Tim, Nigel, Tom, Peter and Rachel headed to Queens Walk Recreation Ground in the Meadows for our task this week. This was a new location for us, just down the road from the Meadows Foodbank where we have spent many-a-Wednesday evening.

Keen beans Peter and Tom had met a little earlier to do a 5k run before this task, while the rest of us walked and trammed our way to the meeting point.

We met Emily from the Clean Champions on arrival who gave us our litter pickers and hi-viz, and after donning our head torches we set off around the park to see what we could find. Emily joined us too, so between us all we managed to fill 6 bags.

Thankfully the weather was a little bit kinder to us on this task and we didn't get too cold or wet. But we all agreed that the clock change and warmer days cannot come soon enough so that we can enjoy some lighter tasks and get back into some mid-week gardening!

For once the winter weather gods were smiling on GoodGym Nottingham!

Six of us wrapped up warm and headed out to the wilds of Sneinton to clean up St. Mary's Rest Garden.

We welcomed GoodGym founder Ivo who'd come up to see us, then donned our headtorches and hi-vis and paired off to tidy the park under the light of a gorgeous moon (the pictures don't do it justice).

It's a bit harder to find interesting stuff for the "Weirdest Item Wins" competition in the dark, but we got quite a lot of clothing (how? why? who's stripping off in the park?), an umbrella, the usual cans and bottles, and Ivo found a chunky silver key we left on top of the bin just in case anyone's missing it.

Special shoutout to Hannah who completed her 10th GoodGym task!

This Wednesday’s task was in honour of This Girl Can's "Let's Lift the Curfew" campaign, highlighting the inequality that women face as the long nights set in when it comes to exercising and travelling in public places.

Quite aptly, 3 GoodGym Nottingham gals - Hannah, Sarah and Rachel - attended this task, litter picking around Forest Rec.

This was our first dark task after the clocks changed, so we donned our head torches and hi-vis vests so that we could spot the litter and keep an eye on each other as we made our way around the park.

We decided to concentrate on the side of Forest Rec where the litter tends to congregate near the wall. As well as the usual bottles, cans, sweet wrappers and tissues, we bagged ourselves a wheel from a child’s police bike and a little shining star! At one point we thought we had lost Hannah, but turns out she was in a bush unearthing a massive haul of old batteries that had probably been there for quite some time – ‘girl power’!

For more information on how GoodGym are supporting the This Girl Can #LetsLiftTheCurfew campaign, read the story here.

A stonking 9 GoodGymers turned up for what I think was one of our most unusual litter picks yet. At least in terms of finds!

It was great to see so many people 😍 Special shoutouts to Chris for completing his very first GoodGym task, to Soliane who'd just got back in from a run round the corner and popped over to join us with about 3 minutes' notice, and to Nigel for completing his 15th task.

After pairing up, we spread out across the park and filled a wholly satisfying heap of bags with litter. And not just bottlecaps, crisp packets and cigarette butts. Not by a long shot. "Weirdest Item Wins" doesn't always get that weird, but the litter louts of St Mary's Rest Garden gave us so much, I have no idea who to award the honour to. What do you think?

We had:

• A coconut with straw
• A fur coat
• A car bumper
• A road sign
• A parasol umbrella
• A Blue Peter badge (appropriately found by Peter)

Sound off in the comments with your vote!

On what was a wonderful Wednesday for Team GB in Paris, Team GG (Nottingham) were going for gold at Victoria Embankment at what proved to be one of our most challenging events yet – litter picking where there wasn’t much litter! After meeting Emily for a quick briefing, the pack split and headed off at pace, armed with litter picking batons and a determination to bag some rubbish.

It was a lovely warm bright evening (grateful that we don’t yet need our torches), although we were competing with a bit of wind which caused our bags to flap like flags. We were also thrown by all the feathers lying around the place which looked a lot like bits of rubbish. Thankfully, all our litter-picking training leading up to this event paid off and we all managed to rise to the challenge. By the end we were running rings around all those pesky cigarette butts and lolly sticks!

After 45-minutes or so, we met at the finish line for our usual closing ceremony – a chance to relay to each other what we had collected followed by a group podium photo. There were no stand-out items worthy of a gold medal on this occasion – a BBQ grill, a toy car, a silver key ring and a picnic blanket qualified in the ‘slightly exciting’ category.

For those of us who ventured down to the riverside itself, we were treated to the sight and sound of some dragon boat teams training out on the water, as well as the occasional group of paddle boarders and kayakers gliding by. Being so close to Trent Bridge, we also heard a lot of whooping and cheering from what sounded like an exciting cricket match. Oh, and a huge group of runners went by en mass(cot) – unfortunately we all had high-viz vests on so we don’t think they would have spotted our red t-shirts.

Thanks to everyone who attended for being such good sports - Serafina, Nigel, Bozena, Hannah and Vicky.

Come and join us at one of our next sessions – find out more here.

Five Nottingham Goodgymers (Rachel, Nigel, Peter +Hannah & Sarah doing their first good deeds!) met at the canal ready to survey the scene!

Tonight was plogging with a twist as we helped out Emily from the Nottingham Clean Champions with a Plasticblitz litter survey.

Every item plogged was logged and whilst it was disappointing not to find any octopus pots we did settle for the usual cans and bottles plus a toothbrush and a fishing float!