carl some massive team high fives and ran back just before the rain arrived, phew!