Tonight was a very exciting night!

We had a great turnout for the last group run of January and smashed our January Challenge target.

We had two tasks going on. Rich led a group to St Chad’s scout hut with Clair bringing up the rear. This is what they got up to-

10 intrepid GGs, less hungry for fame, headed a little further over to St Chad's Scout Hut where they were set to work by Christine and Aidan clearing brambles. David pointed to a patch he'd cleared 18 months earlier that had run wild again. Clearly the task that keeps on giving. Nevertheless with a few secateurs and a couple of barrows we'd made a bit of a dent in the undergrowth and a sizable pile of prickles for the unwary. We then headed over to Millthorpe School to meet the others and the film crew for the fitness session.

The other group headed over to Wild Things Forest School where we were met by ITN news who wanted to do a piece about goodgym. We were kept busy shifting logs, big and small, spreading woodchip and breaking up stuff. This was all filmed along with interviews with Ed, Amy,Nick and Leanne from goodgym, and Emma from Wild Things Forest School, who all talked about how wonderful goodgym York is.

At the end of the session both groups joined up for a tabata session - 20 seconds of hard work with 10 second rest. This included the usual exercises but was adapted so the group got to can can, as requested!

We finished by running back to base waving at the camera as we passed. When we arrived back we were well rewarded for our 700m run with not one, not two, but three lots of baking, courtesy of Babs, Carl and Paul Kelly.

We now need to wait a few weeks until the ITN news is aired and we will all be famous!

For Goodgym York, Sunday is never a day of rest (particularly in the midst of the January Challenge!) and the last day of our 8th birthday weekend away was no exception. Most of the weekend crew took a detour on the way home to help out the lovely folk at Langdale School in Chapel Stiles - which, despite rumours, had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that they'd installed a pizza oven since we last visited in January 2024...

Our task owners had once again prepared an epic list of things for us to do and Storm Éowyn had put in some extra effort to make sure that we didn't run out of tasks in the two hours that we were there.

We quickly split off into different groups to complete:

• Sandpit tidying

• Leaf clearing

• Soil barrowing (with comedy sized barrows - both too small and too big. 'Just right' was nowhere to be seen)

• Forest school debris clearing

• Dead hedging

• Deck scrubbing

• Polytunnel tidying and maintenance

• Weeding

• Something that Mitch and Neil were proud of completing which involved a big water tank and some pipes

• General tidying up in the aftermath of Storm Éowyn

While we got stuck in, I lost count of the number of people who declared that they "would have loved to gone to a school like this!" There was certainly no shortage of folk trying out the various dens that were dotted around the forest school.

Our final, very important job was to test out the pizza oven. Gavin and the rest of the school team did a sterling job of pumping out slices of freshly-made pizza while the group huddled around the pizza oven to warm their cold hands.

33 full tummies later, we were ready to tackle the journey home to rest up, and get our GGs washed and ready for our last group run of the January Challenge on Monday.

As part of GoodGym's mega weekend away in the Lakes, we all volunteered at Patterdale Village School. They needed a lot of work completed to make the school tidy for the pupils.

The initial task was actually getting there. There were multiple splinter groups where some people ran whilst some people (including myself) hiked. We loved the scenery of the Lake District so much we decidede to take a scenic route and get to the task half an hour late. I did not hear of other stories from the runners, but I assume they were more punctual!

After that initial hurdle, we all got stuck in. There were so many tasks to complete, including:

1. Clearing out a greenhouse of old dead vegetation and giving it a good clean.
2. Digging up large amounts of weed and soil around a climbing frame, and throwing the debris into a drainage ditch (lots of fun!)
3. Adding new meshing and wiring to the border fence (very proffessionally done!)
4. Cleaning out a bug hotel
5. Cleaning out a chicken coop
6. Lopping trees of various sizes. Some of the branches were massive and required 4 of us to move!
7. Clearing the car park of moss and debris.

Despite the fact there was so many of us (more volunteers than students), we were all busy and got to work.

See this mess I'm making, you need to clean it up - Rich

After 2 hours of solid graft, cake and a chin up competition (which Paul absolutely won!) we were left with a clean and tidy school and very happy staff. We definitely earned our trip to the pub after.