We kicked off Volunteer Week with a massive crew of 44 for an allotment transformation!

Joining us tonight were three brand new runners, so let's give some big Yorkie cheers to Becky, Nikki and Helen. We also celebrated Angela's Hull Half Marathon success and Ben's first 10k race at Mulgrave Castle (accompanied by Tim and myself).

GG Yorkie of the Month!

We also announced the May winner of GG Yorkie of the Month and the winner was.... Freya!! Freya has been coming regularly and completed her first mission in May as well as a community mission. She also boshed her 5k goal and ran her first ever 10 miles. All in all she had an epic month!

For the task we split into three groups, a walking team led by Ellie, the direct route running crew with me and Tim's extended run crew with a bonus hill rep of Windmill Rise. As we all know, Tim takes leading very seriously and tried to send Nick and Becky the wrong way because they dared to run ahead of him. Luckily they knew where the hill was anyway and his whole team made it safely to the allotment.

By the time they arrived, we'd already started a huge weeding party, clearing the very overgrown section at the end of the allotment as well as trying to clear the edges of the paths as quickly as possible ready for new bark to be spread.

Debs was organising the bark situation in the van. She'd carefully loaded the bags on yesterday's bark collection community mission and soon the bags of bark started to arrive on the trolley.

She's called Theresa the Tricky Trolley

Debs had become quite attached, apparently. Whilst the bark was shifted into wheelbarrows and wheeled around the raised beds, the quartet of Nick, Tristan, Michael and Craig were busy sorting out the compost bins and 'tidying' (read: re-laying) the paving slabs.

Down at the end of the allotment, three picnic benches had emerged from the undergrowth and we could now see a large area of actual ground. As the bags of bark were emptied, they were quickly refilled with green waste and suddenly the whole allotment looked amazing!

We sent Mitch, Debs and Charlotte off on a secret mission to return the trolley to its supermarket home and they made it back just in time to join our exciting cone-based fitness session.

It's not Cones of Joy, it's a lovely line of cones!

In teams of four, split into two pairs (less complex than it sounds) everyone took turns in completing shuttle runs through the allotment and a series of lower body strength exercises including squat variations, jumps, lunges, the wall sit and other absolute treats like the 'pretend ladder climb'.

I'm climbing slowly because I'm scared of heights - new Helen

With that, we all headed back to base and order was restored as Huw brought amazing homemade rhubarb scones which were very quickly scoffed.

There is LOADS coming up this week, so check out our full event listings and get involved.

In a fantastic display of community project symbiosis, our task was to remove some piles of bark for an organisation who wanted rid of it and get it ready for another organisation who needed it. Perfect.

The only small challenge was that the piles of bark were located approximately 200 egg metres down the cycle path (550 actual metres) and were inaccessible for a vehicle.

Armed with two wheelbarrows, four tonne sacks, and 8 spades, we started the long 'barrow relays to the van which was parked at the nearest access point.

Shortly after the mission started, three young teenagers came past us, two on bikes and one with a marginally dysfunctional supermarket shopping trolley. About a minute after they passed, we realised we could really make use of the trolley and they were almost certainly not supposed to have it anyway so I started jogging after them - at which point, they legged it. Three teenagers, however, were no match for a GG Yorkie and I caught up to the terrified teen who was absolutely delighted that I only wanted to make use of the trolley and not tell her off or something.

The three teens then asked if they could help out and I suggested they go further up the path and ask the van-based GoodGymers to bring a bag down to line our new trolley with. They were very agreeable. As I ran the trolley back down to the bark piles I realised it had quite a diagonal trajectory and was impressed with the teen who had actually managed to push it this far from the supermarket. Debs even managed to fix the gammy wheel using a spade whilst Lizzie did safety supervision.

With a two wheelbarrows and a trolley, we were away and the bark loading and unloading strategy started to come together. Graham and Mitch were boshing the wheelbarrow loads up and down whilst people had to manage the trolley in pairs. Mitch doubted Ed and Debs's ability to extract a full bag of back from the trolley.

There's no way that's coming out!

They promptly disproved him, hoicking the bag effortlessly into the back of the van.

We finished with four full bags of bark in the back of van, and err.. the trolley, which will be returned to the supermarket very shortly!