A very exciting evening field trip for history lessons and working out. Tonight we joined the New Forest History and Archeology group to backfill “New Copse” Roman excavation site that they have been digging at annually since 2017. In this time they have discovered an early Roman round-house, an oven, and objects such as bracelets. They have uncovered half a tonne of Roman tiles also! The site is thought to have been a farmstead or agricultural settlement. We were wowed with lots of historical knowledge from the group. We were told the trees in this location were planted for timber for ship building, but by the time they had matured the type of timber was no longer being used! There was plenty of fun as we filled and compacted the trench in by putting layers of soil back in wheelbarrow by wheelbarrow and then covering with leaf litter. By the end with our leaf spreading shimmy technique we think it definitely looked like no one had been there! We hope next year we might even get involved in some of the excavating. Welcome to Anna who joined us for her first task. It was great to meet you and you win the award for most wheelbarrows filled! We hope you had fun and will join us again soon.

In a late change to our task we set about giving the Gibson Centre a good scrub down.

The cages were taken off the radiators, many spiders were relocated and the water was dirty in minutes. We schwooped with brooms, swished with dusters and Abby fixed the Scouts sign and hung it back up with pride. No clothing was found this time round, however the discovery of a discarded toenail more than made up for that 🤢

We made use of the echo in the hall to rendition some Sound of Music classics and took a turn at yodelling.

With thanks to Katie for giving us a list of tasks we happily crossed them off. Jazzing it up with some added French 🇫🇷 and pizza 🍕 drawings to make it look more fun! And we even found a new trophy to use for GG fun times, comment with some ideas as to what you think the award should be for. I think the first congrats is to Wilson on good deed #400!!!

Discussions around Katie trip to Oz and the recent Victorious festival filled our time and we were soon flashing the board, and then cleaning it! 😜

Abby, Ashleigh, Lucy and I did some hill reps to get warmed up for car washing tonight. Beth had 4 of the outreach vehicles ready for us to work our magic on this evening. We have got the car washing down to a fine art now so began with clearing any rubbish, then dusting, hoovering and then finally washing the outside. Everyone has their specialities!

We were also joined by Shan this evening from That’s TV who interviewed us about GoodGym and filmed us completing our task. We are very excited to see it when it’s released. Maybe we’ll need to host a premier screening of our first TV appearance?! We were so busy being stars and cleaning we forgot to get any pictures, but did grab some lovely scenic shots from the run home!

This evening, six GoodGym volunteers headed to Aldermoor Community Farm to lend a hand with some much-needed hedge trimming. Armed with shears and plenty of enthusiasm, we tackled the overgrown hedge along the farm’s boundary. In just one hour, we managed to complete the task - our best effort yet! It was a satisfying job that combined teamwork, fresh air, and a good arm workout!

Kudos to Ellie and Abby for running 4 miles to the task and to Robert for an hours walk!