The war memorial Lychgate at Holy Trinity church needed a clean up and protecting with a coat of oily wood preservative.

A team of four, including new member Miki, arrived on a beautiful sunny morning and set to work. Firstly brushing down the spiderwebs and clearing debris off the roof. Then giving the wood a light sanding down before starting the painting.

A couple of hours later we had run out of paint but the lychgate was definitely looking much smarter!

In the last of a summer series of dual-task group sessions, our team was split with a walking/biking group heading to the Penrose Roots to Recovery garden and a running group heading to Holy Trinity Church.

The team's task in the garden was to tackle a patch of stinging nettles that had taken over a storage area behind the polytunnel. Kitted out with shears and rakes we worked from each end to meet in the middle, uncovering lost garden supplies in the process and filling two big bags with compost fodder.

Meanwhile the running group's task at the church was to give the railings a second coat of paint to finish the task we'd worked on over the summer stripping and repainting.

It's the time of year that darkness is creeping in so we had a dark journey back into town. Don't forget your lights for next week's run!

This week's group run/walk had two tasks. Runners were sent off to take on the long distance task, painting the hand rail at Holy Trinity church. Walkers took a more sedate journey to the Riverside meadow, hunting for invasive plant species.

Runners were met by William at the church who got the team set up with paint and brushes. Before too long the hand rail leading up to the church was green and so were many of the painters fingers!

Meanwhile over at the Riverside meadow, the efforts of previous years in pulling out the invasive canadian Goldenrod plants had paid off hugely, there was hardly any to be seen, native plants had regained their territory here. After a bit of hunting some young shoots of Goldenrod were found springing up from the roots left behind after a pulling session a few weeks ago. These were pulled up to stop them taking hold again and then a couple of small patches of tall goldenrod about to flower were spotted in the long grass.

Checking further along the river a lone stem of Himalayan Balsam was found and removed before it went to seed.

Calling victory in the battle for native wildlife and painting railings, we all headed off home quickly to catch the second half of England's Victory over the Netherlands 😄🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿⚽🥅🇳🇱🥲

The remarkably dodgy June weather relented for an evening while we ran out from the town centre to our task for the evening.

It was our second visit to Holy Trinity Church with the aim of stripping the old peeling paint from the handrails leading into the church, ready for a nice coat of fresh paint.

We picked up where we left off and although a smaller team than last time we managed to get the second half done and clean it all up nicely. We'll be back another time to be kitted out with paint brushes and take the next step, but we left the job of the day was well done and made our way back into town to complete our 8km journey.

Having spent a few sessions cleaning inside Holy Trinity Church in the colder wetter weather, it was our time to take on one of the outdoor jobs.

After meeting up in town we welcomed Jack from GGHQ and then sent off Musa and Eshan early for the 40 minute walk, the runners did their warm up led by Sam, leading his first session to complete his run leader training.

After the good 4k run out to Holy Trinity we got started with scraping and sanding the long hand rails leading up to the church doors. The old flaking paint was stripped away and the rails sanded down ready for a fresh coat of paint on a future visit.

We worked furiously until we ran out time and then headed back into town, with a sprinkle of rain to cool us down while we added a few sprint intervals to the run.

On this week's group run we welcomed Pam to the team after recruiting her at last weeks session. After the intro and warm-up we headed out to Holy Trinity Church, for our second go at a good spring clean.

We polished the pews, took Henry Hoover up the aisle and dusted off the organ pipes and the cobwebs up on the rafters.

With everything shiny and smelling of polish we did a workout in the aisle, walking lunges, star jumps, squats and press ups got the blood pumping in preparation for the return journey back into town.