On a finally cool summer evening, Goodgym assembled at St James Gardens to get to work giving the park a bit of a spruce up.

We divided into three teams: Bekah and Sallyann on the litter picking, Ellie, Dina and Clara on the weeding and Naser and Vikky on bench varnishing duty.

We were joined by Friends of St James Gardens who provided fun facts (like what a pineapple weed is) and witty jokes (a lorry carrying Strepsils overturned on the motorway; there was no congestion).

We soon got 'into the groove' of the task, quite literally in the case of the weeding, whereby we were digging up weeds between the paving slabs. Likewise the varnishing team successfully varnished two of the newly installed (and very nice looking) benches for years to come by very carefully applying Varnish into all the 'grooves'. Even the litter picking duo conquered the 'grooves' of the park, retrieving litter from some of the nooks and crannies.

All in all, after two benches varnished, two bin bags filled and a good chunk of patio was weeded, we called it a night and said our goodbyes before heading off in our various directions until next week!

This Monday's task was to help deliver the latest edition of the local community newsletter. Calling it a newsletter doesn't really do it justice – it's a hefty booklet packed with stories, events and all the good news happening across the community.

We were joined by Peter, who was born in the area and followed on from John leading The Shewsy Youth Centre and has a long history with it, having first attended as an eight-year-old. Peter and John clearly go back a long way, and their banter was one of the many highlights of the the evening.

Before we set off, Clara did a brilliant job making sure everyone knew which streets they were covering, keeping us organised so there was no doubling up and no roads missed.

Clara teamed up with Dina, and a big congratulations were in order for Dina, who quietly completed her fifth Goodgym task over the weekend. . It already feels like you've been part of the group for much longer Dina.

Aatefa and Heetu had run to the task before heading off to cover their patch. Heetu enthusiastically grabbed a huge bag of newsletters, apparently running to the task wasn't enough exercise for her – she decided to fit in a bit of weight training too.

As we all drew to the end of our paper rounds we waved to Naser and Peter who were just a few houses down. But they stood for a long time ... what was wrong? Nothing! they were just continuing their conversation and as they said 'putting the world's to rights'. Naser never fails to make fabulous connections with people wherever we go so I dont know why I hadn't realised.

The paper round complete, we all headed home, another Monday night task ticked off.

I'll finish with an indulgent reflection, seeing as I'm the one writing the report! It struck me that over the course of this weekend I'd spent time with every single Goodgymmer who was on tonight's task. I'd also been in Everton on Saturday's task with John, our task owner. Moments like that remind me why Goodgym means so much to me. Spending time together, doing something positive for our communities, doesn't just benefit the places we visit – it nourishes and nurtures me. I'm incredibly grateful to be part of it

It was the annual Choir With No Name summer concert at the Everyman theatre on Hope Street. Two Goodgymmers Steph and Steph were performing with the choir and our Area Activator Ema, who is also manager of the choir was in attendance which was a real treat for the choir and us Goodgymmers because we have really missed her while she has been ill. Aatefa, Dina, Suren, Liam, Heetu, Sallyann and myself met with Kate from Choir With No Name who explained our role in selling merch, signing people up as fans and collecting donations.

To be honest we were well and truly on it, we love being a part of this event so we knew the drill. The puns on the merch were so fantastic we knicked one for the title of this report. All song lyric puns, you had tea towels ‘Never gonna wash you up’ (Rick Astley) ‘Hate to say I toweled you so’ (The Hives) and tote bags with ‘Bag to life, bag to reality’ (Soul II soul). Sallyann was please that a bag with ‘Bag a do do do’ (Black Lace) sold as it was the last one and she hated for it to be lonely.

The concert was typically phenomenal, our Steph put in a fantastic solo in a Chapel Roan medley and Heetu commented that her favourite song was their rendition of Kate Bush’s ‘Running up that hill’ it was amazing.

A really special part of the concert was special guest, Scouse poet, Joseph Roberts who puts his poems to music. The CWNN provided a haunting backing vocal to his poem about mental health called ‘luggage’. It was stunning. There was a moving testimony from one of the choir members called Skye who spoke about grief and surviving suicidal thoughts and how she had found a home in the choir. It was so moving and definitely moved the audience.

The audience showed incredible generosity in the bucket donations and merch sales. We think that merch sales might be the most successful we’ve ever known with the new tea towels proving particularly popular.

Well done to the Stephs and so wonderful to see Ema, we all left on a high. Special shout out to Aatefa and Sallyann who did the TRIO on this day… parkrun in the morning, Everton Park Games in the afternoon and CWNN concert in the evening, it was an epic day for them.

Goodgym Saturdays are the best!

Sophie, Vikky and Aatefa ran to Princes park from Hope Street when the temperature was still very warm. Laura, Steph and I were with Ali, a Friend of Princes Park helping him get the wheelbarrows, watering cans and the water butt on wheels out of the lock up. Katy from Friends of Princes Park gave us some instruction on what we were going to do today; water some of the trees that were earmarked for watering in the park. Apparently a new tree, up to two years old, needs a minute of watering every few days as it has not yet developed a deep root system that can access lower ground water. Dina and Ellie joined us before we started wheeling our water collectors down to the lakeside. There we formed a human chain, passing watering cans along to fill up the water butt and the cans, it was a workout! Some twisting and lifting. Then we made our way to the new trees that needed watering. They were each labelled and we marked each label as we watered so that we knew which ones had been done. Liam, Tsitsi and Craig joined the group just in time to see the Cinnabar moth caterpillar on a piece of grass. It was black and yellow striped, the nature signal for ‘don’t eat me, I am dangerous’ but there was nothing dangerous about this caterpillar except that they were munching all the leaves on our baby trees. We watered plum trees, cherry trees, oaks and horse chestnut trees. Ali asked us to water a few extras that weren’t marked just because he liked them which was very sweet and a sign of how much he cares for the park, developing fondness for the trees. I eyed up a fantastic blackberry picking location that I will definitely be returning to in a week or so when the berries have ripened so I can forage a few to have in my porridge. We definitely got our lifting exercise in on this task and really enjoyed the beauty of the park on this warm sunny evening. Katy told us about the Friends of Princes park anniversary event that is happening in a few weeks so many of us agreed that we would love to return for that.