Despite the awful weather Five GGers were met by 5 Fishponds Friends to remove ground ivy and strip some trees of climbing ivy. Most of the work was ripping and rolling up ivy from the ground, revealing snowdrops bluebells and violets concealed underneath. Babs and Hannah developed a technique of rolling up the ivy like a blanket while the rest of us adopted an individual yanking and tugging technique with good effect. We filled 6 large bags but there’s still plenty more and enough for a Monday night group run if we can fit one on.

Six GG Yorkies met at Fishponds wood to do some good.

Kristina had been a bit hasty in booking us in to rake arisings as they hadn't quite grown enough yet. Instead we spent an hour edging the footpaths.

By the end of the session the paths looked much tidier!

Here today, outside York CVS, at 18:16 the Group Run is back!

I was so pleased to announce that after 16 months we are finally back together and we had things to celebrate!

Amy celebrated her 100th good deed today and got the honours to wear the red cape! WELL DONE AMY!

Ellie achieved her 200th good deed last Tuesday. What a massive milestone! AMAZING JOB ELLIE!

Barbara, Tim, Debs, Lucy, David, Ed and Amy were part of the team who ran, or walked as part of the RunWithPride last month. Today was a great opportunity to present them with their medals. Well done you!

With everyone buzzing and raring to go it was time for the H&S brief and a warm up including pulling an invisible rope which made people chuckle. We were visiting two projects today, so we split up in two teams and headed in two different directions.

Led by Paul and Nick, with back marking duties diligently undertaken by John team St Paul’s School Allotment went to help with ground preparation for paving slabs and planters to go in.

Part of the report written by Paul:

Ideal GG task description ''just clear it all!'’ No concerns about accidentally digging up the wrong tree or confusing weeds and plants! Soon everyone had grabbed either a spade or fork or were using their hands to pull up the weeds and clearing the overgrown areas. There was good humour all round as everyone was glad to be back taking part in group runs. Eventually the heat took its toll and the pace of work dipped for the final 5 mins, but not before the area had been entirely transformed and numerous piles of cuttings and bags of waste had been produced. Highlights included Debs, Michael & John juggling potatoes that had been dug up. Laura’s surprise at finding she was trying to dig through carpet!

Meanwhile with Pete at the front, Leanne at the back and Ellie in charge of the walking group team Fishergate Primary garden went to do a pretty similar task. Welcomed by Caroline we quickly went to clear up weeds from the planters and raised beds. The difficulty here was that we had to leave the good plants and just pull out the weeds. Fortunately we are all expert gardeners and knew exactly which plant needed pulling out, the sticky weed deffo being one of them. We’ve uncovered some black and red currant bushes with ripened fruit ready to harvest by the school children during the last week of this term. Leanne focussed on improving access to the green house and uncovering paving slabs. The task owner asked us to put all the green waste into a massive wheelie bin and Abi took the opportunity to 'rescue' 5 black bags full of weeds and sticks from being disposed of in a non recyclable way - read on to find out why. We managed to clear most of the flower, fruit and veg beds, well we have left the fruit, veg and flowers and just cleared the weeds, I think! and with 19:30 on the clock we were ready to head back to the HQ. Five of us who wanted to walk did not leave empty handed and carried the weedastick bags to a composting bin at Abi’s project, a small park conveniently located just over the road from our new pub place. Having a look at and discussing what will potentially be one of the group run tasks for this summer I lost the track of time and had to sprint back to the HQ where most of us were already cooling down. I thought I will make them stretch and perhaps sweat a little bit more so they can cool down better and after a few stretching/yoga movements we were ready to visit Golden Ball for a well-deserved post task social drink.

Thankfully unlike the last time we were scheduled to do this task it wasn't a total wash out!

Once the merry band of GG-ers had assembled Katie (Not GG Katie whose 200th good deed it was!) explained our mission for the morning and it was divine music to our ears - complete clearance and digging over, although I'm sure David was eager to show off his budding botanical knowledge from the last weeding task.

Leanne, Paul, Katie and David got stuck into churning over the soil in the bed to the front of the church, sorting the roots from the rubbish. We were also warned about the electrical cable which Katie managed to unearth several times (No Katie's were harmed in the making of this report). So not to compact the soil the team tactic was decided and starting in the middle (as socially distanced as possible) we worked out way outward.

Meanwhile Jenna and Louise took up the challenge of weeding an entire bed between them with some more of the Church volunteers in a more secluded garden round the corner.

David took it upon himself to sort out all the bulbs we dug up which seemed to trigger a round of tea and biscuits for all the workers, heavenly!

Amongst the many curious pieces of rubbish unearthed our prize find today was an old nokia handset (which probably still worked!) Which was soon complimented by the other team finding a sim card (what mysteries reside?).

After an hour and a half team Paullsop were finished but Jenna and Louise valiantly persisted for a few extra minutes to finish their bed.

After a quick tidy up and a group photo we left to the sounds of the church volunteers singing our praises. A job well done!